4th Test: Australia v England at The MCG, 26-30 Dec

[StinkyBoHoon]

Uhhhh i don't really recall that discussion or how it started. But judging by the link there, it seems as if you were suggesting back then ENG were trying to keep "Ireland down". I don't believe the ECB does that at all.

Lets be clear my suggestion for "ENG to raid Ireland for Dockrell" was a bit in jest . I doubt the ECB would try to poach him - he would have to do like Rankin & quit Ireland for ENG. However if he doesn't i'm fairy sure ENG won't pursue him & will deal with whatever spin options that emerges on the county scene.

so when they do poach them (which they will because he's the best young spinner in the country) and I cite this post you'll not remember this either?

 

[C Boomer]

England needs You ! (Not)

Ireland have already qualified by the proverbial mile for the 2015 world cup in Australia (see poem Johnston. David Trent if any need convincing) and hence, world-class players like George Dockrell and Paul Sterling don't require to be pre-enlisted with England to be involved in this prestigious tournament.

Likewise, they, like all current Irish international cricketers have now full time contracts to play for their country, thus again, this takes away the proverbial financial carrot that England could have tempted them with, however in saying all this; Ireland's ultimate goal is to eventually gain full time status and play the 'holy grail' version of the game, test cricket, this is what previously lured away our most talented and consistent players, ie Ed Joyce ( now back playing for Ireland), Eoin Morgan ( England's 50 ODI skipper) and now fast bowler big Boyd Rankin ( in the England ashes squad though frustratingly not playing ?)
Though thankfully at long last, the ECB in uninson with the rest of the dominating world cricket authorities are currently considering whether in the very near future, to grant this deserved recognition to Ireland and by doing so, will negate the temptation for anymore of our best players ( including Dockrell & Sterling) and our future prodigious talent, to venture across the Irish channel and convert their cricket international allegiance !

Moral of the story....Poaching is no longer an option !

 

[barmyarmy]

Poaching is an option sadly until the ICC reviews its appalling decision not to allow Ireland to play test cricket.

 

[War]

so when they do poach them (which they will because he's the best young spinner in the country) and I cite this post you'll not remember this either?

Yo, i said i don't remember that convo. I'm sorry my memory aint as long as yours to remember every single post from every day week, month, year you have posted on planetcricket.org. But usually away from this site, i got things to do & girls to deal with.

And explain to me how is Morgan & Rankin turning their back on Ireland to play for ENG, poaching?

ENG never went after Paul Stirling to be a one ODI opener option & they never went after Niall O'Brein to be their wicket keeper, when they certainly could have circa 2007-2009 when guys like Prior intially, Tim Ambrose was struggling to hold down a place.

Plus in a larger context the ECB have been trying to limit the amount of foreign players they select for ENG or that are in the ENG system. Kolpak's in county cricket have been limited - the days when Northamptonshire had a county XI of half S Africa are gone.

Counties are rewarded now for pushing ENG players. So in general there is no basis in reality for your assertion that ENG poaches players, especially from associates.

----------

Poaching is an option sadly until the ICC reviews its appalling decision not to allow Ireland to play test cricket.

I see nothing wrong with the decision to not allow Ireland to play test cricket. They may have talent, but say did BANG in 99 before they got test status & still have not cut it.


One thing we have learnt & seen is the lesser nations barring the upset every other world cup haven't really made a serious impact. In football in a 32 team world cup their is basically know easy games now - in cricket 50 overs cup as you said, the world cup is essentially irrelevant in the group stage until the final 8 teams meet in the QF's.

Cricket is a very hard game to master for these new nations, especially the 50 & test format. They need need to prove themselves first in 20 cricket, their country has to fall in love with the sport currently in a society that lives for fast sports that finish in 3 hours, they have to get the right infrastructure - then they can move up the formats.

The sanctity & tradition of what makes a good test/ODI team must be preserved. If associates like ireland, scotland, afghanistan can't successfully complete this progression then they should never play ODI W-Cups - and certainly not ever be given test status. If its has to be they are only proven to be good @ one or both of the limited overs formats then so be it. No team however must even be given the free ride into tests like bangladesh did.

The 11th test nations remains a long way off...

 

[ste_mc_efc]

In football in a 32 team world cup their is basically know easy games now -

this is obviously wrong. portugal put 7 past north korea in 2010. Germany beat saudi arabia 8-0 in 2002.

I think argentina beat someone 6-0 or 6-1 in 2006. although i think it was a decentish team they beat and you can sort of chalk that one up to random stuff happening in sport from time to time.

but it's a daft comparison anyway. There aren't 10 elite countries who play 5 day-long football matches against other.

I think the issues is where do we want to see cricket in the future? Do we want it to grow so as many countries being as competitive as possible in all formats? Or are we happy as is.

I'm fine with Ireland not being made a test side straight away, but the progression seem opaque and closed off. They are head and shoulders above the other associates in all departments, only really Afghanistan challenge them on the field, so they are sort of stuck in limbo. It's hard for them to kick on without playing more at higher levels, hard for them to play at higher levels with certain decisions the icc are making.

I think a good idea would be for Ireland to be a regular opposition on England tours, non of this sussex A versus Australia XI nonsene that last two days and sees about 14 players get gametime for sussex. Give them a four day game against Ireland

 

[War]

this is obviously wrong. portugal put 7 past north korea in 2010. Germany beat saudi arabia 8-0 in 2002.

I think argentina beat someone 6-0 or 6-1 in 2006. although i think it was a decentish team they beat and you can sort of chalk that one up to random stuff happening in sport from time to time.

but it's a daft comparison anyway. There aren't 10 elite countries who play 5 day-long football matches against other.

I think the issues is where do we want to see cricket in the future? Do we want it to grow so as many countries being as competitive as possible in all formats? Or are we happy as is.

I'm fine with Ireland not being made a test side straight away, but the progression seem opaque and closed off. They are head and shoulders above the other associates in all departments, only really Afghanistan challenge them on the field, so they are sort of stuck in limbo. It's hard for them to kick on without playing more at higher levels, hard for them to play at higher levels with certain decisions the icc are making.

I think a good idea would be for Ireland to be a regular opposition on England tours, non of this sussex A versus Australia XI nonsene that last two days and sees about 14 players get gametime for sussex. Give them a four day game against Ireland

Of course the odd upset still happens in football world cups or even qualifiers, but the fact is the competitive of the lesser nations have grown significantly & faster in football - compared to cricket's lesser nations in the last 20 years.


ICC certainly needs to help them with regards to infrastructure, however as i said Ireland & all associates need prove their consistency/fan following for cricket first in T20s & ODIs before they are awarded test status. Ireland is still very much a football country too.

This is beauty of 3 formats in cricket, under smart leadership ICC should have been using it as gauge to assessing associate teams progress. But due to their well documented ineptness this doesn't happen.

Agreed about touring teams playing Ireland in a 4-day game on a ENG tour, that would help since i know at least the ECB lets teams play them & even Scotland at times in ODI games.

 

[cricket_online]

Poaching is an option sadly until the ICC reviews its appalling decision not to allow Ireland to play test cricket.

This is something which has never made sense to me at all. With ICC trying to spread the game far and wide surely Ireland deserved to be given a shot at Test cricket. They possibly couldn't have been any worse than B'desh when they were given Test status.

With players such as Eoin Morgan, Ed Joyce, Rankin, O'Brien brothers, Dockerell, Stirling etc. they had a pretty good core group of players and would have been more than a handful at home. Sadly ICC was as myopic as usual and lost a great opportunity to add to the core group of Test teams.

I don't know how feasible it is but maybe ICC can have a combined Ireland & Scottish team. If a bunch of caribbean nations can come together to form West Indies cricket team, surely Ireland and Scotland can agree to pool in resources as well - at least till the time they have enough talent to go their own separate ways.

 

[barmyarmy]

I see nothing wrong with the decision to not allow Ireland to play test cricket. They may have talent, but say did BANG in 99 before they got test status & still have not cut it.


One thing we have learnt & seen is the lesser nations barring the upset every other world cup haven't really made a serious impact. In football in a 32 team world cup their is basically know easy games now - in cricket 50 overs cup as you said, the world cup is essentially irrelevant in the group stage until the final 8 teams meet in the QF's.

Cricket is a very hard game to master for these new nations, especially the 50 & test format. They need need to prove themselves first in 20 cricket, their country has to fall in love with the sport currently in a society that lives for fast sports that finish in 3 hours, they have to get the right infrastructure - then they can move up the formats.

The sanctity & tradition of what makes a good test/ODI team must be preserved. If associates like ireland, scotland, afghanistan can't successfully complete this progression then they should never play ODI W-Cups - and certainly not ever be given test status. If its has to be they are only proven to be good @ one or both of the limited overs formats then so be it. No team however must even be given the free ride into tests like bangladesh did.

The 11th test nations remains a long way off...

Slightly out of date but make sure you read this:
Time to open up Test cricket?

Saves me making what I see as an unanswerable case.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

I don't know how feasible it is but maybe ICC can have a combined Ireland & Scottish team. If a bunch of caribbean nations can come together to form West Indies cricket team, surely Ireland and Scotland can agree to pool in resources as well - at least till the time they have enough talent to go their own separate ways.

yep, maybe even throw the dutch in there too, obviously it's not ideal, but it's about priorities and compromise.

I've been thinking about the world test championship and how that could be expanded to include more fringe sides. The intended format of top 4 teams playing semi/final seems quite good, but looking at it bangladesh and zimbabwe have no chance of making that final four. It'd be a bit of a surprise for WI, NZ, Sri Lanka to make it, but no unreasonable. who knows what pakistan will do and the other 4 are obvously all favourites.

So maybe it could be further split, the top 8 sectioned off, half of them make the finals, other half do not. Zimbabwe, Bangladesh head into a smaller group with Ireland and another side (Afhganhistan, most likely atm)

those four sides play amongst each other for the right the be in the top 8 next cycle, maybe top replaces 8th automatically, second plays a 3 match series against 7th, or something. This has an added bonus of making the bottom of the 8 side table competitive throughout the cycle.

I think the key to improvement is playing a lot of intensely competitive matches. Beating up on smaller associates isn't beneficial to Ireland any more. As bangladesh have shown being whipping boys to the top sides doesn't help that much. Teams will be allowed to play some matches against sides not in their group/tier on some free slots if they wish.

the problem with the current system is that it's closed off, there is a giant leap in quality that is incredibly difficult to close. A closed system works well in American sports, with salary caps and drafts to level the playing field and a constantly near saturated market, but it stagnates growth in a market with lots of room for potential growth.

 

[War]

Slightly out of date but make sure you read this:
Time to open up Test cricket?

Saves me making what I see as an unanswerable case.

I have not read that article before, but i have heard the arguments before & i don't agree with with it.

As i mentioned before "test cricket" is unusual sport & its very difficult to master. Look at cricket history most teams took a VERY LONG TIME to conquer it after ENG & AUS:

S Africa debut in 1888 - they technically were truly competitive as a side until the their 1950s team. That's 60+ years (40+ excluding the war years)

Windies debut in 1928 - didn't become competitbe until the famous 1950 series win in ENG. 22 years (15 excluding the WW2)

NZ debut in 1932. Won first test in 1956, didn't seriously become competitive until their 1961/62 series vs S Africa. 30 years (23 excluding WW2)

IND debut 1932. Won 1st test until 1959. Were not seriously competitive until the mid 60s when their great spin quarter started emerging to make them a force at home.

PAK debut in 1954 & won their first test & series within the first 3 years of their status. Generally you can they adapted to test cricket faster than any team in history, since they never had a real minnow phase.

SRI debut in 1982 & pretty much became solid & test/general cricket after the 1996 world cup. 14 years.

ZIM debut in 92, won 1st test in 94, first series in 97 & were looking very good at one point in the lae 90s/early 2000s as a test nations before political strife has pushed them back 20 years a test nations. Realistically they should not have been given back test status.

BANG - have not made any significant progress in a decade & its debatable whether the test team will soon, although the ODI/T20 teams is showing some fight.

This historical trend shows clearly proving to be a good test team takes a long time, so that sanctity of it needs to be protected.

As i said, the easiest approach is for ICC to utilize cricket luxury of the 3 formats & let the associates prove themselves first in 20 & 50 overs cricket, their country has to fall in love with the sport currently in a society that lives for fast sports that finish in 3 hours, get the right infrastructure & first class system with ICC help - then they can move up the formats.

Makes no sense to allow another team to play test cricket if they have not done this & take 10 years to become good. Test them & their countries appreciation for cricket first in the limited overs formats.

 

[barmyarmy]

Your argument is entirely circular. If it takes several years to adjust to the rigours of test cricket after entry then we ought to be putting teams in earlier not later.
It's a old boys' club at present and more members means sharing the money.

 

[War]

Huh?. What do you mean putting them in earlier? Why do you reckon it has generally taken all the teams in test history so long to adapt to test - other than ENG & AUS?

It clearly because of a lack of proper first-class system for years & the fact that it took the nations a while to gravitate to the sport: tests cricket.

I believe you are failing to acknowledge this very key area of the debate for associates to get test status.

Once can't blame ENG/MCC for giving what were basically their colonies test status back in the days, they did their best to include them early - given the dynamics of the world & cricket in the 20th century.

But the modern ICC does not need to do this. Cricket unlike other sports has 3 formats, it isn't like football or rugby in which has one format, which is in those sports interest, to get everyone involved quicker. Plus it helps football & rugby that those sports finish very quickly. The arduous time factor of "test cricket" cannot be underrated as a major deterrent for attracting a new audience of nations to cricket - even if the minuscule folks that make up cricket sanctuary of a cricket nation - want test status.

Test cricket even in major nations isn't attracting a younger audience to cricket. Its T20 cricket - why else do you reckon all member boards now are basically trying to have a IPL style T20 league?

How are the associates going to make money as boards, if they aren't getting crowds to games on a domestic or international level in their countries?

This "crowd" factor is one area Bangladesh are doing very well in & no associate nation can compare to this. The passion for cricket in BANG is one par with any major nation & due to this we are almost sure eventually, this will translate to better results on the field across all the formats.

 

[cricket_online]

yep, maybe even throw the dutch in there too, obviously it's not ideal, but it's about priorities and compromise.

I've been thinking about the world test championship and how that could be expanded to include more fringe sides. The intended format of top 4 teams playing semi/final seems quite good, but looking at it bangladesh and zimbabwe have no chance of making that final four. It'd be a bit of a surprise for WI, NZ, Sri Lanka to make it, but no unreasonable. who knows what pakistan will do and the other 4 are obvously all favourites.

So maybe it could be further split, the top 8 sectioned off, half of them make the finals, other half do not. Zimbabwe, Bangladesh head into a smaller group with Ireland and another side (Afhganhistan, most likely atm)

those four sides play amongst each other for the right the be in the top 8 next cycle, maybe top replaces 8th automatically, second plays a 3 match series against 7th, or something. This has an added bonus of making the bottom of the 8 side table competitive throughout the cycle.

I think the key to improvement is playing a lot of intensely competitive matches. Beating up on smaller associates isn't beneficial to Ireland any more. As bangladesh have shown being whipping boys to the top sides doesn't help that much. Teams will be allowed to play some matches against sides not in their group/tier on some free slots if they wish.

the problem with the current system is that it's closed off, there is a giant leap in quality that is incredibly difficult to close. A closed system works well in American sports, with salary caps and drafts to level the playing field and a constantly near saturated market, but it stagnates growth in a market with lots of room for potential growth.

The tiered structure won't work because only three nations (England, India and Australia) generate most of the revenue in cricket. Without these nations involved who will pay for lesser cricketing nations? They will need to get games against the cricketing financial powerhouses else they won't be able to sustain themselves. Even likes of New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and West Indies struggle to sustain themselves without frequent series against those three and to expect lesser nations to sustain themselves without playing against the bigger three in unreasonable.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

i'm more bringing it up because 3 years ago things some of us were worried would happen in the future were thought of as ridiculous, now given that they've happened it kinda lends some credence to things me and The Author have mentioned before and perhaps they shouldn't be thought of as quite so ridiculous.

tbh I only found that post because I was sure I'd tipped dockrell to be englands next spinner before and was seeing if I mentioned it here.

it was more in the context that if you remember back in 2011 the ICC was thinking of having 10 team world cups, I'm not sure if ireland are ready for test cricket, they sure as hell shouldn't be getting barred from world cups though.

It probably be good if ireland could play the odd test, I'm not for tiering but reduced schedules of smaller teams make sense. bangladesh played far too much test cricket in their early days. unfortunately pragmatism and the ICC don't exactly go hand in hand.

 

[War]

I don't know how feasible it is but maybe ICC can have a combined Ireland & Scottish team. If a bunch of caribbean nations can come together to form West Indies cricket team, surely Ireland and Scotland can agree to pool in resources as well - at least till the time they have enough talent to go their own separate ways.

The Windies are a bit more more that bunch a Caribbean countries - they may be a bit of insularity with them - but they are well connected historically, socially etc - so it was always easy for them to form a cricket team.

Ireland/Scotland/Netherlands don't have such a connection - thus the idea of them pooling resources to form a team is entirely implausible. Such a unusual drastic root isn't needed.