7 thoughts on “The CRICKETher Weekly – Episode 178”
Loved this weeks ‘ranty’ pod. Yes the resting of players is deeply disrespectful to the SL series and may well come back to bite them on the bum (although Ecclestone’s injury today would probably have ruled her our anyway), but I was also surprised not to see more of them rested. You can see from the form of some in The Hundred that they are absolutely knackered and dead on their feet. Also, England has form for picking players with absolutely no chance of playing them, Cross has been in every T20 squad (bar West Indies Series) since Commonwealth Games and has not played once. Loved the idea of resting is the new dropped though 😂😉
So, er, does anyone have any idea what the England v Sri Lanka series is ? Clearly it is not the best eleven cricketers that England have verses the best eleven cricketers that Sri Lanka have (although the latter half of this statement might be true) so what am I being asked to pay to watch ? Perhaps some sort of training exercise but with pricing that doesn’t reflect this ?
Getting an England cap used to be a prized procession. It now seems to be way back in the queue behind just about any smash-it tournament on the planet.
Let’s be clear about this – mucking about and mis-managing players makes a farce of the sport, undermines its credibility, makes it pretty pointless and will ultimately drive away spectators.
I rarely if ever mention specific players on here – probably a good job because there are so many selections that warrant a decent plausible explanation. Sadly, the explanations given suggest we are going to remain in the dark ages of ECB media spin.
Right, here’s my take on the England-Sri Lanka squads. I think the main quibble here should be with the iT20 squad. The ODI squad is more “sensible” in that it has fewer players who will obviously not play a major role in some department. The only ways in which the ODI squad is different than perhaps expected is: 1) No Dunkley. I think Dunkley has effectively been dropped… she has had a poor-ish summer really and has never looked in control in her innings. Ironically though, she has recently started to play better again. 50 overs is not necessarily her best format so I don’t think this decision is particularly surprising or particularly unjustified. 2) No Ecclestone. I think as we said back at the start of the Ashes, Ecclestone was so heavily used, she had a huge workload and is now being rested. She has picked up a leg niggle already. I see no real problem with giving her a much-needed rest… England need to learn how to play and how to win without Ecclestone, and so given that, what other series would you suggest we do it in? Unless we start scheduling in extra series against Ireland or something for development purposes, series against sides outside the top four / five in the world are the only opportunities to do this. I’m not sure it’s “disrespectful” as such, but we’ll have to see how England actually play and if it looks like we’ve taken things for granted. 3) No Wyatt. Given Wyatt was brought into the ODI side mainly to play the “finishing” role in the late middle order, and has done a good job at it, it’s pretty much mission accomplished for her. Wyatt has also played a lot of cricket. I think her role is an open position which could be taken up by a number of other players (Bouchier/Gibson/Heath), so again not too much of an issue with leaving her out here. So the ODI squad, which is what the Women’s Championship points are based on, is not that outlandish in my eyes.
Now, to that iT20 squad, which I’ll admit looks risky, strange and unbalanced: Assuming Wong and Kemp will not bowl, our pace bowling options are limited to Bell, Cross, Filer, Gaur and Gibson. So I feel this time that Cross may have to play a role, as we’re otherwise seriously lacking in experience. Spin is also potentially lacking if there are any problems with Dean or Glenn – Capsey or Knight may have to bowl a good few overs. The batting is a bit more well catered for though, although there are many deserving players who appeared to have been dropped despite very decent performances – among them Bryony Smith, ADR etc. Also an argument for a replacement spinner for Ecclestone (there are many options, L. Smith, Higham, Baker, Smale, Gordon, Levick to name but a few). The most staggering omission though has to be Beaumont. Although she will surely play in the ODIs, how much more does she have to do in shortest formats? Incredible and inconceivable really, that she’s not in this iT20 squad. And assuming Wong doesn’t play, surely we should have brought in another bowler to round out the attack?! It’s bizarre. To me Jon Lewis seems to be a bit too obsessed with brining in new pace bowlers and is doing that a little too soon.
On the South Africa thing, it’s very strange goings on indeed. We’ve seen a recent increase in examples of “player power” where groups of players in women’s sport have voiced collective discontent with some aspect of their management, be it pay, training, preparation, problems with the manager etc. We’ve seen with the Spain national women’s football team how this doesn’t necessarily impact what happens in-game, but that depends on having a lot of very capable back-up players able to take the place of anyone who is removed, or removes themselves, from squad selection. I’m not sure SA have the squad depth to do that and not suffer badly from it. So CSA are playing a risky game causing this dissatisfaction in the camp. And yes, 11 years is far too long for a single coach to be at the helm, it’s not as is he has won loads of world cups along the way. I would say it is long overdue time for Moreeng to step aside, and get someone in with a new perspective – anything less is very disrespectful to the players.
CRICKETher 
Loved this weeks ‘ranty’ pod. Yes the resting of players is deeply disrespectful to the SL series and may well come back to bite them on the bum (although Ecclestone’s injury today would probably have ruled her our anyway), but I was also surprised not to see more of them rested. You can see from the form of some in The Hundred that they are absolutely knackered and dead on their feet. Also, England has form for picking players with absolutely no chance of playing them, Cross has been in every T20 squad (bar West Indies Series) since Commonwealth Games and has not played once. Loved the idea of resting is the new dropped though 😂😉
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I actually think that Cross will play a role in the T20 series this time, the other pace bowlers in the squad have little international experience.
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So, er, does anyone have any idea what the England v Sri Lanka series is ? Clearly it is not the best eleven cricketers that England have verses the best eleven cricketers that Sri Lanka have (although the latter half of this statement might be true) so what am I being asked to pay to watch ? Perhaps some sort of training exercise but with pricing that doesn’t reflect this ?
Getting an England cap used to be a prized procession. It now seems to be way back in the queue behind just about any smash-it tournament on the planet.
Let’s be clear about this – mucking about and mis-managing players makes a farce of the sport, undermines its credibility, makes it pretty pointless and will ultimately drive away spectators.
I rarely if ever mention specific players on here – probably a good job because there are so many selections that warrant a decent plausible explanation. Sadly, the explanations given suggest we are going to remain in the dark ages of ECB media spin.
LikeLike
Well according to Jon Lewis “(England) see this as an important series to test the depth of playing pool.” Whatever that means!
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Yep, that sounds like ECB media spin to me (and apologies because I know I never stop banging on about ECB media spin)
The main thing is that I’m sure Tammy Beaumont understands what he means !
Equally one wonders how Sri Lanka feel about being labelled as, in so many words, training fodder.
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Right, here’s my take on the England-Sri Lanka squads. I think the main quibble here should be with the iT20 squad. The ODI squad is more “sensible” in that it has fewer players who will obviously not play a major role in some department. The only ways in which the ODI squad is different than perhaps expected is: 1) No Dunkley. I think Dunkley has effectively been dropped… she has had a poor-ish summer really and has never looked in control in her innings. Ironically though, she has recently started to play better again. 50 overs is not necessarily her best format so I don’t think this decision is particularly surprising or particularly unjustified. 2) No Ecclestone. I think as we said back at the start of the Ashes, Ecclestone was so heavily used, she had a huge workload and is now being rested. She has picked up a leg niggle already. I see no real problem with giving her a much-needed rest… England need to learn how to play and how to win without Ecclestone, and so given that, what other series would you suggest we do it in? Unless we start scheduling in extra series against Ireland or something for development purposes, series against sides outside the top four / five in the world are the only opportunities to do this. I’m not sure it’s “disrespectful” as such, but we’ll have to see how England actually play and if it looks like we’ve taken things for granted. 3) No Wyatt. Given Wyatt was brought into the ODI side mainly to play the “finishing” role in the late middle order, and has done a good job at it, it’s pretty much mission accomplished for her. Wyatt has also played a lot of cricket. I think her role is an open position which could be taken up by a number of other players (Bouchier/Gibson/Heath), so again not too much of an issue with leaving her out here. So the ODI squad, which is what the Women’s Championship points are based on, is not that outlandish in my eyes.
Now, to that iT20 squad, which I’ll admit looks risky, strange and unbalanced: Assuming Wong and Kemp will not bowl, our pace bowling options are limited to Bell, Cross, Filer, Gaur and Gibson. So I feel this time that Cross may have to play a role, as we’re otherwise seriously lacking in experience. Spin is also potentially lacking if there are any problems with Dean or Glenn – Capsey or Knight may have to bowl a good few overs. The batting is a bit more well catered for though, although there are many deserving players who appeared to have been dropped despite very decent performances – among them Bryony Smith, ADR etc. Also an argument for a replacement spinner for Ecclestone (there are many options, L. Smith, Higham, Baker, Smale, Gordon, Levick to name but a few). The most staggering omission though has to be Beaumont. Although she will surely play in the ODIs, how much more does she have to do in shortest formats? Incredible and inconceivable really, that she’s not in this iT20 squad. And assuming Wong doesn’t play, surely we should have brought in another bowler to round out the attack?! It’s bizarre. To me Jon Lewis seems to be a bit too obsessed with brining in new pace bowlers and is doing that a little too soon.
LikeLike
On the South Africa thing, it’s very strange goings on indeed. We’ve seen a recent increase in examples of “player power” where groups of players in women’s sport have voiced collective discontent with some aspect of their management, be it pay, training, preparation, problems with the manager etc. We’ve seen with the Spain national women’s football team how this doesn’t necessarily impact what happens in-game, but that depends on having a lot of very capable back-up players able to take the place of anyone who is removed, or removes themselves, from squad selection. I’m not sure SA have the squad depth to do that and not suffer badly from it. So CSA are playing a risky game causing this dissatisfaction in the camp. And yes, 11 years is far too long for a single coach to be at the helm, it’s not as is he has won loads of world cups along the way. I would say it is long overdue time for Moreeng to step aside, and get someone in with a new perspective – anything less is very disrespectful to the players.
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