Pfft, now your just distorting my poll
playing without a spine
Agreed, but only marginally over NZ at the moment, if they beat NZ less the 3 times to 1, I'd say NZ. Only Australia, NZ, Sri Lanka & the West Indies are in the running for mine
Quality of wickets outside of first-class level is appalling in New Zealand; absolutely appalling. First class facilities are reasonable, but nothing more. Certainly far weaker than comparable facilities in the UK and Australia and other countries besides, I suspect. Poor wickets makes it much more difficult for batsmen to learn to compile large scores and conversely makes some bowlers think they're much better than they really are.
For every real Irishman that England poach, there's always another Plastic Paddy to be taken from Australia or South Africa
Very true that & something I did think about. They were the best side in the world around 1969-70 with only 5 million people. The politics in SA with the quota system makes in harder for them in many ways.
When Zim entered Test cricket, a competitive Test team was based on, as drawn from, almost exclusively from a few schools and a white population of under 100 000 people total.
It isn't as straightforward as that. Extreme poverty could be an enabling factor to the extent that sport could be seen as a ticket out of their current situation. However it doesn't hold true as much for cricket as for sports like football or athletics because of the comparatively higher expenditure in playing equipment and coaching required in the former. Middling poverty acts as a disincentive to the greatest extent, since sport is not not seen as the sole guarantor of success. Education and a stable job are greater priorities for that class and sport is more likely to be looked at as a gamble with a low reward to risk ratio, which holds true for the overwhelming majority of the subcontinent. The class most likely to benefit and excel in an investment heavy sport like cricket is the one that has a combination of financial stability and easy and convenient access to cricketing facilities, which is the case with countries like Australia and New Zealand.
The two great hot beds of cricket talent from poverty are the West Indies and Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Their success in their own areas are not comparable to others
Then put it down to cultural differences. Focus, determination and hunger need not manifest in solely sporting achievements down the line. They could find an outlet in other areas like education and other careers considered more stable compared to sport. You make a very good point that making people wealthier might not change that approach, but it still means that it would be flawed to reach the conclusion that poverty is necessarily a crucible for producing athletes if we worked backwards from a small sample size (as in the WI and Yorkshire) and tried to apply it to a larger one without accounting for the cultural differences at play.
Don't know about poverty being a huge advantage, but i had the same thoughts regarding socio-economic factors. It's not exactly a disadvantage.
Haha, there's a few. Peter Connell and Trent Johnston are the significant ones just at the moment. But if they ever turn out to be any good really they'll probably go back and play for the test-playing nation.For every real Irishman that England poach, there's always another Plastic Paddy to be taken from Australia or South Africa
Yeah, as Goughy points out they were effective drawing from a population of no more than 125,0000 (I don't think Zimbabwe's white population was ever much over a quarter of a million, even back in the days of Rhodesia) and were able to compete with and even beat the best in the world.
Cuts both ways tho; facilities and better coaching available in youth play a big factor in adult sporting success. Of the current England team Strauss, Cook, Pietersen, Prior, Broad & Panesar all went to public (fee-paying) schools which only 7% of the population attend, so there's a huge over representation there.
