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[mal]

And to think
If this was a 3 Test Series ...
Would have been 1-1 all

Another reason as to why they should never play inconclusive 2 Test Series, or even 3 Test Series

[cripple]

And to think
If this was a 3 Test Series ...
Would have been 1-1 all

Another reason as to why they should never play inconclusive 2 Test Series, or even 3 Test Series

No it wouldn't have. You ask why? The tests would have been played in Melbourne, Sydney and then either the gabba or Adelaide oval. 2-0 at best with that combo of venues and lack of assistance to the Aussie pie throwers

[Gingernuts]

This footage sums up the entire series:

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sport/the-ashes/ben-hilfenhaus-bowls-a-contender-for-the-worst-ball/story-fn67x4c9-1225983155676

[hottie]

England went to a great deal of planning for this tour and in the end received their rewards.The bloke has copped a caning by some former Aussie and English players,but England employed John Buchanan as a consultant for the series,i personally believe his knowledge of the game and opposition players weaknesses and strenghts is excellent.

[smithy]

Have any of the current states coaches played test cricket before ?
Nielsen obviously hasn't, but what of the state coaches ?

[smithy]

ALL the right noises will be made about reviving Australia as a Test nation, but the harsh reality is there is a big, fat greasy chicken meal standing in its way. It is called the KFC Big Bash.
Yes, yes, we know there will be a "major, deep-seated review" after the Ashes.

Just like there was when Australia lost the Ashes a few years ago.

But this time, Australia is cornered. The room for improvement is minimal.

We can talk about heads rolling and attitudes changing, but here is the reality ... the game here is heading in a different direction and it's not coming back.

Next season, Australia's priority will be a revamped KFC Big Bash featuring eight city-based teams from around Australia.

It has been three years in the planning and Australia is gearing up to promote the daylights out of it and hopefully sell it as part of a massive television rights package in a few years' time.

You can't be a KFC outlet and fine dining experience at the same time. But Australia knows which way it is going.

"It's just not cricket without the Colonel" is one of its summer slogans and it has given KFC the title of "the official restaurant of Cricket Australia".

If, as Wisden editor Scyld Berry claims, the price of this push is that our batsmen perform like headless chickens, so be it. Australia will simply wear it.

You can have all the Ashes reviews you want but the future is planned - along economic lines - and you can't have two futures.

The Big Bash has become such a high priority that the Cricket Australia board is on the verge of cutting the time-honoured Sheffield Shield final to make room.

It is not quite true to say Australia has to choose between one or the other forms of the game, but if this summer has taught us anything, it is that the skills of our young players are moulded by finger-lickin' cricket.

If your concern about the Australian team is its lack of patience and discretion outside off stump, prepare yourself for long-term suffering. That issue will become worse before it gets better.

Coaches at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane saw a quantum shift about four years ago as young players wanted to learn different footwork than what had been the norm for a century.

Instead of putting their foot close to the pitch of the ball, they wanted to get it out of the way so they could slog - or put it straight down the pitch like Steve Smith does, opening options on both sides of the wicket.

In 50-over and 20-over cricket, batsmen are told "just get bat on ball".

By contrast, you can bet anything that when the ball was swinging and seaming this series, Test batting coach Justin Langer would have been delivering the opposite message "just leave as many balls as you can".

Very few batsmen do both well, but Australia's chances of finding batsmen of patience will not be helped by the fact that we are entering an age where Flash Harrys will be king.

Australia should note the fact that as great as batsman Alastair Cook was on this tour, England has no place for him in the shorter forms of the game this summer.

This is why Australia desperately missed Simon Katich. Graft was gold and Australia could not find a nugget to save itself.

And they will be harder to find in our new world.

Twenty20 cricket is becoming more of a lure for young players now because it can make them rich and famous quicker.

The thought of becoming Ricky Ponting seems a galaxy ride away, but they might just be able to be Dave Warner, who picks up hundreds of thousand dollars a year playing T20, despite the fact that he battles to get a first-class game for NSW.

Over the next two days in India there will be an IPL auction where some run-of-the-mill batsmen will be paid millions of dollars.

Like it or not, cash is king in cricket. This is the way the game is going. The era of the headless chicken is upon us.

[spell_check]

Has the lust for greed the AFL has got, taken a lot of promising players out of the cricketing scene for pursuit of an AFL career? I'm talking about the ever increasing salary cap they have, along with two new teams, makes it more attractive than ever to forge a career there instead of 11 spots in the national side?

I'm not denying there have been plenty of AFL/VFL players over the years that could have been full time cricketers, but when Alex Keath chose cricket over footy, it made news because it is so rare for that to happen now.

Just something else to look at regarding the sudden drop in incoming talent, not a conclusion from me.

[mal]

When I was a kid living in the seventies it was outside kickin the footy, or playing backyard cricket
I would spend my summers indulging in cricket almost non stop
Thats the way kids were back then

We had International and Domestic cricketers coaching us with guest appearances at high school
Ernie Clifton was a state coach back then, and regularly trained us
Others that coached us included
Sir Garfield Sobers
Terry Jenner
Eric Freeman

There4 school cricket was of a high standard
So the gooduns that progressed to schoolboy tournaments, then progressed to District Cricket, and onwards

Im not sure whet the grass roots are like now
I guess up until about 1990 it was similar

But what about todays kids ?
Do they get the players of the ilk that trained me in the 70s?
Are they saturated and engrossed by cricket as the kids were in previous generations[dont think so ?]
Have schoolboy standards dropped

[Grahaml]

District cricket in SA is a joke, no wonder NSW and Vic fringe players are better then our best products. Apart from guys like Ferguson and Cosgrove who are too good not to fail at that level, we are totally unable to turn good grade cricketers into great grade cricketers into good first class cricketers. And when a guy like Cosgrove can behave like a fat pig and do what he wants and still butcher a grade bowling lineup (and batting lineup when he wants) we have a problem. Grade cricket should be down to 8 sides. Best 88 players against each other. Instead of the current 13(!) meaning 143 blokes are grade players. Those 15-20 blessed with talent having to face the bowling of the 50th best bowler in the state regularly instead of the best.

Grand slam tennis is often thought of as boring with the #1 against the #125 and ends up being a parade for the better guy. Yet we have that situation here in cricket and think it's the best thing for the game. One of the strengths of Australia's domestic scene (and breeding ground for many guys who pushed our dominance to 20 years instead of 10) was we had 6 teams. 66 first class cricketers. So Mark Waugh, Darren Lehmann, Damien Martyn, Justin Langer, Matt Hayden, Adam Gilchrist all walked into test cricket having spent years facing the best 20-30 bowlers we had. Stuart Clark walked in as a first class battler and found the step up not so great and became just about the best seamer around.

We NEED to drop back to 8 sides to make grade cricket strong. Grade cricket is strong, then the best 11 guys are better prepared for state cricket. And grade form is far more reliable. Cullen Bailey bats 9 for SA and 4 for Sturt FFS. Manou had a state average of 25 (more like 35 in the last 4 years perhaps though) yet bats 1,2 or 3 for ND when he plays, and had done for many years. By making our next level stronger, we make our top level stronger. Grade cricket gets better, state cricket gets better. State cricket gets better, test cricket gets better. It's not the Panacea, but it surely can't hurt.

As for grade sides attracting players, that's something they can do better, and perhaps a more competitive standard would force them to look after their players better. 90% of guys given a choice between B grade district, possibly A grade and playing A1 turf, or A grade parkland cricket choose the latter.

[smithy]

The thing is Graham is that we've had 10-12 district clubs for many years now and they will argue that the system worked well when the population of SA was well below what it is now.

SMAC has been saying for a long time now the system can only be changed by the clubs, and no one will merge.

12 or whatever shield finals from a state who was a founding member ??? or close to it is clearly not good enough.

And let's be honest, SA only ever won shields or came close when imports like Bradman, Sobers, richards and Garner played.

Not sure what this has to do with this thread but anyway...

[Grahaml]

All part of the grand solution IMHO, Smithy. The trouble with the Aussie side as I see it right now isn't that we don't have people who know what they're doing at the top, or a lack of talent. Just that the talent that gets there isn't as ready as they should be. Hughes and Smith looks really unprepared to me, and given Hughes has a first class average of 55 what he's been doing works there. To me that means the gap between test and first class is too great.

I get what you mean about the number of sides though. But left to the teams there, nothing will happen. Losing/merging sides only happens rarely without intervention from higher up. This is an issue SACA needs to take out of the district clubs' hands and into their own for their own betterment. And your point about not winning many titles, even with some of the biggest names in world cricket on our side really just exacerbates the problem, doesn't it? We managed to buy some top players who helped us win state titles, but how many titles did we win based mostly on home grown talent like NSW and Vic have done year in year out. Some of it is no doubt cyclical, but over 20 years you should produce a pretty darn good side of home grown talent. I dare anyone to put together an SA born and bred 11 debuting from 1985 onwards (25 instead of 20 just so you can include Lehmann) and tell me it's a side that would be a good first class side right now.

[smithy]

Look up a few posts.
I asked how many of the current state coaches have played test cricket.

I think the answer might be part of your question.

How many GOOD retired SA cricketers are currently coaching at district level ?

Maybe not too many cause CA wants them to become umpires !

[Grahaml]

Lol. Sorry, I find when a page gets to too many pages all the posts are too hard to read so I read a few and add my general thoughts, whether they be against the general thought, for it or on a tangent. Sometimes I might read a sentence I particularly want to reply to and fire up from that.

With coaching, I'm not personally fussed about them having great records. On a totally unrelated subject, I knew a lot of classical singers way back when. And the best teachers were the ones who had trouble. One in particular was a horrible singer because she had an issue physically in her throat of some sort. But to sing at all well, she had to become a serious expert and ended up a great teacher. Another who was brilliantly blessed as a singer was a horrid teacher because she couldn't understand why anyone was unable to just do it properly.

Thus, I don't think a player who did well at test/state level will necessarily make a better coach. A guy who had to work hard, understand himself and the game better to make any sort of headway in the game may well be better than the guy who was just so totally gifted he could just play the shot but would struggle to tell you what he did apart from a demonstration. However, having said that, there is some serious currency in having experience around. Blokes who might be able to keep you on track, help with preparation for the games etc. The fact that Blewett, Gillespie, Lehmann and many other former SA players didn't really stick around even as mere mentors to blokes is a worry. Perhaps Sorrell can tell our bowlers why they aren't bowling so well, or tell our batsmen why they keep getting out nicking and help them overcome some technical errors, but he couldn't tell a guy what the pitfalls of top level cricket might be. Or how he got the best out of himself. I doubt Gilchrist could break down any cricket shot better than McGrath, despite the difference in class, but I can't imagine McGrath being able to offer much useful advice on how a guy might prepare for an important innnings, or when the right time to start playing some more shots was.

[redandblack]

I'm not sure the Big Bash theory stands up.

The No 1 Test Cricket team is India.

[Grahaml]

I'm not sure the Big Bash theory stands up.

The No 1 Test Cricket team is India.

But look at their team. Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, Dhoni and Singh were all established test players years before T20 came along. If T20 is as bad as people say for test cricket, the real effects will only be felt in 10 years time when nobody playing remembers a time when it wasn't around in their playing careers.

[smac]

I'm not sure the Big Bash theory stands up.

The No 1 Test Cricket team is India.

But look at their team. Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, Dhoni and Singh were all established test players years before T20 came along. If T20 is as bad as people say for test cricket, the real effects will only be felt in 10 years time when nobody playing remembers a time when it wasn't around in their playing careers.

Then we should be looking at what we were doing 10 years ago to have an idea of what causes our current woes.

[redandblack]

Several of our players were also established Test players before T20.

Most of England's players were also established before T20 and were thrashed by Australia here last series.

Several of our players thrashed England last series.

A few years ago, English cricket was being read the last rites.

I don't think T20 is a great factor in this.

[Grahaml]

I'm not sure the Big Bash theory stands up.

The No 1 Test Cricket team is India.

But look at their team. Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar, Laxman, Dhoni and Singh were all established test players years before T20 came along. If T20 is as bad as people say for test cricket, the real effects will only be felt in 10 years time when nobody playing remembers a time when it wasn't around in their playing careers.

Then we should be looking at what we were doing 10 years ago to have an idea of what causes our current woes.

Absolutely. Although probably more like 5-10 years ago rather than 10+ years ago. We need to work out why the kids coming through as 15/16 year olds in that time haven't gone on to become test players like we need to. I find it hard to believe that the kids are less talented, but they are certainly less prepared now.

[Grahaml]

Several of our players were also established Test players before T20.

Most of England's players were also established before T20 and were thrashed by Australia here last series.

Several of our players thrashed England last series.

A few years ago, English cricket was being read the last rites.

I don't think T20 is a great factor in this.

I don't either personally, to be honest. Good players should be able to adapt to different situations (part of what makes them great IMHO). But if it does impact test level we won't really know for some years.

[Media Park]

Need to try some young guns...

If they fail, try some more, if they show potential, stick with them...

But do it now, while there's still a few older heads around (Hussey, Katich, Haddin), rather than when it's Clarke and Watto as the leaders...

Ferg, Usman, Lynn, Maddinson type players need a run now, in the ODI's, then the next Test series, to have a crack...

Then they've had a taster by the time Kat, Punter, Huss, etc. are all gone...