English Cricket going down hill?

[Beny]

I'm not having a go at you here but I thought it might be interesting to get you're views on the matter. As Rachel pointed out on another thread, it seems that no player from recent generations would make her top 11.
So Is English cricekt suffering?

From an Australian perspective I know that thanks to the commercialsation (wow that's a tricky one) of both sports, Kids are being forced to choose one or the other. A perfect example is a guy called Brett Delidio. This guy is expected to be the number 1 draft pick for the AFL this year. However I remember him scoring 200 in last years u/17 state tournament and it seems that Hooksy (late victorian coach) offered him a rookie contratct at the end of last year in a bid to keep him in the sport. The same goes for a lot of players in the AFL right now. Cupido was great, Scott e.c.t these guys were in some cases awsome but lost their way and wanderd into the arms of football. In times past they could have played both but now it is impossible.

I know the Philip Nevill was a good cricketer but ended up playing football (should have stayed with cricket if you ask me).

What do you lot think?

[Rachael]

I'm not convinced, personally, that there ever was a great hey-dey of great players in this country. Even so.. we've endures some pretty lean years: Atherton, Thorpe, Russell and Fraser papered over the cracks a little... as (to a lesser extent) did Gough and Caddick... but the fact that Tufnell is pretty much the best spinner we've seen and that a guy like Stewart was actually one of our strongest batsmen of his generation says a lot.

Look at the positives: we had something decent on the batting and wicket-keeping side of things when cricket was played at every public school in the land and on every village green in the south of England (source of almost all our batsmen)... and we always seemed able to find some rough diamonds of fast bowlers from somewhere in the days when the northern lads still treated cricket as their national sport.. and we had a wonderful era of finger spinning on uncovered wickets in the era of Laker, Lock and Wardle.

Sadly.. in the past few years we've had some imported successes (decent but not sensational) like Robin Smith... we've had some self-made successes from very driven characters (Gooch, Hussain).. and we've seen a lot of people who COULD have been all time greats simply fail: Gower heads the cast list.. but is followed by everyone from Hick and Ramps through Lewis to Caddick, Malcolm and Tufnell.

Strikes me that given Australian sporting culture, climate, pitches and sporting infrastructure we'd have seen rather greater success.. but in those few words you have the key difference between the nations.. and the key reasons why Atherton, Thorpe, Russell and Fraser are pretty well the only players of recent vintage who would have looked the part in a truly great team.

ps. you could say something pretty much equivalent about muscular, route one English football and some turgid English Rugby if you put your mind to it: it's only the emergence of guys like Fletcher, Marsh, Clive Woodward, Ericson and the like that seems to be changing things around here

[Richie Benauds Love Child]

If anything, we're on the up a bit. We've always manages one decent seamer (none that get over 300 wickets) but our batting isnt consistant enough.

When you look at the top 10 run scorers or wicket takers and if memory serves the only modern era player is beefy, and how long ago is since he's played ? If harmo, surely the best hope england have got to get a 300 wicket bowler, can fulfill his promise we will look better. Batters? Not sure if any of our current line up will be beating Gowers (?) record of highest english run scorer anytime soon, although arguably Vaughan is as talented.

[Ernest]

Tell you what Beny, England have struggled over the past few years, up until now, because we never had a decent batting team.

No matter how well our bowlers did, the batting was famous for it's tendency to collapse.
Well we have a good bowling line up, with decent if not star batting, but bowlers win matches, and Australia need a replacement soon for McGrath, and maybe Warne, and 9 out of 10, Lee is not good enough to play fro Bangladesh.

So the question is in reverse, is Australia on it's way out.
And dont take any comfort from your 3-1 series win in India, India are a better team than they showed, and where unlucky not to square the series because the rain ruined the match.

No stats, no ratings, no numbers, man for man, England I would say are now superior to Australia,

Ern

[Rachael]

Beny wasn't asking about "right here, right now" Ernest: that's a question that wil only be answered in time. The query was to do with the standard of English cricketers over the last generation or so... in which (I think it's fair to say) English cricketers have not done a fat lot to set the world alight.

Boils down to this: why were solid but unspectacular performers like Atherton, Thorpe, Russell and Fraser pretty much the highpoints of English cricket for a generation... and so soon after the generation or two that saw the likes of Hutton, Boycott, Gooch, May, Compton, Barrington, Cowdrey, Graveney, Evans, Knott, Botham, Wardle, Laker, Lock, Underwood, Snow, Trueman, Statham, Bedser, Tyson and so on.

It may well be that with the academy in place we have finally turned the corner on this relatively ignominious phase in the history of English cricket.... and that brighter days are imminent.. but in terms of Beny's question that's pretty irrelevent: why is it that the English, unlike the Aussies, did not sustain a production line of really top drawer players through the 80s and 90s?

ps.. I don't get this thing about recent England sides having been weak, first and foremost, in terms of bowling: can you not recall the era in which Fraser, and Fraser alone, carried the England side... or the years of struggle to get by with Gough, Caddick, Cork and co.... and the generation long search for successors to Edmonds and Embury?

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Rachael

Beny wasn't asking about "right here, right now" Ernest: that's a question that wil only be answered in time. The query was to do with the standard of English cricketers over the last generation or so.

We have had good to great players in the last generation or so, but as a team England have never played up to expectations, despite having players the like of Gower ect

Originally Posted by Rachael

ps.. I don't get this thing about recent England sides having been weak, first and foremost, in terms of bowling: can you not recall the era in which Fraser, and Fraser alone, carried the England side... or the years of struggle to get by with Gough, Caddick, Cork and co.... and the generation long search for successors to Edmonds and Embury?

Could be you have got me wrong here, or I have not explained myself correctly.:--

Originally Posted by Ernest

Tell you what Beny, England have struggled over the past few years, up until now, because we never had a decent batting team.

This is true to a degree, Englands bowling while not ever being in the class of the great West Indians/Australians, have never really let England down.
Hendrick/Old/Botham/fraser/Embury/Caddick/Gough/Underwood/Cork/White ect, always bowled their hearts out, and never let England down.Time and time again they would bowl other teams out, only to find that the England batsmen never even put up a fight.

For instance I watched a match, and England had restricted the mighty West Indians to just over 200, Gooch put on over 100, cant remember his partner, but the rest of the team just folded, Ambrose or Garner had put the pressure on, not sure, and Viv Richard ended up getting top wickets.
This was atypical of England in the most of the 80s and 90s, with odd exceptions.
My point being over the last 25 years, our batting has never backed up our bowling.
We have found successors to Caddick and Gough, and Giles does a job to a degree, but what happened to players like Peter Such, Croft got a bad deal, the list is endless.

[Mike]

England Test Caps: 80's - 57; 90's - 58
Australian Test Caps: 80's - 40; 90's - 34

Let the stats do the talking: In the past, England experimented with new players too often. During Australia's decline in the 80's they still managed to resist the temptation of constantly trying new players. Australia may be criticised now for having an aged side but look at the success they had in the 90's by keeping the influx of new players down to a minimum. I hope England can reduce the number of new caps this decade and try and build a solid team with experience. That should bring them more success.

New caps since 2000:

601 CP Schofield
602 MJ Hoggard
603 ME Trescothick
604 RJ Sidebottom
605 IJ Ward
606 U Afzaal
607 J Ormond
608 RKJ Dawson
609 JS Foster
610 SP Jones
611 SJ Harmison
612 RWT Key
613 JM Anderson
614 A McGrath
615 RL Johnson
616 RJ Kirtley
617 ET Smith
618 Kabir Ali
619 GJ Batty
620 R Clarke
621 MJ Saggers
622 PD Collingwood
623 GO Jones
624 AJ Strauss
625 IR Bell

Well, we're halfway through the decade and 24 players have already been tried at Test level. Still way too many at this stage. Many of these players got Test caps as stop-gap measures. The England team need to build a more stable team and keep faith with the existing players instead of rotating new players through so often.

[Ernest]

602 MJ Hoggard
603 ME Trescothick
610 SP Jones
611 SJ Harmison
612 RWT Key
613 JM Anderson
619 GJ Batty ***
622 PD Collingwood
623 GO Jones
624 AJ Strauss

Well they are keeping the faith with at least 9 of your list, 10 if you include Batty, who is still part of the England set up I think.

I know what you mean though, this excesive selection policy has gone on for a couple of decades at least.

Ern

[Mike]

612 RWT Key
613 JM Anderson
619 GJ Batty ***
622 PD Collingwood
623 GO Jones

These guys haven't established themselves in the team, yet, and Bell and Pietersen are knocking on the door. So we haven't seen the last of the changes this decade. But we need to keep it down to a minimum. Butcher, Thorpe and Hoggard will need to be replaced before the decade is out - that's three more. So do we need to give 20 new caps?

[Mike]

So 24 new players have been tried this decade, so far. That suggests there have been quite a few retirements since 2000. Who are they?

Atherton, Hussain, Stewart, Adams, Hamilton, Caddick, Gough, Mullally, Ramprakash, Hick, Knight, Giddins, White, Cork, Croft, Tufnell, Crawley, Bicknell.

I assume we won't see these guys in a Test match again although some of them are still playing first-class cricket.

Of those 18 players, could you pick a decent Test team?

Atherton, Knight, Hick, Hussain, Ramprakash, Stewart+, White, Tufnell, Caddick, Gough, Mullally.

This team wouldn't beat the current team, I don't think.