We grew up with Boycott and hearing him commentate.Simply loving it,partly coz of the accent too.He is an idol you've smashed with well collected and reasoned data.It was not there then,perhaps.It was pure gut feel and experience. Yes, digitisation and T20 helped you bring down our Yorkshire royal
They certainly played a lot of cricket back then. It's also rare for Boycott to be wrong on something related to his career. He may simply have misspoken.
I think there is a strong argument the Root is an anomaly that can't really be used to justify any position on English cricket, he is good despite whatever messed up all of England's other batsmen.
But, if you're going to compare to the 'Good Old Days', it's not the Boycott era, but the 2000's that should be the comparison. Between Vaughan in '99 and Trott in '09 England had 9 batters debut and go on to average over 40 (min 20 inns). Since then they have had 3 average over 35; Root, Stokes & Ballance.
Personally I think the problem is the move from having most of the Championship games in the summer months (June, July, August) to the fringes of the season. From 2000 to 2009 the only season with under 20% of the Championship in August (for Warwickshire) was 2003, from 2010 to 2019 it was only over in 2012.
To my mind, the problem with T20 cricket for England is not any direct impact on player techniques, but the decision to give over much of the limited hot, dry weather we get in England to it.
Basically every cricketer in the world grew up with more (or the same amount) of white ball (or limited overs) cricket since 1990. Not to mention that most players since then also played a huge amount of ODIs (and then T20Is) as well. Root, Pope and Crawley had similar preparation. But so did Bell, Cook, Kp, Trott, Strauss, Collingwood, etc, etc. Elgar, Karunaratne and Latham all played more white ball cricket than red ball when coming through. It is simply impossible unless you are like a Brathwaite specialist to play more red ball. And there has been no influx of red ball only players dominating, not even the Test specialists are taking over. So the entire argument is so weird. April and May are pretty much the same as June, July and August, in terms of averages. The only month that is tough to bat is September. But that could be that the pitches are fucked after the summer. So I really don't think one bad month is the problem.
My point, simplistically, is that if you're playing your red ball cricket in April, you're picking Darren Stevens, if you're playing in August, you might be picking Rashid. So the shift in when you have cricket might not have any impact on averages overall, but different players might do well or badly, different players might not be selected. This could be actual differences in conditions, or perceived.
I'm too lazy to look into this properly but I would be interested to compare the average weather for domestic first class and Tests in the Test nations. I did have a look at comparing average temperatures for Warwickshire in the Championship last summer (16 C) with that in the Tests (21 C). I don't know how much this will change the play due to pitches, overhead conditions, ability to spin the ball, etc. but there is a difference there.
To come back to the comparison of the last two decades in England, there has been a clear drop in player quality. I agree that it's probably not white ball cricket as there is probably not much difference in quantity, though talented players are probably more likely to go white ball only now. It could be a change in quality or quantity of academies, A teams, international coaching, or simply selection. It may also just be random.
The key point is that whatever has gone wrong with English Test cricket, it looks like it is a thing that has gone wrong, rather than is fundamentally wrong. So before saying that the solution is to scrap half the counties or go to franchises, as several have over the last few months, I think the ECB need to look at what has changed. Also, what improved English cricket compared to the '90s.
We grew up with Boycott and hearing him commentate.Simply loving it,partly coz of the accent too.He is an idol you've smashed with well collected and reasoned data.It was not there then,perhaps.It was pure gut feel and experience. Yes, digitisation and T20 helped you bring down our Yorkshire royal
They certainly played a lot of cricket back then. It's also rare for Boycott to be wrong on something related to his career. He may simply have misspoken.
You are kind.And thanks for that
I think there is a strong argument the Root is an anomaly that can't really be used to justify any position on English cricket, he is good despite whatever messed up all of England's other batsmen.
But, if you're going to compare to the 'Good Old Days', it's not the Boycott era, but the 2000's that should be the comparison. Between Vaughan in '99 and Trott in '09 England had 9 batters debut and go on to average over 40 (min 20 inns). Since then they have had 3 average over 35; Root, Stokes & Ballance.
Personally I think the problem is the move from having most of the Championship games in the summer months (June, July, August) to the fringes of the season. From 2000 to 2009 the only season with under 20% of the Championship in August (for Warwickshire) was 2003, from 2010 to 2019 it was only over in 2012.
To my mind, the problem with T20 cricket for England is not any direct impact on player techniques, but the decision to give over much of the limited hot, dry weather we get in England to it.
Basically every cricketer in the world grew up with more (or the same amount) of white ball (or limited overs) cricket since 1990. Not to mention that most players since then also played a huge amount of ODIs (and then T20Is) as well. Root, Pope and Crawley had similar preparation. But so did Bell, Cook, Kp, Trott, Strauss, Collingwood, etc, etc. Elgar, Karunaratne and Latham all played more white ball cricket than red ball when coming through. It is simply impossible unless you are like a Brathwaite specialist to play more red ball. And there has been no influx of red ball only players dominating, not even the Test specialists are taking over. So the entire argument is so weird. April and May are pretty much the same as June, July and August, in terms of averages. The only month that is tough to bat is September. But that could be that the pitches are fucked after the summer. So I really don't think one bad month is the problem.
My point, simplistically, is that if you're playing your red ball cricket in April, you're picking Darren Stevens, if you're playing in August, you might be picking Rashid. So the shift in when you have cricket might not have any impact on averages overall, but different players might do well or badly, different players might not be selected. This could be actual differences in conditions, or perceived.
I'm too lazy to look into this properly but I would be interested to compare the average weather for domestic first class and Tests in the Test nations. I did have a look at comparing average temperatures for Warwickshire in the Championship last summer (16 C) with that in the Tests (21 C). I don't know how much this will change the play due to pitches, overhead conditions, ability to spin the ball, etc. but there is a difference there.
To come back to the comparison of the last two decades in England, there has been a clear drop in player quality. I agree that it's probably not white ball cricket as there is probably not much difference in quantity, though talented players are probably more likely to go white ball only now. It could be a change in quality or quantity of academies, A teams, international coaching, or simply selection. It may also just be random.
The key point is that whatever has gone wrong with English Test cricket, it looks like it is a thing that has gone wrong, rather than is fundamentally wrong. So before saying that the solution is to scrap half the counties or go to franchises, as several have over the last few months, I think the ECB need to look at what has changed. Also, what improved English cricket compared to the '90s.