I Dont' Like Cricket, Oh No, I Love it, Yeah

[Bazal]

Then what's the problem? Win at home and we'll be fine. As far as this pitch goes, it's so far delivering a decent contest.

I would think the problem is quite obvious.

So you had no problems when Parra couldn't buy a win away from home? We missed the finals every year but hey, we won a few home games....

 

[strider]

Oh I don't blame the AFL, I blame Cricket Australia for being the gutless wonders they have been ever since guys like Sutherland and Howard took the reins.

Realistically they should have said to the AFL "ok, when you guys get 20 thousand travelling English fans, or 10 thousand travelling Indians to an international AFL match at the MCG, then we'll talk about hamstringing our game to accommodate you..."

The AFL get 50,000+ crowds multiple times weekly for about 25 weeks of the year ffs ... LOL

 

[strider]

Cricket is our national game.
AFL is our national shame.

In your eyes .... but half the country think otherwise .... being blantantly biased against afl doesnt change facts

 

[Bazal]

The AFL get 50,000+ crowds multiple times weekly for about 25 weeks of the year ffs ... LOL

So what? They contribute a fraction of the money and exposure that cricket does, as I've already discussed, and they drew those crowds when they played on a turf square...

 

[strider]

It doesn't seem to bother the Swans or the Lions.

I would bet thousands they have approached those grounds about using drop ins ... they just have no bargaining point to push for what htye want

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

I would think the problem is quite obvious.

So you had no problems when Parra couldn't buy a win away from home? We missed the finals every year but hey, we won a few home games....

We couldn't win away because we were shit. It had nothing to do with the grass. And if providing a bigger variety of pitches here is going to make us perform better overseas then by the same logic it's going to make us perform worse at home. Also there's no test match grand final.

 

[Bazal]

I would bet thousands they have approached those grounds about using drop ins ... they just have no bargaining point to push for what htye want

You are correct. Well, at least at the Gabba. The AFL approached Kevin Mitchell, who told them to f**k off. They then approached the govt, who basically laughed at them and said when you generate the money cricket does in QLD we'll talk.

I think the SCG has just appointed a curator with extensive experience growing drop in wickets so it'll be interesting to see what happens there

 

[strider]

So what? They contribute a fraction of the money and exposure that cricket does, as I've already discussed, and they drew those crowds when they played on a turf square...

Pffft ialb already pointed out it makes little difference

 

[Twizzle]

It doesn't seem to bother the Swans or the Lions.

because the SCG and the Gabba stood up to them, wont happen in the AFL states though

 

[Suitman]

because the SCG and the Gabba stood up to them, wont happen in the AFL states though

Yep. That was my point.

 

[Bazal]

We couldn't win away because we were shit. It had nothing to do with the grass. And if providing a bigger variety of pitches here is going to make us perform better overseas then by the same logic it's going to make us perform worse at home. Also there's no test match grand final.

Of course it has to do with the surfaces. If you never play on a seaming wicket, how can you prepare for one when you head over to England? And how on earth do you figure it's going to make us perform worse at home? We won a world record number of tests in a row with varying home pitches....

Also, there is, in fact, a Test championship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_World_Test_Championship

One thing this discussion does show is the difference between the casual fans who just like to watch a bit of cricket in the holidays, and those of us who watch religiously and have seen how far we've actually fallen from grace in the last decade.

 

[Bazal]

Pffft ialb already pointed out it makes little difference

Of course it makes a difference. Struggle at cricket, profits from cricket go down. There is absolutely no doubt that the surfaces around the country, drop in or otherwise, being so flat has contributed to our struggles. Just look at the techniques of the players when the ball moves, they are almost all hopeless.

 

[Twizzle]

One thing this discussion does show is the difference between the casual fans who just like to watch a bit of cricket in the holidays, and those of us who watch religiously and have seen how far we've actually fallen from grace in the last decade.

and as you probabaly know I've been banging on about this for years, it affects our form overseas because we can only bat on roads and the hard pitches damage our bowlers who we keep criticising as being plastic because they are always broken

rock hard pitches like the MCG drop in are to blame for a lot of our injuries imo and we never had these issues till we started using drop in pitches

also the WACA lost its pace and bounce, Adelaide lost its ability to favour spinners and MCG has become a batting paradise instead of a result pitch

drop in pitches are just not cricket

 

[Bazal]

and as you probabaly know I've been banging on about this for years, it affects our form overseas because we can only bat on roads and the hard pitches damage our bowlers who we keep criticising as being plastic because they are always broken

rock hard pitches like the MCG drop in are to blame for a lot of our injuries imo and we never had these issues till we started using drop in pitches

also the WACA lost its pace and bounce, Adelaide lost its ability to favour spinners and MCG has become a batting paradise instead of a result pitch

drop in pitches are just not cricket

But it's not just the drop ins. The Gabba wicket this year was one of the least Gabba wickets I can remember seeing. There is a continuing trend towards pitches that offer less and less for the bowlers regardless of where they are grown

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

Of course it has to do with the surfaces. If you never play on a seaming wicket, how can you prepare for one when you head over to England? And how on earth do you figure it's going to make us perform worse at home? We won a world record number of tests in a row with varying home pitches....

Also, there is, in fact, a Test championship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICC_World_Test_Championship

One thing this discussion does show is the difference between the casual fans who just like to watch a bit of cricket in the holidays, and those of us who watch religiously and have seen how far we've actually fallen from grace in the last decade.

How do you not see that playing England on a seaming wicket at home increases their chances of winning? Or any visiting team in conditions they like? That's how we'll be worse at home, by your argument. We might well have won a record number of tests in a row on a variety of wickets but maybe it's because that team was great and not because of the pitches they'd experienced. Things often happen in cycles and for no discernible reason. Sometimes a good crop just comes through at the same time.

And I was right, there is no test grand final.

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

Ripper of a pitch, this...

 

[Bazal]

How do you not see that playing England on a seaming wicket at home increases their chances of winning? Or any visiting team in conditions they like? That's how we'll be worse at home, by your argument. We might well have won a record number of tests in a row on a variety of wickets but maybe it's because that team was great and not because of the pitches they'd experienced. Things often happen in cycles and for no discernible reason. Sometimes a good crop just comes through at the same time.

The wicket is still innately Australian FFS. There isn't a single pitch that bounces the way ours do in the English rotation, so the conditions don't favour them. How many Ashes series did they win out here with seaming decks at the Gabba, MCG and SCG in the 90s and early 2000s?

Just because it helps prepare our players for their conditions doesn't mean it favours them, it just means we're far less likely to fall to pieces and get seamed out for 60 before lunch at Trent Bridge because we know how to play a seaming ball.

And I was right, there is no test grand final.

"The 2019–21 ICC World Test Championship will be the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship of Test cricket.[1] It will start in July 2019 and finish with a final at Lord's in April 2021"

You reckon we'll get enough home tests to be runners up without winning overseas? I say runners up because good luck winning at Lords if we can't play a moving ball.

 

[Noise]

But it's not just the drop ins. The Gabba wicket this year was one of the least Gabba wickets I can remember seeing. There is a continuing trend towards pitches that offer less and less for the bowlers regardless of where they are grown

I'd argue that a game that gets a result on the 5th day is a pretty even contest between bat and ball. You obviously think differently. If we geared pitches more towards bowlers we'd have more 3-4 day tests. Is that what you'd prefer? (Not being a smart arse, genuinely asking)

 

[Bazal]

I'd argue that a game that gets a result on the 5th day is a pretty even contest between bat and ball. You obviously think differently. If we geared pitches more towards bowlers we'd have more 3-4 day tests. Is that what you'd prefer? (Not being a smart arse, genuinely asking)

Yes, honestly. Because it means the bowlers are in the game and asking the batsmen questions. In turn, the batsmen, or the next generation of batsmen, must improve against whatever it might be that is troubling them. Swing or seam or spin or bounce or whatever. At the moment we have a generation of flat track bullies. Sure, most tests might go the five days in Australia. We went 10 overs into day three at Trent Bridge in 2015, and it only went that deep because play was delayed two hours on day one. Surely it's better to be able to handle a variety of conditions? We talk about not caring when, say, the Windies come out here because the matches rarely go past day four even on roads. We are quickly becoming just as bad in certain conditions, but we're ok with that?

It seems to me that people have all but forgotten that we won all over the world when our pitches still offered something for the bowlers. Once we started flattening them out we became a laughing stock outside our own backyard. We're ranked below New Zealand....

 

[I'm a loser baby...]

The wicket is still innately Australian FFS. There isn't a single pitch that bounces the way ours do in the English rotation, so the conditions don't favour them. How many Ashes series did they win out here with seaming decks at the Gabba, MCG and SCG in the 90s and early 2000s?

Just because it helps prepare our players for their conditions doesn't mean it favours them, it just means we're far less likely to fall to pieces and get seamed out for 60 before lunch at Trent Bridge because we know how to play a seaming ball.



"The 2019–21 ICC World Test Championship will be the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship of Test cricket.[1] It will start in July 2019 and finish with a final at Lord's in April 2021"

You reckon we'll get enough home tests to be runners up without winning overseas? I say runners up because good luck winning at Lords if we can't play a moving ball.

The more you play on a surface the better you perform on that surface. So the less you play on a surface obviously the worse you perform. And you're wanting us to play less on these current decks but arguing that it won't make us any worse on them.

And I was being a smartarse about the grand final, as it isn't 2019 yet. But why shouldn't we make the final? And if we don't play England then we might win.