I don't often agree with Henderson... but every once in a while he really does dare to say what others dare not...My vote will always be for a tense Test match - Telegraph

First good find Rachael, and I agree with most he had to say - Getting rid of the county 60 over cricket was one of the ECB's worst moves.

I also agree over Adams, maybe he should be in Vaughan shoes at this very moment - he knows how to win.

Ramp's is playing the best cricket of his life - while the England top order are not - that is the difference between England and Australia, age was no barrier as long as a player performed like McGrath Langer and Warne.

I am of course only talking test cricket, and Henderson described the drama that can only come from a tense.test cricket match, such matches stay in peoples minds - I stuggle to keep one ODI in my mind, I can however can remember how Lancashire won the Gillette Cup around 9 PM in the dark, 60 over cricket although in some ways slower, was always better than it's shorted B&H counterpart, batsmen could play themselves in - and most of all they played proper cricket shots that did not help to bring down the standard of Test cricket to the lows of today.
Good name for a good threadstarter - we don't need lots of cheers to enjoy tense cricket, where there is a contest between bat and ball which has folk on the edge of their seats.

I did not agree with the title suggesting that test cricket neeeds defending, the game is still more popular with cricket lovers that it's poor reations 50/50 and 20/20.

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Ern

It's an old-fashioned view, but he's right about the silence. We live in an increasingly noisy world - walk along any high street, sit on any bus or train, and you will see it for yourself: a whole generation of people who are so afraid of silence that they stick i-Pod earsets into their heads whenever they are alone for a minute and often when they are not. It seems to me that no-one has time to reflect any more, and no-one is capable of concentrating on anything for more than a few minutes.

I can't remember the last time I went to a cricket match or a rugby game at which some bunch of idiots did not find it necessary to have a "Mexican Wave": this involves people who are not interested in the field action repeatedly leaping out of their seats and obscuring the views of those who are interested. And those who are interested - the ones who are not leaping around like crazy and shouting their mouths off - are derided as killjoys. Last weekend in Nantes, during one of the more exciting passages of play with Samoa genuinely threatening England at 26-22, the stadium was ringing not with cheers for the players, but with boos for those people who were trying to watch the game.

It's all very strange. I do wish people would sit down and shut up: sometimes there's some good cricket/rugby/football going on out there on the field that you paid good money to get to!

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

The sections highlighted in red are so very true. It's like that quiet, yet excitable murmur that goes through the crown prior to play on the first morning of a test.

God, i love test cricket.

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