***Official*** England in India 2016/17

[Scaly piscine]

Only if you think that the quality of a decision is primarily based on the speed at which it is made.

I don't have that much of a problem with Cook's captaincy tbh. There is always room for improvement but I don't see it as a critical item in improving England's performances.

I have a problem with being drawing series at home to Pakistan, away to Bangladesh and getting annihilated in India.

God for a bit of Aussie pragmatism, instead of politics, committees and bollocks.

 

[Compton]

Haven't they already said they won't rush the decision because the next test isn't until the (English) summer?

 

[MW1304]

Scaly needs to have his daily whinge about something or other to stop his brain melting out of his ears. Or is it every 108 minutes?

 

[FBU]

Scaly needs to have his daily whinge about something or other to stop his brain melting out of his ears. Or is it every 108 minutes?

Maybe he can moan about Stokes putting his name in the IPL when he should be with Durham.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Haven't they already said they won't rush the decision because the next test isn't until the (English) summer?

So instead they're going to **** about for a month for something that is patently obvious.

 

[Groundking]

I have a problem with being drawing series at home to Pakistan, away to Bangladesh and getting annihilated in India.

God for a bit of Aussie pragmatism, instead of politics, committees and bollocks.

He didn't play to our strengths once in India, and for that he has to go. Utter ****, especially the last 6 months.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Cook's a dreadful captain but far more worrying is the ECB who couldn't run a piss up in a brewery. Far better for the counties to take back control over English cricket, chuck the ECB out along with Colin Graves, Giles Clarke and slaphead Strauss, and return the national team to MCC control.

 

[ImpatientLime]

yeah back to the glory years of the 80s and 90s

 

[S.Kennedy]

yeah back to the glory years of the 80s and 90s

Or the '50s, late '60s - '70s (Illingworth era)?

Well you do not have to turn them over to the MCC but certainly flush the ECB out. Create something new, as representing the counties' best interest.

Strauss is such a wanker. Hated to watch him bat.

 

[Spark]

Cook's a dreadful captain but far more worrying is the ECB who couldn't run a piss up in a brewery. Far better for the counties to take back control over English cricket, chuck the ECB out along with Colin Graves, Giles Clarke and slaphead Strauss, and return the national team to MCC control.

This sounds like an absolutely dreadful idea that would just cripple the national team with internicine political battles and factionalism tbh. Do not approve, and (as an example) Australian cricket has moved away from this sort of model for a reason. The ECB may be incompetent but at least you don't have twenty different entities pulling weight in their own direction and trying to build a coherent national team in such an environment. Or less so, anyway.

 

[Furball]

Or the '50s, late '60s - '70s (Illingworth era)?

Well you do not have to turn them over to the MCC but certainly flush the ECB out. Create something new, as representing the counties' best interest.

Strauss is such a wanker. Hated to watch him bat.

You voted for Brexit didn't you.

 

[S.Kennedy]

This sounds like an absolutely dreadful idea that would just cripple the national team with internicine political battles and factionalism tbh. Do not approve, and (as an example) Australian cricket has moved away from this sort of model for a reason. The ECB may be incompetent but at least you don't have twenty different entities pulling weight in their own direction and trying to build a coherent national team in such an environment. Or less so, anyway.

I'm more concerned about the integrity of the County game personally than England. The ECB have stripped the Championship of two matches, creating a lob-sided structure whereby certain teams play each only once! They have constantly fiddled and tinkered with the format - removing the coin toss, messing with the points, now day/night matches - and brutally robbed Counties of their players at pivotal times, case in point Bairstow last season, Middlesex v Yorkshire. And do not even get me started about Durham.

Further, they have created a system whereby Counties in-debt themselves in a ruthlessly competitive bidding process for Test matches, rather than allocate the venues on an allocated fair basis, They sold the rights to English cricket to Sky after 2005 for naked short term greed, in one swift stroke turning cricket from a popular sport (just behind football) into a niche thing (the Australians wisely award cricket a privileged status, thus protecting it on their terrestrial channels). Proposals for city based franchises threaten to destroy the Championship indefinitely.

And England? Strauss's obsession with white ball rubbish has led to a decline in the Test team. They selected a guy for coach (Bayliss) who openly admits that he has no knowledge of the domestic competition and spends all his time in Australia when it is being played, and England are not playing!! It is the equivalent of selected an England football manager who had no knowledge of the Premier League! You may also cite the handling of the Pietersen affair and some of the dodgier coaching and selection decisions over the years - most recently infact (ending up with five or six completely unselectable spinners/batters in India). Why have we not got a spin coach? Why are they so obsessed with Gary Ballance and Steven Finn?

 

[S.Kennedy]

PS

England in the 90s were rancid but in the '80s they won back to back Ashes and a series in India, something this current lot struggle to do.

 

[ImpatientLime]

in the last decade england have won 5 ashes series, away to india and away to south africa.

 

[S.Kennedy]

in the last decade england have won 5 ashes series, away to india and away to south africa.

...and two Ashes white washes, the second against a second rate Aussie side. And a home loss to Sri Lanka. And cannot get anything from a series in Abu Dabi. And a near whitewash just recently in India. Throw in loads of abject World Cup performances, losses to teams like Ireland and Bangladesh.

At least the '80s side did not play stodgy cricket either. I mean it was never boring with people like Gower and Botham.

 

[marc71178]

Yes, most of these complaints are being more than a little overstated.

As for Cricket being only just behind Football, you're having a laugh aren't you?

 

[ImpatientLime]

...and two Ashes white washes, the second against a second rate Aussie side. And a home loss to Sri Lanka. And cannot get anything from a series in Abu Dabi. And a near whitewash just recently in India. Throw in loads of abject World Cup performances, losses to teams like Ireland and Bangladesh.

At least the '80s side did not play stodgy cricket either. I mean it was never boring with people like Gower and Botham.

and england lost at home to new zealand in the 80s, got white washed by the west indies, had noted swash bucklers like tavare and boycott in the team and spinners who couldn't spin it like emburey.

oh and they won no world cups and weren't too flash in asia outside of that one tour to india.

still everything was better back in the good old days when boring cricketers like flintoff and pietersen weren't clogging up the system and we didn't have to watch human wrecking balls like stuart broad.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Yes, most of these complaints are being more than a little overstated.

As for Cricket being only just behind Football, you're having a laugh aren't you?

I'd say that was true until the early '90s.

 

[S.Kennedy]

and england lost at home to new zealand in the 80s, got white washed by the west indies, had noted swash bucklers like tavare and boycott in the team and spinners who couldn't spin it like emburey.

oh and they won no world cups and weren't too flash in asia outside of that one tour to india.

still everything was better back in the good old days when boring cricketers like flintoff and pietersen weren't clogging up the system and we didn't have to watch human wrecking balls like stuart broad.

I'm not saying England ''were great in the 1980s'', just that their record is not as bad as some make out. You cannot flinch at winning in both Australia and India after all? England were behind West Indies (considerably), Pakistan and New Zealand but marginally better than India and Australia for much of this decade, at least until Border turned things around for the latter, right at the end of the decade.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

So basically it was all ok until the minor county joined the league. They are to blame clearly.