England squad: Andrew Strauss (capt), James Anderson, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Alastair Cook, Graham Onions, Monty Panesar, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior, Graeme Swann.
A totally unnecessary fixture created purely for the benefit of Sky TV. I predict it'll be cold and wet and half the game will be rained off. I also predict that Lords will be half empty.
I'm guessing that the ODI in Leeds can't be selling very well judging by the ammount of promotion going on....?
Nonsense to suggest this is an unecessary match.
Without Sky's money and the revenue derived from a Lord's Test,there would be a great deal less to distribute to the counties from The ECB.and the demise of some of those countieswould be the inevitable result.
I think the value of anything is determined by how much people want it. By playing too many Test Matches you simply reduce the value people place upon them. They become too regular and commonplace and therefore less of an event. Especially when you're playing Test Cricket too early in the calendar year.
I fully sympathise with your point about Test cricket subsidising the Counties - a point I've making in defence of central contracts for several years now - but in a year with the Ashes and the World 20/20 Cup there was simply no need to shoe horn an extra series against the West Indies. Frankly it does a disservice to the tradition of Test match cricket between our countries.The West Indies should be afforded a major five Test series of their own spanning the whole Summer.
I may be wrong - but let's see how many tickets they've sold for these Tests...
Sky have a contract with the ECB for seven test matches each summer. Had these two test matches not taken place not only would the ECB have not got paid for them they would also have owed Sky money for not keeping their side of the bargain.
The original opponents should have been Zimbabwe, then Sri Lanka were pencilled in and finally West Indies agreed to fill the void. The series is not part of the Future Tour Programme so West Indies will still tour again when they were originally booked to do so.
Not a lot else the ECB could do really and had West Indies rejected this slot then next choice I believe was Bangladesh.
i think Gayles late arrival shows how seriously he is taking this match.
I would also hazard a guess that only half the team will be in the line up for the first Ashes test match later in the summer so this is more of a trial for the Ashes rather than a full on test match in some peoples eyes.
If this was the first test v the Aussies would we be going in with Bopara at 3, Prior at 6 and 2 new fast bowlers who have not played a Test before?
The background about the Sky deal is maot interesting. I would suggest that 7 Test Matches is probably 2 too many in an English summer - particularly when the 20/20 world cup crops up as well.
The attendance at lords today would support my theory. I think every day of every Test match should be sold out in this Country.
I think every day of every test in every country should be sold out but it rarely happens.
Seven test match summers have happened for quite a few years now and I assume the early ones make a profit, for if they didn't, they wouldn't be happening. This year is a strange one for it should have been Zimbabwe. If seven test summers were not to happen, how in normal circumstance would we fit in playing Zimbabwe, a fixture by ICC rules we have to fulfil? I can't imagine anyone would want a four test ashes series.
As to Twenty/20 World Cup, that is an ICC event and so most of the profit will go to them and then be distributed to the competing countries, the ECB will get a little extra for staging rights etc.
Having seen the Bresnan lbw decision, I have to say that I don't see how our game is going to survive much into the twenty-first century without some form of technology to eliminate these ridiculous decisions. Umpires are quite well paid these days and professionals in other walks of life would be dismissed for errors of this magnitude. I sometimes wonder whether the insistence on "neutral" umpires doesn't just give us officials who are jet-lagged.
It seems doubly harsh on a young player just starting his career who's entire career - and indeed life - could be determined by the erroneous whim of an umpire.
However - and I'm sure many will disagree - hasn't this ALWAYS been part of the game....?
Like dropped catches..
I have to say I think "neutral" umpires have made it worse. What's the point of having an umpire who's so neutral he's unfamiliar with the way the Lord's slope behaves? Particularly when we have enough technology to show everyone that the umpire's wrong, but apparently not enough to put the situation right. I think the truth is that the referral system was sabotaged by the off-field umpires in the Caribbean, but something like it will eventually have to come in.
To go off at a tangent for a moment, Richard Illingworth, who's umpiring in Yorkshire's present match, umpired the seconds last week at Kings Heath, where he was walking round before the match in a Warwickshire tracksuit. So far, he's been pretty even-handed as far as I can see.
A little more "seasoning" and Onions is well on his way to being the next England contracted player, or at least securing a place in the Ashes side. But like most county cricket fans, I can imagine Durham supporters won't "relish" losing one of their best players on a more or less a permanent basis. It will certainly be a blow to Durham's hopes of repeating as champions. And his flavourful name will certainly give the newspaper hacks some "savory" headlines.
As you can imagine, I've always had some pity and empathy for people with unusual names. I'm sure Onions took a bit of stick at school. We had a chap called "Bumstead" in our class and like me, he was the brunt of jokes and jibes on a more or less constant basis. Even the teachers couldn't resist. Mr. Onions must have suffered from the same sort of boorish commentary. His mate Phil Mustard would have suffered a similar "unsavory" fate.
Just been on 5 live his nickname is Will as he looks like the bard.
Bet you he getshallot of wickets in his test career!
PS. why is`nt ther a cricket pitch in this trivian build your own village thingy????
This message has been edited by hullenedger on May 8, 2009 3:13 PM This message has been edited by hullenedger on May 8, 2009 3:12 PM