is the Duke detrimental to English cricket?

[ImpatientLime]

the discrepancy between home and away performance is likely bigger for English bowlers than most others (unverified but gut feel)

English bowlers grow up in a nation with the most conducive overheads and atmospherics for swing bowling. to stack things further in their favour they get a healthy diet of green tops and use of the Duke. there is little to no benefit to bending your back as an English seamer and trying to bowl heat.

all this does is produce generation of seamers very adept at bowling at home but looking totally toothless outside of england. not just Australia, check England seamers in New Zealand in the past decade. horrible records.

Ive read tons of opinion pieces about how the Duke should be used as the test standard ball as the kookaburra is poor quality. it's even been mooted for use in the Sheffield shield. but is it the opposite for England? should they be phasing this ball out to make English seamers work harder for their wickets and further round their skills? it would also enable potential England seamers to get actual match practice with the most commonly used test match ball outside their shores.

edit: I get that that are multiple issues and nuances driving a poor production line of players in England in red ball but the Duke is so weirdly adored in this country.

 

[duffer]

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Merry, merry king of the bush is he
Laugh, Kookaburra! Laugh, Kookaburra!
Gay your life must be

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Eating all the gum drops he can see
Stop, Kookaburra! Stop, Kookaburra!
Leave some there for me

Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
Counting all the monkeys he can see
Stop, Kookaburra! Stop, Kookaburra!
That's not a monkey that's me

Kookaburra sits on a rusty nail
Gets a boo-boo in his tail
Cry, Kookaburra! Cry, kookaburra!
Oh how life can be

 

[loterry1994]

Pretty hard to say yes or no to your question. But I think when England pretty much use to dominate at home over the years it gave them some sort of false sense of security that they didn’t need to change much of their bowling to be competitive away. And year after year for like the past decade they didn’t have much trouble beating most sides at home. Now that England are starting to lose more matches and series at home over the last few years they might change up their approach. West Indies and I think Pakistan won a test against England, Australia drew the last ashes away, India and NZ beat England. But England’s bowlers are absolutely toothless in away tests these days when the pitch it flat they dont seem to get into the grind and hard work. To me India’s bowling attacks the best in the world right now by a long way.

 

[Flem274*]

Yes, in combination with the bowling friendly decks.

When FC conditions are loaded so heavily towards bowlers (pace or spin), their overall quality declines imo. Why be Jofra Archer when you can settle for medium pace and take stacks?

Batsmen are also environmentally controlled. Bowling friendly conditions all the time seem to produce players with low confidence, interesting techniques and a lack of understanding of innings building.

The spin equivalent of England's current predicament is the West Indies.

Motorways have their issues with domestic batsmen, but at least they learn how to go big and bowlers need to offer a bit more to take wickets. I think it is easier to take a batsman with runs behind him who might never have faced certain conditions and acclimatise him to those rather than build up a batsman with limited runs, technique and confidence.

 

[Starfighter]

No, the Kookaburra is detrimental for world cricket. A perfect example of how a substandard product can become dominant through good marketing.

 

[ImpatientLime]

Batsmen are also environmentally controlled. Bowling friendly conditions all the time seem to produce players with low confidence, interesting techniques and a lack of understanding of innings building.

I was gonna mention this too but my OP was shitty and long enough to begin with.

batting in England is first and foremost about survival given how stacked the odds are against you. man does not know how to bat deep in England because the conditions do not allow it.

 

[Flem274*]

Yeah, England using the duke at FC level would be fine if it was a dry desert. You really don't need to use a duke to give the bowlers a chance in England though.

It's all about setting up a good game. If Pakistan switched to the Duke that would be very understandable. England will never need it to keep professional bowlers competitive across the season.

If England roaded up their domestic decks, that would also be acceptable. You would still back top tier new talents like Robinson and Stone to take poles, but it would avoid the blushes of Jesse Ryder and other memes becoming destroyers of worlds.

 

[Fuller Pilch]

It is amazing that Pope is so good at batting against it (the Dukes) in county cricket.

 

[ImpatientLime]

It is amazing that Pope is so good at batting against it (the Dukes) in county cricket.

his home ground is the one bona fide road in england.

 

[Salamuddin]

And yet England have still managed to produce batsmen who averaged 40+ in test cricket like cook,Bell,Tresco, root,Strauss.
They have also produced genuine quicks like stone,wood and saquib.
Leaving Archer out as he is not really a product of the English system.

But surely shows the system isn't as broken as being made out.

Also English conditions with the duke bring their own unique conditions to world cricket. It wouldn't be a great outcome if their pitches started becoming more 'bland' and uniform. It is a challenge for teams to go there and compete.
Not sure the duke and the conditions are the root cause of all their struggles.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Could look at it the opposite way too, maybe the Duke is the reason they are competitive at home and if they normalised with everyone else they would still lose just as much away but now lose at home more as well

But surely shows the system isn't as broken as being made out.

Haha the system is never as broken as people make out. Every time England lose a series or 2 (and they haven't even lost this series yet) blame will go to the domestic system. But it's the same system that has lad to all the success as well. Remember after the 2010-11 Ashes all of a sudden the Australian domestic system was causing all the problems and was untenable, cue the "Argus review". It's typical reactionary alarmism.

(have to say though that I've always thought 18 county teams playing first-class cricket was excessive, devalues the level a bit when standards are inevitably going to be lower)

 

[mr_mister]

which counties would you get rid of though? they all have a long rich history except Durham

 

[Spikey]

yeah william is detrimental to a lot of things

 

[TheJediBrah]

which counties would you get rid of though? they all have a long rich history except Durham

You can't get rid of counties, there's too much history. One way to increase the quality would be to get as many good overseas players as you can. Let the teams play 5 or 6 overseas players per team if they can and it makes them stronger.

 

[trundler]

English cricketers are detrimental to English cricket.

 

[OverratedSanity]

When FC conditions are loaded so heavily towards bowlers (pace or spin), their overall quality declines imo. Why be Jofra Archer when you can settle for medium pace and take stacks?

Batsmen are also environmentally controlled. Bowling friendly conditions all the time seem to produce players with low confidence, interesting techniques and a lack of understanding of innings building.

The spin equivalent of England's current predicament is the West Indies.

Motorways have their issues with domestic batsmen, but at least they learn how to go big and bowlers need to offer a bit more to take wickets. I think it is easier to take a batsman with runs behind him who might never have faced certain conditions and acclimatise him to those rather than build up a batsman with limited runs, technique and confidence.

Yeah I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the batsmen in their lineup who've made their way up through CC seem to be strokeless wonders like Burns, Sibley, etc. Even Pope's jittery hurried style of batting indicates a complete lack of understanding of how to build a long test innings.

 

[honestbharani]

I agree with most of what PEWS said but remember this is not some GOAT Aussie side either. I will say the same thing I said when India were beaten in Adelaide after the 36/9 - This is a very fallible Aussie side, esp. the batting. Better selection could help England win some of the key moments they keep losing and then its a different series.

For starters, I would bring Crawley and Lawrence and Bairstow in. I see Woakes and Buttler have done a good job so far and if they do well enough to secure the draw, then obviously you cant drop them but overall, I feel you get more out of a line up that looks -

Burns
Crawley
Malan
Root
Stokes
Lawrence
Bairstow
Robinson
Wood
Broad/Woakes
Anderson/Leach/Bess

You gotta bet on guys with temperament and ability to go big when its your day.

And as a rule, I feel its easier to work with batsmen who can play shots all around the ground and work on their defense and temperament than it is to work with someone who cannot play certain shots. Remember, while your defense is always handy, at some point you will need to score runs in test cricket and it wont be easy when you are limited in certain areas and bowling teams have areas they can go back to, to tie you down.

 

[morgieb]

I voted the ITO as I do agree that while the Dukes is a better cricket ball, there are serious problems with how England are developing FC cricketers. Looking at the potential replacements, if Crawley and Lawrence were a magic bullet they would be in the side already. And Bairstow has been very mediocre for a long time. There's just a significant lack of batting depth no matter the options they've tried.

 

[mr_mister]

Bairstow has mongrel. Should fare well in Aussie conditions

 

[morgieb]

Bairstow has mongrel. Should fare well in Aussie conditions

Well he generally hasn't in the Tests he's played here. Hard to see him doing much better than Buttler. And Buttler at least looks like he might earn a Cowan.