There may be some salvation for you. It's cool and grey here this morning. No rain yet, but I'd not be surprised to get a shower or 2 this afternoon. The forecast for tomorrow is similar.
I don't think you lot need worry about the weather here...
England bowled well, especially Old Father Time (Jimmy Anderson) with 4/33 off 29 overs. Australia all out for 263, which made England's 185 on the first day look not so bad under the conditions. But then in the last hour England's top order collapsed again to be 4/31 overnight, though admittedly one of those was the night watchman. Malan , usually one of England's most reliable batters, made even fewer than Labuschagne (similarly rated for Australia) who was out for only 1.
Unless the COVID cases in the England camp force this match to be cancelled, that's the Ashes done.
It's not our lowest score, but apparently TMS were trying to work out if this is our quickest Ashes loss. The historic stats are depressing. The only silver lining is that we only equalled, rather than beat, the ducks in a year record.
I can't remember a worse England team - can anyone else?
I can't remember an England side that was weaker with the bat.
Root aside there really is no one. All those 1990s sides generally had at least a couple of batsmen that could hold their own - Gooch, Smith, Lamb, Atherton, Stewart, Thorpe and Hussain for example.
The bowling is, I reckon, comparatively strong. An attack of Anderson, Wood, Robinson and Stokes might be one-dimensional but so were England attacks in the 90s, just with worse bowlers.
I'd add that those 90s England teams raised their game for the Aussies. That hasn't happened in this tour or the last. Australia are good, but I think not as good as they were in the 90s.
Woke up to see how things were going in the cricket - only to find they had already GONE!
My partner reckons I have a particular, unique laugh when I read the cricket results. (From "last night" here in the Northern Hemisphere)
My husband was disappointed that there was no cricket for him to watch this afternoon as he had spent the morning working in the garden and he was looking forward to a relaxing afternoon. Boland's efforts were incredible and we toasted him!
I have read some people calling for the heads of the coach and the captain.
Neither of them can be responsible for batters getting out for very low scores.
I thought it goes deeper, English cricket pays allegiance to shorter forms of cricket, doesn't it? Half the team look rusty at red ball cricket. Don't ask me for a solution, I suppose W. Indies shows where we are going, decline in Tests.
I have read some people calling for the heads of the coach and the captain.
Neither of them can be responsible for batters getting out for very low scores.
I thought it goes deeper, English cricket pays allegiance to shorter forms of cricket, doesn't it? Half the team look rusty at red ball cricket. Don't ask me for a solution, I suppose W. Indies shows where we are going, decline in Tests.
Maybe. Not necessary.
Over the last 20 years England's test fortunes have in my view revived despite the continued decline of the game in England. You only need 11 good players on the park. I suspect England have become much better at bringing them through and it's just that the cupboard is bare right now
Importing South African batsmen helped, but England in the 90s had them too.
A sad anecdote: a few years ago I was back in England to see family (I live in NZ now) and I was wearing a cricket jumper that I just happen to have. I was asked, with great excitement by a stranger, whether I liked cricket. I said I did and we had a chat. But it struck me that in England liking cricket had become something to remark on.
I have read some people calling for the heads of the coach and the captain.
Neither of them can be responsible for batters getting out for very low scores.
I thought it goes deeper, English cricket pays allegiance to shorter forms of cricket, doesn't it? Half the team look rusty at red ball cricket. Don't ask me for a solution, I suppose W. Indies shows where we are going, decline in Tests.
Maybe. Not necessary.
Over the last 20 years England's test fortunes have in my view revived despite the continued decline of the game in England. You only need 11 good players on the park. I suspect England have become much better at bringing them through and it's just that the cupboard is bare right now
Importing South African batsmen helped, but England in the 90s had them too.
A sad anecdote: a few years ago I was back in England to see family (I live in NZ now) and I was wearing a cricket jumper that I just happen to have. I was asked, with great excitement by a stranger, whether I liked cricket. I said I did and we had a chat. But it struck me that in England liking cricket had become something to remark on.
I do not believe that the game is continuing to decline in England. When I started playing in the 1963, there was no league cricket in the West Midlands outside of the Birmingham and District League. ( The oldest cricket league in the world) Now there is a League cricket structure in all of the counties. In Worcestershire alone there are 164 teams in 15 divisions.
There is not enough first class cricket being played.
I don't think that proves that numbers are holding up, just that people who do play are playing in a county-sanctioned structure now. I played plenty of cricket in England, but all for casual teams. We weren't affiliated to any organisation. I expect I and others like me never showed up in any statistics.
I have heard that numbers playing have dropped 25% over the last decade but I've no idea if that is accurate.
Re first class cricket, the Australians make do with 10 first class matches a season in the Shield, which is fewer than the County Championship.
In answer to @Gee D however the England teams of the 90s were even more painful to watch (from a supporter's perspective) because they did not have penetrating bowlers, so you had to watch Australia racking up 600+ on a regular basis before winning by an innings and plenty. At least this way round the losses are short and sharp.
As far as cricket in England is concerned I think there has certainly been a great decline in interest. It is striking that the BBC are not even broadcasting a highlights programme - you have to go to iPlayer. That would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. But perhaps @Telford is correct that there is no continuing decline - perhaps things have bottomed out.
I think that the powers-that-be have essentially decided to de-prioritise the long form of the game - thus the decision to separate the 'Hundred' from the county structure. I think they have decided that T20/Hundred is the future of cricket and that the county game must eventually die - which would logically mean that the England Test team must wither. This makes me sad, because I love Test cricket and I think that as a format and showcase for quality cricket it has never been better. However if it genuinely led to more grass-roots enthusiasm for the game that would be a silver lining at least.
The football season is now so long there is no football/cricket changeover. Vast numbers of Brits are obsessed with football.
I have three kids, two of whom have finished key stage 3 (and one nearly finished). The amount of cricket they've played at school you could fit into an afternoon, and it's all been indoor tennis ball stuff. It's low priority. Schools don't even *have* outside cricket pitches as they're too much work to maintain. I'm not an advocate of compulsory team sports (I think they're counterproductive at best and psychologically damaging at worst) but people can't opt for what isn't offered, and won't opt for what isn't valued.
Down our local playing fields through the Summer, while a dozen adults and a couple of under 18s (a pair of sisters, bless them) are at the nets, about four bunches of 5-15 year olds are doing football training on the neighbouring fields. I've seen many a bunch of kids playing a spontaneous game of football everywhere from beaches to quieter residential roads. Cricket never.
The average British view is that cricket is dull and boring. Sports lovers watch football.
None of this can be helping the malaise in English cricket. There's not a massive pool from which to fish for new talent.
It's also worth pointing out that the vast majority of cricket is already a one day format. Only a tiny percentage of active cricketers are playing in County teams, much less national Test sides. Club cricket is necessarily one-day. But this has always been true and one imagines also is in other cricketing nations.
The football season is now so long there is no football/cricket changeover. Vast numbers of Brits are obsessed with football.
I have three kids, two of whom have finished key stage 3 (and one nearly finished). The amount of cricket they've played at school you could fit into an afternoon, and it's all been indoor tennis ball stuff. It's low priority. Schools don't even *have* outside cricket pitches as they're too much work to maintain. I'm not an advocate of compulsory team sports (I think they're counterproductive at best and psychologically damaging at worst) but people can't opt for what isn't offered, and won't opt for what isn't valued.
Down our local playing fields through the Summer, while a dozen adults and a couple of under 18s (a pair of sisters, bless them) are at the nets, about four bunches of 5-15 year olds are doing football training on the neighbouring fields. I've seen many a bunch of kids playing a spontaneous game of football everywhere from beaches to quieter residential roads. Cricket never.
The average British view is that cricket is dull and boring. Sports lovers watch football.
None of this can be helping the malaise in English cricket. There's not a massive pool from which to fish for new talent.
It's also worth pointing out that the vast majority of cricket is already a one day format. Only a tiny percentage of active cricketers are playing in County teams, much less national Test sides. Club cricket is necessarily one-day. But this has always been true and one imagines also is in other cricketing nations.
/rabbiting on
Any young person wanting to play cricket does not have to rely on playing at school. Well run cricket clubs have teams at different age levels.
When I started we only played friendlies and Sunday was a social occasion. For away games we had coaches for players and supporters.
It was true that many boys are lost to the game in their lates teens especially when they find a girlfriend who does not like the game. Lucky is the man who finds partner who is happy for him to play the game. Unlike football it is a 7 to 8 hour committment for home games plus extra travelling time for away games.
I have read some people calling for the heads of the coach and the captain.
Neither of them can be responsible for batters getting out for very low scores.
Who selects the side or, for that matter, the squad? Who chooses the batting order?
In the old days England would play games between tests against all the state sides and other sides as well. The tour is far too short.
All the best players available were in the squad and the batting order was logical.
This is a potentially huge problem with this tour. England had zero warm up matches, barely any time to prepare. While you didn't hear it from me, there might well be grounds to wipe off this series as too impacted by covid to be considered a good test of relative skill.
From a spectator's perspective, soccer hardly stops now.
Btw, for years now, my stock answer to people who tell me that cricket is boring is that it's a game to be played, not watched. Which leads me to think that the ECB aren't being stupid in prioritising short forms of the game. Even standard 50-over cricket takes far more time to play than people generally have spare. The health of the game depends on numbers playing it. I don't think it matters if people who don't play sport find cricket dull, or that England's test team is rubbish. What does matter is accessibility, and that does mean shorter forms of the game.
It is also an additional reason for not tolerating racism.
Btw, for years now, my stock answer to people who tell me that cricket is boring is that it's a game to be played, not watched.
I'm.... not sure about that. Sitting around waiting to bat can be pretty dire, especially if you ultimately find that you were surplus to requirements. Personally I enjoy fielding but it is not always an experience calculated to inspire the waverer.
I explain a day at a Test match thus: you pick a day of dappled sunshine, then you get to sit down with a pint, take a picnic along or buy a pie and chips, enjoy they day, and if you get a bit bored there are some people in the middle playing with a bat and ball to entertain you.
It is also an additional reason for not tolerating racism.
Especially as my team is finding more and more of our oppositions are largely made up of players of Asian descent - and we play village sides. Last year we played a side on one of the most beautiful grounds in Britain, and every player was of asian descent. No offense menat to them - great guiys all, and a hard-fought game, but where are the "native" players? As far as I can see at the moment, those are the guys (and gals) who are going to save cricket in England.
I'm trying not to sound too gammony writing that - it's not that I don't want the asian players, I want everyone to be joining in the great sport that is cricket. Well, possibly except the England team right now...
David (who had no sporting inclinations whatsoever) reckoned that watching a village cricket match on a pleasant afternoon, sitting under a tree with a pint or a jug of Pimm's near at hand, was a very enjoyable pastime.
[tangent]
He also found village cricket rather profitable: when he was young, the organist of a nearby village was also captain of the village cricket team, and would delegate D. to play the organ for Saturday afternoon weddings, giving him much-appreciated extra funds.
[/tangent]
David (who had no sporting inclinations whatsoever) reckoned that watching a village cricket match on a pleasant afternoon, sitting under a tree with a pint or a jug of Pimm's near at hand, was a very enjoyable pastime.
[tangent]
He also found village cricket rather profitable: when he was young, the organist of a nearby village was also captain of the village cricket team, and would delegate D. to play the organ for Saturday afternoon weddings, giving him much-appreciated extra funds.
[/tangent]
It's common for village grounds to be next to a church. I recall one church which seemed to have non stop weddings between 1pm and 5pm and everytime the bells stopped ringing it was that quiet you could hear a pin drop.
The average British view is that cricket is dull and boring. Sports lovers watch football.
Cricket is for summer. The various codes of football are for winter.
This is my point. The football season now extends well into the Summer.
When I first played the cricket season started on the first Saturday in May and ended the beginning of September. Most Leagues now play on 22 Saturdays starting in mid April and extending to late September.
Weather permitting, friendlies can go on longer and I have played on the 2nd Sunday in October.
The problem with the extended season though is that the nature of an English field in late spring/early autumn is very different to that in the middle of summer, which is far closer to anywhere England will play on a winter tour. Thus the average county bowler is very limited in their exposure to hard, dry, pitches and therefore doesn't properly develop the skills to excel in that environment. Limited overs games in the summer use somewhat different bowling strategies.
Preparation for the test series hasn't been helped by quarantine, but also before that by the need to squash both the delayed IPL matches and a world cup into the autumn. There hasn't really been time for the tour matches they needed, especially the likes of Leech, who didn't play for England in the summer.
We had season tickets for Trent Bridge this summer and took the Dragonlets to watch both the T20s and a bit of the first county championship matches that we were legally allowed to. They enjoyed both forms. There was an interesting bit in the latest members' magazine about one of the younger players actually having gone to a local state school, and therefore developing through club cricket rather than most of his team mates who played at private schools.
On the subject of cricket coverage in the UK, I did laugh when Gee D talked about watching the last 2 matches. Here I'd say cricket is pretty synonymous with the radio and Test Match Special. Apart from a few very special occasions, like the world cup final in 2019 which was hurriedly arranged as we were in the final, the full coverage has been on subscription channels for 20? years now, and you only get "highlights" in the evening on 5. Saying that, the Hundred had quite a few matches, both Men's and Women's, broadcast on BBC television.
I will explain my contentious remark about cricket being a game to play rather than to watch.
I was first introduced to cricket at school when I was ten. It was a game of non-stop with a couple of plastic cones. My contributions with the bat were, I think, 1 and 3. My team won. It was exhilarating. Until then football had been my preferred sport but from that point cricket took over. If I had ever watched it before I don't remember doing so. So I first tasted blood from playing it.
When I left the UK two decades ago sport had, in my view, become mainly a spectator activity, chiefly watching football, and I doubt that's really changed. Enjoyment of cricket is massively enhanced by knowledge of technique that in turn comes from playing it. It transforms cricket from a slow game to the absorbing thing that exists under the sun. People here by and large understand those things and so enjoy watching cricket. In the UK that's not so.
I take the point that the are fewer things nicer than relaxing at a cricket game in an afternoon. In reality I haven't had the time for that since I don't know when and I suspect that's very normal.
For the last decade or so I've played a modified version of the game that brings it down to a manageable time - a match typically lasts 2 hours.
What I love most about cricket is the subtlety and the cleverness. Cricket's health depends on playing numbers. That means judicious use of modified versions. It doesn't so much rely on spectator numbers or the strength of any particular Test team.
Perhaps I'm becoming a bit of an iconoclast. But it's in a noble cause.
The problem with the extended season though is that the nature of an English field in late spring/early autumn is very different to that in the middle of summer, which is far closer to anywhere England will play on a winter tour. Thus the average county bowler is very limited in their exposure to hard, dry, pitches and therefore doesn't properly develop the skills to excel in that environment. Limited overs games in the summer use somewhat different bowling strategies.
Preparation for the test series hasn't been helped by quarantine, but also before that by the need to squash both the delayed IPL matches and a world cup into the autumn. There hasn't really been time for the tour matches they needed, especially the likes of Leech, who didn't play for England in the summer.
We had season tickets for Trent Bridge this summer and took the Dragonlets to watch both the T20s and a bit of the first county championship matches that we were legally allowed to. They enjoyed both forms. There was an interesting bit in the latest members' magazine about one of the younger players actually having gone to a local state school, and therefore developing through club cricket rather than most of his team mates who played at private schools.
On the subject of cricket coverage in the UK, I did laugh when Gee D talked about watching the last 2 matches. Here I'd say cricket is pretty synonymous with the radio and Test Match Special. Apart from a few very special occasions, like the world cup final in 2019 which was hurriedly arranged as we were in the final, the full coverage has been on subscription channels for 20? years now, and you only get "highlights" in the evening on 5. Saying that, the Hundred had quite a few matches, both Men's and Women's, broadcast on BBC television.
Back in the day we had 2 three day first class games every week and also the Sunday league. They had to reduce the number of games to get in the Gillette Cup.
It is important for first class cricket in England to have more 4 day games and still have the limited over games to raise income. My proposals are therefore to have:-
Except for June and early July, to have one 4 day game every week between Tuesday and Friday.
During the same period to have the one day game on either Saturday or Sunday with a spare day on Monday
Comments
I don't think you lot need worry about the weather here...
Unless the COVID cases in the England camp force this match to be cancelled, that's the Ashes done.
All sorts of things to comment on, but Boland: collected 6 wickets, gave up 7 runs. Surely that's....unusual.
Hedgehog, not with the current state of the England embarrassment team.
The 90s are here again.
Congratulations to Scott Boland though. That's an impressive debut.
But they were nowhere near as bad as this on the field. Who's now goig to watch the rest of the series?
I can't remember an England side that was weaker with the bat.
Root aside there really is no one. All those 1990s sides generally had at least a couple of batsmen that could hold their own - Gooch, Smith, Lamb, Atherton, Stewart, Thorpe and Hussain for example.
The bowling is, I reckon, comparatively strong. An attack of Anderson, Wood, Robinson and Stokes might be one-dimensional but so were England attacks in the 90s, just with worse bowlers.
I'd add that those 90s England teams raised their game for the Aussies. That hasn't happened in this tour or the last. Australia are good, but I think not as good as they were in the 90s.
That's my point. They thrashed us in Australia. They were clearly a far worse side.
My partner reckons I have a particular, unique laugh when I read the cricket results. (From "last night" here in the Northern Hemisphere)
Neither of them can be responsible for batters getting out for very low scores.
Who selects the side or, for that matter, the squad? Who chooses the batting order?
(ETA Or I may be lying https://www.crictracker.com/england-abolish-national-selectors-post-head-coach-chris-silverwood-to-pick-squads/ ?)
8th lowest. See https://twitter.com/ZaltzCricket/status/1475636517548613636?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1475636517548613636|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/59806990
I thought it goes deeper, English cricket pays allegiance to shorter forms of cricket, doesn't it? Half the team look rusty at red ball cricket. Don't ask me for a solution, I suppose W. Indies shows where we are going, decline in Tests.
In the old days England would play games between tests against all the state sides and other sides as well. The tour is far too short.
All the best players available were in the squad and the batting order was logical.
Maybe. Not necessary.
Over the last 20 years England's test fortunes have in my view revived despite the continued decline of the game in England. You only need 11 good players on the park. I suspect England have become much better at bringing them through and it's just that the cupboard is bare right now
Importing South African batsmen helped, but England in the 90s had them too.
A sad anecdote: a few years ago I was back in England to see family (I live in NZ now) and I was wearing a cricket jumper that I just happen to have. I was asked, with great excitement by a stranger, whether I liked cricket. I said I did and we had a chat. But it struck me that in England liking cricket had become something to remark on.
I do not believe that the game is continuing to decline in England. When I started playing in the 1963, there was no league cricket in the West Midlands outside of the Birmingham and District League. ( The oldest cricket league in the world) Now there is a League cricket structure in all of the counties. In Worcestershire alone there are 164 teams in 15 divisions.
There is not enough first class cricket being played.
I have heard that numbers playing have dropped 25% over the last decade but I've no idea if that is accurate.
Re first class cricket, the Australians make do with 10 first class matches a season in the Shield, which is fewer than the County Championship.
In answer to @Gee D however the England teams of the 90s were even more painful to watch (from a supporter's perspective) because they did not have penetrating bowlers, so you had to watch Australia racking up 600+ on a regular basis before winning by an innings and plenty. At least this way round the losses are short and sharp.
As far as cricket in England is concerned I think there has certainly been a great decline in interest. It is striking that the BBC are not even broadcasting a highlights programme - you have to go to iPlayer. That would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. But perhaps @Telford is correct that there is no continuing decline - perhaps things have bottomed out.
I think that the powers-that-be have essentially decided to de-prioritise the long form of the game - thus the decision to separate the 'Hundred' from the county structure. I think they have decided that T20/Hundred is the future of cricket and that the county game must eventually die - which would logically mean that the England Test team must wither. This makes me sad, because I love Test cricket and I think that as a format and showcase for quality cricket it has never been better. However if it genuinely led to more grass-roots enthusiasm for the game that would be a silver lining at least.
I have three kids, two of whom have finished key stage 3 (and one nearly finished). The amount of cricket they've played at school you could fit into an afternoon, and it's all been indoor tennis ball stuff. It's low priority. Schools don't even *have* outside cricket pitches as they're too much work to maintain. I'm not an advocate of compulsory team sports (I think they're counterproductive at best and psychologically damaging at worst) but people can't opt for what isn't offered, and won't opt for what isn't valued.
Down our local playing fields through the Summer, while a dozen adults and a couple of under 18s (a pair of sisters, bless them) are at the nets, about four bunches of 5-15 year olds are doing football training on the neighbouring fields. I've seen many a bunch of kids playing a spontaneous game of football everywhere from beaches to quieter residential roads. Cricket never.
The average British view is that cricket is dull and boring. Sports lovers watch football.
None of this can be helping the malaise in English cricket. There's not a massive pool from which to fish for new talent.
It's also worth pointing out that the vast majority of cricket is already a one day format. Only a tiny percentage of active cricketers are playing in County teams, much less national Test sides. Club cricket is necessarily one-day. But this has always been true and one imagines also is in other cricketing nations.
/rabbiting on
Any young person wanting to play cricket does not have to rely on playing at school. Well run cricket clubs have teams at different age levels.
When I started we only played friendlies and Sunday was a social occasion. For away games we had coaches for players and supporters.
It was true that many boys are lost to the game in their lates teens especially when they find a girlfriend who does not like the game. Lucky is the man who finds partner who is happy for him to play the game. Unlike football it is a 7 to 8 hour committment for home games plus extra travelling time for away games.
This is a potentially huge problem with this tour. England had zero warm up matches, barely any time to prepare. While you didn't hear it from me, there might well be grounds to wipe off this series as too impacted by covid to be considered a good test of relative skill.
Cricket is for summer. The various codes of football are for winter.
Btw, for years now, my stock answer to people who tell me that cricket is boring is that it's a game to be played, not watched. Which leads me to think that the ECB aren't being stupid in prioritising short forms of the game. Even standard 50-over cricket takes far more time to play than people generally have spare. The health of the game depends on numbers playing it. I don't think it matters if people who don't play sport find cricket dull, or that England's test team is rubbish. What does matter is accessibility, and that does mean shorter forms of the game.
It is also an additional reason for not tolerating racism.
This is my point. The football season now extends well into the Summer.
England have form for doing this. I've always put it down to the pressure being off as they've already lost the series.
I'm.... not sure about that. Sitting around waiting to bat can be pretty dire, especially if you ultimately find that you were surplus to requirements. Personally I enjoy fielding but it is not always an experience calculated to inspire the waverer.
I explain a day at a Test match thus: you pick a day of dappled sunshine, then you get to sit down with a pint, take a picnic along or buy a pie and chips, enjoy they day, and if you get a bit bored there are some people in the middle playing with a bat and ball to entertain you.
Especially as my team is finding more and more of our oppositions are largely made up of players of Asian descent - and we play village sides. Last year we played a side on one of the most beautiful grounds in Britain, and every player was of asian descent. No offense menat to them - great guiys all, and a hard-fought game, but where are the "native" players? As far as I can see at the moment, those are the guys (and gals) who are going to save cricket in England.
I'm trying not to sound too gammony writing that - it's not that I don't want the asian players, I want everyone to be joining in the great sport that is cricket. Well, possibly except the England team right now...
[tangent]
He also found village cricket rather profitable: when he was young, the organist of a nearby village was also captain of the village cricket team, and would delegate D. to play the organ for Saturday afternoon weddings, giving him much-appreciated extra funds.
[/tangent]
It's common for village grounds to be next to a church. I recall one church which seemed to have non stop weddings between 1pm and 5pm and everytime the bells stopped ringing it was that quiet you could hear a pin drop.
When I first played the cricket season started on the first Saturday in May and ended the beginning of September. Most Leagues now play on 22 Saturdays starting in mid April and extending to late September.
Weather permitting, friendlies can go on longer and I have played on the 2nd Sunday in October.
Preparation for the test series hasn't been helped by quarantine, but also before that by the need to squash both the delayed IPL matches and a world cup into the autumn. There hasn't really been time for the tour matches they needed, especially the likes of Leech, who didn't play for England in the summer.
We had season tickets for Trent Bridge this summer and took the Dragonlets to watch both the T20s and a bit of the first county championship matches that we were legally allowed to. They enjoyed both forms. There was an interesting bit in the latest members' magazine about one of the younger players actually having gone to a local state school, and therefore developing through club cricket rather than most of his team mates who played at private schools.
On the subject of cricket coverage in the UK, I did laugh when Gee D talked about watching the last 2 matches. Here I'd say cricket is pretty synonymous with the radio and Test Match Special. Apart from a few very special occasions, like the world cup final in 2019 which was hurriedly arranged as we were in the final, the full coverage has been on subscription channels for 20? years now, and you only get "highlights" in the evening on 5. Saying that, the Hundred had quite a few matches, both Men's and Women's, broadcast on BBC television.
I urge Geoff Boycott to stay calm until the end of the series.
I was first introduced to cricket at school when I was ten. It was a game of non-stop with a couple of plastic cones. My contributions with the bat were, I think, 1 and 3. My team won. It was exhilarating. Until then football had been my preferred sport but from that point cricket took over. If I had ever watched it before I don't remember doing so. So I first tasted blood from playing it.
When I left the UK two decades ago sport had, in my view, become mainly a spectator activity, chiefly watching football, and I doubt that's really changed. Enjoyment of cricket is massively enhanced by knowledge of technique that in turn comes from playing it. It transforms cricket from a slow game to the absorbing thing that exists under the sun. People here by and large understand those things and so enjoy watching cricket. In the UK that's not so.
I take the point that the are fewer things nicer than relaxing at a cricket game in an afternoon. In reality I haven't had the time for that since I don't know when and I suspect that's very normal.
For the last decade or so I've played a modified version of the game that brings it down to a manageable time - a match typically lasts 2 hours.
What I love most about cricket is the subtlety and the cleverness. Cricket's health depends on playing numbers. That means judicious use of modified versions. It doesn't so much rely on spectator numbers or the strength of any particular Test team.
Perhaps I'm becoming a bit of an iconoclast. But it's in a noble cause.
I worry for the National Treasure that is Sir Geoffrey.
Back in the day we had 2 three day first class games every week and also the Sunday league. They had to reduce the number of games to get in the Gillette Cup.
It is important for first class cricket in England to have more 4 day games and still have the limited over games to raise income. My proposals are therefore to have:-
Except for June and early July, to have one 4 day game every week between Tuesday and Friday.
During the same period to have the one day game on either Saturday or Sunday with a spare day on Monday
June to early July, the T20 competition.
The 100 ? Scrap it.