Is England the Ultimate Test for a Cricketer?

[Cricketman]

I misunderstood the thread. I thought you meant it was the ultimate dream for Test cricketer/best place for good challenging cricket.

I'd say for Non SC teams the toughest place would be Sri Lanka, especially in the Murali era. They would get eaten alive, shame not many teams tour. India is tough too. For SC cricketers SA def. because of the pace, the bounce, and the very different atmosphere. Australia comes close.

England is a pretty neutral venue for all teams. but still best place to watch cricket imo.

 

[Ollie_H]

Naa, the idea of the thread was to see where we thought the hardest place was for a batsman to bat or where they hated plying their trade the most. As I said I honestly thought that a lot of the best batsman would struggle in England with the swinging conditions but I guess we never had the bowling attack to really make anyone struggle.

Where as teams like South Africa and Aus have had good bowling line ups to exploit the attack. Throwing a country in their, I think that if the West Indies left their pitches untouched a bit more, like they used to do in the 70's & 80's that would possibly be the hardest place to go. With the extreme heat, pace and bounce of the pitch it could be a really hostile environment.

 

[AkshayS]

Considering the same opponents and elimintating the drawn tests:
AGAINST INDIA IN INDIA

Team| Span |Mat| Won|Lost| %L
Australia |2008-2010| 4| 0| 4| 100
Sri Lanka |2005-2009 |4 |0 |4 |100
South Africa |2008-2010 |4 |2 |2 |50
Pakistan |2007-2007 |1| 0 |1 |100
total |last 5 yrs| 13|2|11| 84.6

AGAINST ENGLAND IN ENGLAND

Team| Span |Mat| Won|Lost| %L
Australia |2009-2009 |3 |1 |2 |66.67
Sri Lanka | 2006-2006 |2 |1| 1 | 50
South Africa |2008-2008| 3| 2| 1 | 33
Pakistan |2006-2010 |7 |1| 6 |85.3
total |last 5 yrs|15|5|10| 66.67

This shows that against same opponents and in matches which have yielded results, India just lost 2 matches and also West Indies, Bangladesh and New Zealand who are quite poor at test cricket didn't tour India. So by including common opponents, I've just taken out that unfair advantage from England.


P.S. - I think South Africa will have better results than both of them though I haven't checked it and I'm going to bed now.

 

[Ollie_H]

To be honest, I think you need to use a bigger span than 4 years , I used at least 20.

 

[pcfan123]

England in bowling conditions is easily one of the toughest. The swinging ball is the hardest to play and it swings the most in England.

However South Africa probably has a more overall balanced level of difficulty. You get the flat wicket and batting conditions in England fairly regularly. Most of the wickets in SA offer juice and the fastest wicket in the world is probably Durban now that Perth has gone flat

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

one weird thing about england, and I don't mean the place, I mean the team. Is that they seem to have been on the recieving end of a lot of great players best performances.

maybe with the exception of the indians who save their best for australia (though tendulkar did finally contribute a winning 4th innings century against england) other great players like murali, marshall, viv richards, ponting, lara, warne all put in their finest performances against england. Imran maybe as well by winning the world cup against them.

 

[AngryPixel]

Same can be said about india

Previous highest ODI score by anwar came against india.

Afridi score 45 ball centuries in Test as well as ODI's vs India

Murali's best ODI performance

AB De villier's first 200(first by a SAF player against india)

Michal Clark's Debut century

West Indies defending a total of 120 in test and winning by 20 odd runs

 

[Ollie_H]

West Indies defending a total of 120 in test and winning by 20 odd runs

Speaking of the West Indies and places to be. The 100th Test at Lords was possibly one of the best English tests ever played in my opinion. What a comeback after just being bowled out for 134, they then skittled West Indies out for 54!

 

[AngryPixel]

Another great test that comes to mind is the Edgebaston test where Australia first lost half of their lineup very quicly while chasing before a spirited batting from Lee gave them a glimmer of hope. When Aussies lost the match, Lee was on the ground almost crying when flintoff came to console him and shake his hand.. That was really the moment of the summer.

P.S: I dont think anyone Misbah got any condolence from Indian player

 

[War]

England probably was the ultimate test back in the 70s. But in this FTB 2000s era, South Africa has definately had the most difficult & rounded batting conditions these days.

In the 80s & 90s (the first half). It was definately touring the windies though.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

how much is the poor stats for many batsmen down to the quality of bowlers that south africa had?

the top 5 in england from 1995 to now have been anderson, caddick, harmison, hoggard, flintoff and then cork and gough.

SA had Ntini, Pollock, Kallis, Donald, Steyn

apart from Kallis all the saffers there averaged under 25, all the english bowlers averaged over 27.

but that's what you'd expect because the 4 saffers listed are really good bowlers and the english ones are kind of inconsistent.