chelstongull
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Post by chelstongull on Nov 27, 2012 20:01:53 GMT
It was in Monastery road, so thankfully Lord Chelston wasn't troubled although across the road in Frobisher we have got a Victor Meldrew ball confiscator/burster. Hard to believe, but thats what the lady opposite my land calls me! Can't think why? No, its people who feel the need to park/drive their vehicles over soft landscape that makes my blood boil  |
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Post by lambethgull on Nov 28, 2012 18:36:48 GMT
I think that would be very difficult to implement. There are so many variables involved in creating a good cricket pitch. A bad summer, unpredictable weather in the lead up to a test, a change in groundstaff etc. Then there's the unpredictability of batting itself, and we've all witnessed the phenomenon of batting collapses on "good pitches". I guess you could have a panel of ground staff, umpires and senior ex-players to grade a pitch before a test. You could then build up a picture of teams and groundstaff producing consistently 'bad' pitches. But I still think it would be difficult to implement. For a start off, a groundsman working in England in a normal summer (let alone one like the one we've just had) will have a more difficult job than a groundsman in Sydney with their more predictable conditions. How do you produce a standard that applies equally across the board? You could never produce a standard that applies equally across the board of course, and of course recent weather etc always plays a part. You could have panels and penalties etc and I'm sure you're right that it would be difficult to implement, although it did the trick in the county championship a few years ago when teams were often docked 25pts at a time, counties soon got their act together....the pitches in England are now probably the best in the world in terms of fairness to both sides. My point really was that if you expect people to turn up and pay good money, they want to be entertained, not bored to death as both sides rack up 500 in their first innings and it ends up as an inevitable draw. Test matches in most of the world apart from here and Australia are played out in sparsely populated huge stadiums (countries like NZ it attracts one man and his dog) - If it was staged to entertain the paying public, they would come back.... ....although TUFC is probably not a good example of this as no matter how good the footy has been for the last 6 or 7 years, we still don't get more in  I agree with most of what you’re saying. I don’t know how it works in County Cricket, but my understanding is that the ECB’s pitch panels assess pitches on their quality, with sanctions levied when a pitch is deemed to be ‘unfit’ i.e. of poor quality, with uneven bounce or even dangerous conditions (eg: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/14263664 and www.wccc.co.uk/news/edgbaston-pitch-rated-poor-ecb-pitch-panel). Not because batsmen keep scoring tonnes of runs on them. But even if fines are dished out for that in County Cricket, there’s still a lot less variation between conditions in Lancashire and Surrey than there is between Manchester, Sydney and Chennai. Then there’s the subjective element of what constitutes an exciting or predictable pitch, and how much those elements contributed to a dull game of cricket. But then maybe I’m just looking out for the interests of groundsmen. After all, I’m far more adept with the mower and scarifier than I am with bat or ball  |
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Post by jmgull on Nov 30, 2012 21:49:51 GMT
You could never produce a standard that applies equally across the board of course, and of course recent weather etc always plays a part. You could have panels and penalties etc and I'm sure you're right that it would be difficult to implement, although it did the trick in the county championship a few years ago when teams were often docked 25pts at a time, counties soon got their act together....the pitches in England are now probably the best in the world in terms of fairness to both sides. My point really was that if you expect people to turn up and pay good money, they want to be entertained, not bored to death as both sides rack up 500 in their first innings and it ends up as an inevitable draw. Test matches in most of the world apart from here and Australia are played out in sparsely populated huge stadiums (countries like NZ it attracts one man and his dog) - If it was staged to entertain the paying public, they would come back.... ....although TUFC is probably not a good example of this as no matter how good the footy has been for the last 6 or 7 years, we still don't get more in I agree with most of what you’re saying. I don’t know how it works in County Cricket, but my understanding is that the ECB’s pitch panels assess pitches on their quality, with sanctions levied when a pitch is deemed to be ‘unfit’ i.e. of poor quality, with uneven bounce or even dangerous conditions (eg: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/14263664 and www.wccc.co.uk/news/edgbaston-pitch-rated-poor-ecb-pitch-panel). Not because batsmen keep scoring tonnes of runs on them. But even if fines are dished out for that in County Cricket, there’s still a lot less variation between conditions in Lancashire and Surrey than there is between Manchester, Sydney and Chennai. Then there’s the subjective element of what constitutes an exciting or predictable pitch, and how much those elements contributed to a dull game of cricket. But then maybe I’m just looking out for the interests of groundsmen. After all, I’m far more adept with the mower and scarifier than I am with bat or ball My point about the pitch panels over here, was that they were brought it in because wickets were being deliberately doctored......the points deductions served their purpose and generally we produce good cricket wickets now overall. Could be a bit of a factor in why England have done so well over the last decade or so, certainly can't have hurt. Slightly bowler friendly pitches are fine lambie - they make for entertaining cricket, it's the doctored docile ones that are killing Test Cricket in some parts of the world (mainly asia) and it's not the fault of the groundsman, more the Countries involved. In my first post on the test the other day, I was surprised and so were the pundits that the pitch offered so much bounce, which certainly didn't suit the indians. Having gone 1 up, you would expect that the pitches would be prepared in a way to make it hard for England to draw level in the series, as that is what usually happens. It's been happening for far too long and one of the reasons that the likes of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan are so hard to beat in their backyard is that the wickets are often prepared to be so alien to the other test playing countries - i.e slow, low bounce and generally sluggish - hard to bowl teams out and hard to score at a decent rate but easy to stay in on, these are the kind of wickets that produce so many draws and so much dull cricket. Cricket is by far and away the most popular sports in these countries - they are cricket mad, as we all know billions of dollars are bet on a series...... The stadiums are virtually empty for what should be the biggest matches off all.....the Test matches because by and large, they aren't worth the entrance money. |
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Post by lambethgull on Dec 1, 2012 23:41:52 GMT
Slightly bowler friendly pitches are fine lambie - they make for entertaining cricket, it's the doctored docile ones that are killing Test Cricket in some parts of the world (mainly asia) and it's not the fault of the groundsman, more the Countries involved. I just think it's easier to spot pitches that are poorly maintained or have uneven surfaces and punish teams for that than it would be to punish teams for producing pitches that are too friendly for batsmen. You could have inspections at the next Test venue in the days before a test, but I still think it would be difficult |
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rjdgull
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Post by rjdgull on Dec 5, 2012 16:24:53 GMT
After losing the toss again, we were able to restrict India to 267-7 on what is said to be a good batting surface! Nice to see Anderson do well with some reverse swing. They still can't bat!  |
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Post by jmgull on Dec 5, 2012 20:29:26 GMT
After losing the toss again, we were able to restrict India to 267-7 on what is said to be a good batting surface! Nice to see Anderson do well with some reverse swing. They still can't bat! It certainly is a good batting surface, the odd one jumped a bit every now and again but the pitch is very easy paced and although it's sure to turn more from day 3 onwards, it will be nothing like Mumbai, a batsman has far more time to adjust his shot to the turning ball on wickets like these - a draw here is still favourite I reckon. Was a sound move, dropping the out of form Broad and replacing him with Finn, who although, unluckily for him, didn't take a wicket put enough pressure on the batters to help Anderson's cause. When a bowling attack is firing, they hunt in pairs - the fact that Broad kept going for 4 or 5 an over one end, without looking threatening means that the batters are more relaxed when facing the far better bowler in Anderson the other end and can just concentrate on keeping him out as the scoring rate is already going along nicely. In Mumbai Panesar took the plaudits, I believe though that Swann's performance in that game was as good, if not better than Monty's, especially when you remember that the pitch suited Monty's extra pace far more. To bowl a team out cheaply, you have to create pressure from both ends, often one guy will get more wickets because the batsman have to take chances and play shots because they can't get the other bowler away. Panesar bowled superbly taking 11 for 210 in a marathon 69 overs, no way he would have done so well if Swann was going for 3 or 4 an over the other end - Swann bowled 52 overs in the match and took 9 for 113 barely 2 an over. 273 for 7 on that pitch is a tremendous effort so far, especially when you remember that India have scored 600+ in their last 3 first innings at this ground. |
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rjdgull
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Post by rjdgull on Dec 10, 2012 17:42:27 GMT
273 for 7 on that pitch is a tremendous effort so far, especially when you remember that India have scored 600+ in their last 3 first innings at this ground. It was that effort coupled with our first innings score which won us the match. The Indian batting line up seems to be brittle at present and take out the bit of batting at either end of their second innings and 111-9 is pretty dreadful in those conditions. Nice to see Finn get a few and the quicks seemed to make the difference in this game!  1985 seems a long time ago when we last won over there and we have a great chance of doing just that. You can bet anything that there will be something in the wicket for the last game and just maybe we can actually win the toss as that makes a big difference, even though we have won batting second the last two games! |
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Post by lambethgull on Dec 10, 2012 21:45:01 GMT
England's bowlers and batsman have made India look ordinary for sure and to do that in India takes some doing. But you do have to query why such a cricketing superpower have been so poor on their own turf.
When we dominated them in England a couple of summers back the excuse was that they'd been on tour for ages and were homesick, but I'm not sure that excuse is available this time.
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rjdgull
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Post by rjdgull on Dec 10, 2012 23:00:37 GMT
England's bowlers and batsman have made India look ordinary for sure and to do that in India takes some doing. But you do have to query why such a cricketing superpower have been so poor on their own turf. When we dominated them in England a couple of summers back the excuse was that they'd been on tour for ages and were homesick, but I'm not sure that excuse is available this time. I think the IPL is having a detrimental effect, pretty much earning on a par with a premiership footballer for a month or so! Therefore the focus shifts as the big money now lies elsewhere.... indiatoday.intoday.in/story/ipl-auction-2012-live/1/171980.html |
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Post by jmgull on Dec 10, 2012 23:10:50 GMT
England's bowlers and batsman have made India look ordinary for sure and to do that in India takes some doing. But you do have to query why such a cricketing superpower have been so poor on their own turf. When we dominated them in England a couple of summers back the excuse was that they'd been on tour for ages and were homesick, but I'm not sure that excuse is available this time. The last 10-20 years has been a bit of a golden era for them - they have had such an embarrassment of riches to choose from, these things tend to be cyclical though and they have now lost some superb players recently due to retirement, the likes of Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly - and have really missed them. It has still left several in that side, whose careers now seem, due to age, on the way down rather than up - Gambhir, Zaheer Khan, Sehwag and even the master himself Tendulkar. They haven't bought on the next generation at the same time and now seem to be paying the price for it, I guess it must be difficult for the India selectors - a lot of these players are like Gods in that cricket mad country.......dropping some of them can't have been easy, even though they've been in slow but steady decline over the last few years. The Indian approach to a test series is to enable their players to "rest" as much as possible before and during the series, compared to the England ethos of a heavy work ethic, which seems to me to be far more suited to the modern, high pressure test series. I guess when you're team is as talented as India's has been for the last couple of decades......you can get away with it - not now though by the looks of the huge gulf in the fielding between the two sides. |
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tufc01
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Post by tufc01 on Dec 11, 2012 18:57:26 GMT
England's bowlers and batsman have made India look ordinary for sure and to do that in India takes some doing. But you do have to query why such a cricketing superpower have been so poor on their own turf. When we dominated them in England a couple of summers back the excuse was that they'd been on tour for ages and were homesick, but I'm not sure that excuse is available this time. The last 10-20 years has been a bit of a golden era for them - they have had such an embarrassment of riches to choose from, these things tend to be cyclical though and they have now lost some superb players recently due to retirement, the likes of Dravid, Laxman, Ganguly - and have really missed them. It has still left several in that side, whose careers now seem, due to age, on the way down rather than up - Gambhir, Zaheer Khan, Sehwag and even the master himself Tendulkar. They haven't bought on the next generation at the same time and now seem to be paying the price for it, I guess it must be difficult for the India selectors - a lot of these players are like Gods in that cricket mad country.......dropping some of them can't have been easy, even though they've been in slow but steady decline over the last few years. The Indian approach to a test series is to enable their players to "rest" as much as possible before and during the series, compared to the England ethos of a heavy work ethic, which seems to me to be far more suited to the modern, high pressure test series. I guess when you're team is as talented as India's has been for the last couple of decades......you can get away with it - not now though by the looks of the huge gulf in the fielding between the two sides. They seem to have found a decent one in Ashwin though. Can't be far off being India's top Bowler AND Battsman for this series? Was hoping he would reach his century on Sunday, it would have been fully deserved and wouldn't have affected the result. It's been a while since India had a decent all rounder, probably since Kapel Dev back in the eighties. I think we will be hearing a lot more about him over the next few years. The Indians do like their 'hereos ' and he looks like he could be their next one. Talking of Indian heroes, Tendulkar has had a very quiet series but retains his place in the side (like he was ever going to be dropped) which I don't think will worry England too much who I believe have his measure right now. (That has the potential to come back and bite me on the arse  ) It was nice of the groundsman at Kolkata to produce a pitch in our favour, much to the bemusement of the Indians and in particular Dhoni, however not sure it would have made an awful lot of difference. Apart from the first couple of days of the first test we have outplayed them in every department, beaten them at their own game. There is a strong possibility of making it 3-1 over the coming days and a win that I would never have thought possible before the tour started. That said I didn't realise how poor the Indian side had become. |
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