The Game of Cricket

[SJS]

Test matches were played back in the 1880s in usa

 

[ReallyCrazy]

I dont think Cricket player meant actual test matches. Its said that the first international cricket match was between canada and usa...........and so obviously there must have been unofficial 5 day matches between the two countries. No need to get all technical about it.

 

[Richard]

Limited over game has already put atacking bowling at a discount. this has affected the test bowling standards and the entire game.

You see, I don't think so.
There are very few decent bowlers around ATM - very few good bowlers capable of keeping the runs down, which is why ODI scores are so appallingly high ATM.
Test-match scores have followed a similar trait.
Yet the problem is not the lack of attacking bowlers - it's the lack of defensive bowlers! So many bowlers tried for both game-forms in recent years haven't been anywhere near accurate enough. The bowlers coming into the game of late haven't been anywhere near good enough.
It's not like the thing hasn't happened before, though. Cricket is a cyclical game, as is the condition of the pitches.

 

[Richard]

I dont think Cricket player meant actual test matches. Its said that the first international cricket match was between canada and usa...........and so obviously there must have been unofficial 5 day matches between the two countries. No need to get all technical about it.

I disagree.
The first international cricket match was played between England and France in 1572. The scorecard doesn't survive, of course, and the game was nothing compared to how we now know it, but it's indisputable fact nonetheless.
Look, international cricket goes back probably as far as the game itself - but the first time it was standardised was in 1777 or whenever it was MCC wrote the rules. USA and Canada played the first international match for which the scorecard survives but equally everyone must realise that it wasn't a Test-match - almost everyone knows that the first Test-matches were in 1876\77. It's hardly getting technical to say the USA-Canada matches weren't Tests.
To call them so really is naive.

 

[Black Thunder]

You see, I don't think so.
There are very few decent bowlers around ATM - very few good bowlers capable of keeping the runs down, which is why ODI scores are so appallingly high ATM.
Test-match scores have followed a similar trait.
Yet the problem is not the lack of attacking bowlers - it's the lack of defensive bowlers!

I do agree the standard of bowling is lower than in the past, but i think it is exagerrated.

The reasons it's lower is because what i stated above. Every law change the game see's is to benefit the batsmen.

Therefore less people taking up cricket want to be bowlers, meaning the talent pool in the bowling is less. This doesn't neccesarilly equate to better batting because poor bowling will mean batsmen don't have to play proper cricketing shots.

And the rules in one day cricket make it impossible to bowl defensively. The bowlers are given such tight lines and lengths for which they have to bowl, and the pitches are just made for batsmen to be smashing the living daylights out of it. A batsmen can just plonk his front foot down the wicket and swing through the line of the ball with a lot of confidence.

There is no help for bowlers any more, and that is why the standard of bowling is lagging a bit. And it will until cricket administrators wake up and realise there is little joy in being a bowler these days.

I can see that batsmen are more marketable. It's much easier to market to the masses a couple of big sixes.

A batsmen plays every ball on it's merits, therefore he can just pull a six out of no where. That is marketable.

But a good bowler has to get a wicket through good consistent bowling more often than not - the wicket ball is actually quite boring, and is just the culmination of 3 overs hard work. That isn't really marketable.

So I can see the game will always be slanted to batsmen, but it's just gone too far now.

 

[Hit4Six]

i dunno about everyone but thinking to myself oh gosh that 'McGrath just totally out thought a batsmen' is less entertaining than seeing sehwag hitting a quick 50 or gilchrist going beserk, i wouldnt have started watching cricket had it not been for the one day game, and it is in the one day game that the future of cricket lies, i mean u c the stands during recent test matches are they anywhere capapcity? u see an aus/nz one day game and the stands are full, so in my opinion rather than holding onto relics for the sake of it let the one day game flourish

 

[Anil]

i dunno about everyone but thinking to myself oh gosh that 'McGrath just totally out thought a batsmen' is less entertaining than seeing sehwag hitting a quick 50 or gilchrist going beserk, i wouldnt have started watching cricket had it not been for the one day game, and it is in the one day game that the future of cricket lies, i mean u c the stands during recent test matches are they anywhere capapcity? u see an aus/nz one day game and the stands are full, so in my opinion rather than holding onto relics for the sake of it let the one day game flourish

as you mentioned, since you got interested in cricket after one dayers started flourishing, it's natural that you and most modern fans would be more interested in that....but there are some of us for whom proper cricket is still test match cricket...i for one don't see it as an outdated concept and am able to appreciate the quality and intensity of a 5 day match....but your generation or the next one with the modern day penchant for the "quickie" is quite likely to kill test match cricket completely...

 

[Jono]

i dunno about everyone but thinking to myself oh gosh that 'McGrath just totally out thought a batsmen' is less entertaining than seeing sehwag hitting a quick 50 or gilchrist going beserk, i wouldnt have started watching cricket had it not been for the one day game, and it is in the one day game that the future of cricket lies, i mean u c the stands during recent test matches are they anywhere capapcity? u see an aus/nz one day game and the stands are full, so in my opinion rather than holding onto relics for the sake of it let the one day game flourish

No one has a problem with letting the ODI game flourish. But the ODI game flourishing also involves the bowlers. You can't just forget about that.

Whilst you brought up the point about what you find entertaining, I am sometimes quite the opposite. Personally I find absolutely awesome fast bowling more entertaining than batting. Don't get me wrong, you give me a Sachin or Lara 100 or a quick fire Sehwag or Gilchrist 50 and I'll watch drooling on my shirt. But you know what was also one of the most entertaining things I found of the World Cup in 2003? Shane Bond's spell against Australia where he ripped through them taking something like 6 or 7 wickets. Brett Lee's did the same to NZ in the same game. I don't know how anyone can't find that entertaining.

Seriously what is the harm in seeing the bowlers out play the batsman. You hear the "ohhhhh" when McGrath or Lee or Akhtar bowls it completely beating the batsman. That's entertainment. The crowd still loves good bowling, its just the cricket authorities won't let them see it.

 

[Richard]

And the rules in one day cricket make it impossible to bowl defensively. The bowlers are given such tight lines and lengths for which they have to bowl, and the pitches are just made for batsmen to be smashing the living daylights out of it. A batsmen can just plonk his front foot down the wicket and swing through the line of the ball with a lot of confidence.

Don't agree.
The problem is that bowlers coming in haven't been as good as those going out.
The like of Pollock, McGrath, Murali, Vaas, Caddick even, bowlers who've played throughout the transcending period (started in about 1992, was very gradual until round about 2000, then shot into ascendency) haven't actually lost anything in terms of economy-rate (indeed most have improved) - the problem is that good bowlers have been replaced by poor ones.

 

[Richard]

I think the best thing that has happened in the post 70's period to batting has, ironically, been thanks to the limited overs game. Batsmen have started playing more strokes. The defensive mindset of the sixties and the late fifties was what seemed to be killing the game (not the fact that the game lasted five days or three days), and the resultant no-result game it had become..

What's interesting is the "fifties and sixties the game was dying a death" mentality... I'd be fascinated to compare Test-match crowds of the two periods.
Because it ain't like Test-matches have been well-attended for a long time in most countries... only in England, Australia and West Indies do they seem to me to have maintained popularity.