wpdavid said:
On all surfaces, only Aus. In their own backyards, India & SL. And that's my point, hence my relatively sober assessments of Strauss, Tresco & Vaughan. I agree that we have some reasonable cricketers coming through, but I'm not convinced they're better than the 90's generation who had to establish themselves in test cricket against much better attacks.
Vaughan has at least scored
some runs in Sri Lanka and Australia, albeit as an opener.
Strauss, while he's not faced particularly challenging bowling, has still scored with astonishing weight and has thus far done more than could possibly be expected of him. If you're going to be a flat-track bully, one averaging 60 is still a fair achievement.
Going back to your original question about the quality of the CC, I worry about standards when I look at some of the sides who have done well in it. Take last year's winners, for instance. Fine batting lineup, but their bowlers shouldn't trouble anyone worth their salt.
And... funnily enough, they didn't:
HH Streak 24 21.75 39.7 3.28
IR Bell 14 28.57 59.0 2.90
IJL Trott 3 28.66 46.0 3.73
N Tahir 26 29.46 44.9 3.93
AF Giles 4 32.00 93.0 2.06
DR Brown 38 33.50 65.1 3.08
D Pretorius 24 39.00 61.2 3.82
NM Carter 27 44.03 77.7 3.40
MA Wagh 18 54.27 93.8 3.46
GB Hogg 14 62.92 109.8 3.43
A Richardson 6 88.66 144.0 3.69
JO Troughton 3 114.66 246.0 2.79
Aside from Streak, the only ones who averaged much under 30 were part-timers. Even Giles and Pretorious, both internationals (and Hogg, too, even if it was a wholly strange selection), couldn't really crack it.
The real problem with the current Championship is that there are 5 batting bonus-points on offer to 3 bowling ones. This, inevitably, has lead to a plethora of pancake wickets and copious massive totals. Wickets at present help batsmen far too much and don't offer enough to the seamers. It's not helped by the fact that most of the seamers are far too wayward (as demonstrated by the tiny number of bowlers consistently going for near 4-an-over in the one-day game and under 3-an-over in the 4-day one, compared to a few years ago.
Some people don't like the bonus-point system at all; Wisden applied the Championship tables 2000-2003 with bonus-points deducted, and all 4 seasons the winners, promotions and relegations would have been the same. So it doesn't often affect the standings; I personally would tweak it and cut-out the 100-over-cut-off mark to try to curb the alarming number of 550-off-130-overs we've seen so often recently. I'd also have it as 4 for each: 150, 200, 250, 300; 3 wickets, 5 wickets, 7 wickets, 9 wickets, 10 wickets.
But the bonus-points in themselves can't explain all the problems.
