Lost in the World Cup news, England scored a world record total today.
Meh, did anyone get a double hundred and five wickets?
I thought the game at Trent Bridge a bit of a farce, to be honest. There’s been a bit of talk about how they can even things up - using one ball again, to get it to reverse, stop using the Kookaburra for ODIs, stuff like that, but it ignores the effect of the ground itself, which I think is most culpable. Of the top five totals in ODI cricket, one is against the Netherlands, 2 are at altitude and the top 2 are at Trent Bridge. It’s a nice ground and a good place to visit but with the changes in bat technology and improvements in technique for quick scoring brought about by the IPL and Big Bash, it’s too small to be hosting LOI cricket, I think, further compounded by a wicket offering nothing to the bowler at all - a bad cricket wicket; the sad thing of course being that these record run totals will make people want to go to Trent Bridge to see the fireworks, so it encourages more wickets in LOIs there like this one. As for the size of the ground itself, one of the boundaries yesterday was 60 yards from the bat. Bairstow was hitting lofted drives, that should go for 4, for 6. The ground effect, when the wicket has nothing in it for the bowler, is the equivalent of playing at altitude or against an Associate nation and that seems just too much to me.
It didn’t help that Australia’s side is pretty weak for various reasons too, more self inflicted in the batting obviously but the bowling yesterday was not good and missed several of their better performers. England needed to hit them clearly but honestly, there might as well have been a bowling machine at either end.
As for Amelia Kerr: yeah. Pretty good effort that. Be interesting to see what she can do against SA, India, Australia and England though.
Actually, having a quick look at this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_400-plus_innings_scores_in_One_Day_International_cricket_matches - 4 of the top 8 are at altitude, one is v an Associate, top 2 are at Trent Bridge. I don’t think this says an awful lot for Trent Bridge, to be honest.
You telling me that there’s not a single current County captain who’s capable of playing Test (and I guess is England eligible)?
Actually, yeah, sort of…
Some of the county captains are old hands who have never been in England contention and now probably won’t be - the likes of Steven Mullaney at Notts is an example. The captains at Hampshire and Yorkshire (at least up until recently - it looks like he might have stood down) are James Vince and Garry Ballance respectively. Durham’s is Paul Collingwood for at least some of the games. Michael Carberry was captaining Leicestershire until recently. There’s a couple that aren’t England qualified - Ryan ten Doeschate at Essex, Jeetan Patel at Warwickshire.
It leaves, maybe, 4 or 5 county captains that are young enough to make it into England’s side. Liam Livingstone has been looked at by England on recent A tours and was on tour in NZ but didn’t get a game. Word is management don’t like the look of him over what they’ve already got in the middle order. Tom Abell at Somerset and Rory Burns at Surrey are both relatively young but no one has really been pushing their case for England (Burns has had some mentions recently - but this seems to be a process of elimination thing - every other English qualified opening bat has been tried over the last 5 years). Joe Leach at Worcs is an interesting case - but currently has a back injury and is out for a while. Sam Billings is captain at Kent but appears to have been put in the box marked Limited Overs Specialist, when it comes to England. All of which leaves…Dawid Malan, captaining Middlesex and currently in the England side. Is he sure of his England place though? Probably not, I’d say. Did alright in Australia by comparison to others but he’s not setting the world alight either (mind you, who is in our red ball side?).
So, with a number of counties picking captains who are never going to play for England due to age, talent or having already been rejected (mostly because these players will play all the games in the year and not miss loads by being with England), the number that we’re realistically going to select from is already limited, and guys that come into the England set up generally have limited experience of captaincy as a result.
It is interesting though that Somerset and Surrey currently top the CC table, Lancashire were around the top end last year and Worcs and Kent both have been prominent in the limited overs competition this year.
For those that are interested - here’s the Future Tours Programme, released today, for all the way out to the start of the 2023 World Cup. Tries to open as a pdf if that’s an issue for anyone though.
Impressive, but a different sport entirely.
Here is a quick picture I found on reddit showing who’s playing who in the run up to the new Test Championship thing.
England are hosting Aus, Pak and WI, and will be visiting India, SA and Sri Lanka. We’ve also got a single test match against Ireland next summer.
Interesting. The olden days the idea was when you lacked an obvious captain, was to bring in an experienced guy from First Class to lead the team while you prepared the future skipper, like NZ with Lee Germon and Stephan Fleming.
It does have some merit.
Totally thrilling game, especially at the end when Rashid got out.