Is this England Test cricket’s “Bangladesh moment”?

In other words, the rip it up and start again, target four years’ time moment, as per the 2015 World Cup?

The potential outcomes being:

- New coach (happening already, but perhaps splitting the role by formats)
- New captain (it’s just not happening for Root, and also ruining his batting. Maybe, and it’s a controversial suggestion, even as a batsman he might be heading towards being a white ball specialist before long?)
- Fresh bunch of players, dropping most of the one-day players, investing in youngsters and saying “as long as you show some patience and application, if you can average 30+ you’re in for the next four years”. Discard everyone over 30, with the possible exception of Broad. Perhaps only Stokes, Root and Archer to be considered for all formats, and rotating to minimise their workload in any case.
- A strategy to win the Ashes in 2023. 5-0 in 2020-21 - doesn’t matter, as long as they play with the right intent. Lose the odd home series to weak opposition - fair enough, as long as there’s progress.

Individual names are up for discussion, but it’s a project. Everyone on board?

I’m in.

लोल मादरचोद

beamer wrote:In other words, the rip it up and start again, target four years’ time moment, as per the 2015 World Cup?

The potential outcomes being:

- New coach (happening already, but perhaps splitting the role by formats)
- New captain (it’s just not happening for Root, and also ruining his batting. Maybe, and it’s a controversial suggestion, even as a batsman he might be heading towards being a white ball specialist before long?)
- Fresh bunch of players, dropping most of the one-day players, investing in youngsters and saying “as long as you show some patience and application, if you can average 30+ you’re in for the next four years”. Discard everyone over 30, with the possible exception of Broad. Perhaps only Stokes, Root and Archer to be considered for all formats, and rotating to minimise their workload in any case.
- A strategy to win the Ashes in 2023. 5-0 in 2020-21 - doesn’t matter, as long as they play with the right intent. Lose the odd home series to weak opposition - fair enough, as long as there’s progress.

Individual names are up for discussion, but it’s a project. Everyone on board?

Should be. Won't be.

The ECB are finally "reviewing" the money pit that is the national academy, so hopefully the absolutely useless freeloaders Kevin Shine and Peter Such, responsible for a decade's worth of empty fast bowling and spin bowling cupboards, will be out on their ear. I don't even know who the age-group batting coach is these days. Is it Andy Flower? Doing the direct antithesis of a bang up job whoever it is.

But I don't expect the ECB will address the appalling output the England team are getting from the academy. I think they'll just close it down - not for the good of developing English cricketers, but to save money.

Anyway, good times are never far away - the Lions and U19's are f*cking hopeless too...

Is Shitey still employed? He’s been freeloading from the ECB probably since it was the TCCB...

They will act when tickets stop selling. Or when we never get to day four unless it rains. We’re almost there. Money talks.

And when the SixteenPointFour16.4 Cup falls flat on its arse, of course.

Anyway, what the f*ck was the point of moving the Ashes cycle to avoid the series in Australia coinciding with the World Cup, when it meant that the series in England farking coincided with it instead?

Get these guys onto sorting out the management of no-deal Brexit. They’re clearly planning geniuses.

nope, The Hundred is way more important

they're planning for 'fans' like RS

Thinking about it, we always seem to hit rock bottom in Test cricket around the end of a decade.

We were discussing the 1989 clusterf*ck yesterday, which was followed by the first signs of recovery under Gooch in the Caribbean. In 1999 there was the NZ wooden spoon contest, perhaps the one series with collective batting as bad as this one - after Nasser was booed at the Oval things started to turn around, and the cornerstones of the 2005 side began to emerge.

2009 was a bit of an outlier in that we won a bit of a smash and grab Ashes series, but that was just after Graeme Smith and co. had seen off Vaughan and then we had KP-gate number 1 and a thrashing in India. So the turning point just came slightly earlier.

How will things change for the better? The ECB’s clear priority is the hundred, which no one seems to want (not least the players). The county championship is being pushed further into the margins of the summer- starting in April, going through May, then a break for over a month in the middle of the summer (the best weather), before coming back in early autumn.....won’t encourage the development of technically sound batsmen, or decent spinners, will it.

I’ve long given up on the ECB being either able or willing to do what is in the best on-field interests of English cricket.

Sort that South African scouting network out, the Aussies are picking them off now

If the fans don’t want the Hundred either, it won’t last. If it does last, the T20 will fade away. I think we need a six-team elite four or five-day competition to produce our Test players, there’s room for that in the schedule.

Maybe using the Kookaburra ball in English cricket would make sense. Stop medium pacers dominating, encourage genuine pace and spin and batsmen who can build an innings without knowing they will get an unplayable one pretty quickly.

Would be better to have a Kook-Dukes hybrid, for universal use. Some seam, but not silly. Partly hand-made, etc.

PeterCS wrote:Would be better to have a Kook-Dukes hybrid, for universal use. Some seam, but not silly. Partly hand-made, etc.

One side of each? Might reverse a bit, without requiring any sandpaper...

No.

Jaysus,