And India getting windies 8 down for 135.
Saw a couple of overs earlier in the day and this seemed a pretty good batting wicket. Windies should just give up on tests altogether. Agreed it’s not a full strength windies side but it isn’t a full strength Indian side as well. This doesn’t bode well for Tests as much as Ashes and some other series make it a spectacle.
Read a Sports Illustrated article about the Windies just on 20 years ago now, possibly longer, with a dire outlook for the future of the game there. Struck me as being more pessimistic than I thought warranted, turned out to be absolutely spot on. Not sure how they turn it around.
Watched Fire in Babylon again last night, brilliant stuff. Grovel…….
So Jimmy’s back in the squad for the fourth test, replacing Robinson. Here’s hoping he can find his form on home soil. Looks like Mooen staying at No.3. He can do a job there - but not convinced as yet.
Don’t know why they insist on naming their team two days out, but it is as expected. Forecast looks dreadful from what I’ve seen.
Should get some play after lunch on Wed, Thurs and Friday look reasonably positive especially Thursday.
Met says Saturday has patches but BBC says full rain.
Sunday looks terrible.
Didn’t really read the article to find out why this is? Is it similar to Australia where certain state governments are doing massive upgrades on their grounds to ensure they are a lock in for future tournaments? Like Bellerive being squeezed out and being fed tournament scraps (being thrown a Bangladesh or Windies test is the best that can be expected these days), just an ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots like every other aspect of life.
Not read the article, but I think part of it is the number of grounds in UK that can bid to host tests and the ECB trying to spread the game.
I don’t have the info at hand, but when was the last test held in Southampton? or Cardiff? or Liverpool? or Durham? Has Cornwell or Devon ever hosted a test? or Sussex? or Kent?
The other aspect to consider is how the games function differently in Aus and UK. UK has the County Championship which is a 2 tier competition with promotion and relegation, where as the Sheffield Shield is competed by 6 state teams, but the competitions aim is to produce players able to compete for representing Australia - hence why it is extremely rare to see any of the State teams feature an international player. A vastly smaller competion with a smaller number of available grounds means that the grounds being picked will be the same more often than when you have a larger pool to pick from.
Having a look at cricket grounds in Australia vs England, Australia has many more larger capacity stadiums with better facilities than what is available in England - Australia has 22 10k+ stadiums vs Englands 12, 12 vs 4 for 20k+. In England, ground capacity is fairly even across all venues, so there would be less financial incentive to stick with the same venues every summer. The opposite of Australia where, even though smaller grounds are still well supported financially (because of how spread out towns are in Aus), the ‘state representing’ stadium has huge money pumped into it to make it difficult to avoid as a venue for tests given the gate receipts they would generate.
Probably helps for investment that the grounds are often shared with winter sports like AFL in Aus. It still shocks me the exclusivity of stadiums like Twickenham and Wembley. I don’t know if its just the stubborn nature of those running the sports that they continually turn their noses up to eachother? Or there a reason they don’t sometimes share their stadium? Crossover of seasons? Dimensions wrong? Or they think their grounds are sacred that shouldn’t be blemished with another sporting code? But watching Rugby League world cups being played in much smaller stadiums when it doesn’t look like Twickenham is being used just seems wrong and silly. Though tbf they probably couldn’t sell out a large stadium like that for RL in the UK anyway.
Rant over.
England doesn’t need a massive amount of grounds for test matches. No series is longer than five.
Why there is no Ashes test north of Trent Bridge next series is a mystery, but it looks a lot like the usual discrimination against the North.
Unless I’m wrong, the grounds bid for the right to host a test. Money talks. The ECB being obsessed with nothing but ££££££
Not sure Liverpool has a cricketing culture. Certainly don’t think any of the counties are based in Liverpool
Also , reckon Goodison Park would be redeveloped but won’t be a bad thing for the City to buy the ground and use it for Rugby / Cricket / Womens football etc.
I wouldn’t think they could fit a cricket ground into the footprint of a football ground, particularly one in a thick residential zone
Lancashire has the odd game at Liverpool cricket club (none this year iirc) but yeah, not as big in Liverpool as elswhere.
The club I’ve joined in the centre of Liverpool is full of Yorkshiremen! Still a fair few locals too, but football is quite clearly still the national sport of Liverpool.
They definitely wouldn’t.
If you look at how much space there is between the pitch and the crowd when the use somewhere like the MCG for a football game - it’s ridiculous.
Fair point. Then the other sports.
I too would prefer Goodison to be modified into a women’s stadium with small capacity and better facilities in the same footprint to make it a nicer occasion with fans closer to the action and more chance of a sellout.
Not a chance it will happen though. Everton will try to recoup whatever they can on the land and go the Arsenal route of high price apartments. Not that they need to recoup much given the dodgy and corrupt local government basically paid for everything.