[bazzap]

Stating the bloody obvious I know but it is the same question that everybody is asking.


How can England's team with so many world-class limited-over cricket players be performing so badly? Not just a couple of them but probably the whole team is playing sub-par cricket, especially by their lofty standards of the last 6-7 years. Nobody stays at the top forever but this is a monumental failure. From World Cup champions in T20 a year ago to running 10th (out of 10) two-thirds of the way through the current WC.


Reading many comments on the usual platforms (BBC website, Facebook etc), The Hundred seems to get the blame for everything whenever England lose a game in any format. Is that really the reason? Other causes to blame seem to be the ECB, the player contracts, the coaching staff, too much emphasis on women's cricket, players being too old, etc etc.


Surely, as an aside, it can't be playing in India being an issue these days, could it? All international cricketers play everywhere these days. I remember Shane Warne complaining that there were no baked beans available about 25 years ago. Dean Jones was physically ill in 1986 in the Madras tied test when Border told him he could not come off

More than once he vomited and, to his acute embarrassment, urinated in his flannels, which were already soaked from such painful exertion. But while he had no control over his bodily functions, his mind somehow remained focused on the task assigned by his captain, Allan Border.

Famously goaded by Border when he sought to withdraw at 174, Jones reached 210 before his body finally ground to a halt and he was bowled by off-spinner Shivlal Yadav.

Source The Disintegrating Hero


Why can't Australian cricket have hard bastards like Border, Ian Chappell, Steve Waugh as captains anymore? These days we get pampering pretty boys and cry babies as our Test cricket captains FFS!!!


My personal favourite was in the 50s & 60s when hundreds of Indians in the crowd would hold mirrors and direct light into the opposing batsman's eyes as the bowler let the ball go.



I digress (as usual). I hope this ODI form loss does not carry over to the English Test team as they have been the in-form team for the last 18 months. An Indian 5 Test tour starting in January will be their next challenge. That will be interesting to watch. Following that, the Poms play Tests against the West Indies and Sri Lanka in the 2024 English summer. Those should be near walkovers. Interspersed with that is a load of T20 and ODI international games plus all the T20 leagues.


While I am dribbling on, the Australian Test summer starts in December with Tests against Pakistan and the West Indies at home followed by two Tests against the Kiwis in NZ. No more Tests after that until the end of 2024. At the moment anyway.


It will be nearly 24/7 live cricket again over the New Year/January/February period plus in April/May the cricket world stops for the IPL.




Getting a bit much for this old fella