"Total Cricket"

[SeamUp]

https://www.wisden.com/stories/stats-analysis/analysis-england-total-cricket-tests

Thoughts ?

 

[theegyptian]

yah read it earlier today.

I don't think it's really a team strategy to redefine cricket or anything. It's not some fundamental approach to the game that they've decided to play lots of allrounders, or move the batting order around - it's happened by accident as they just don't have any top order bats and they have a surplus of allrounders types so this is the best combination of side that they can come up with.

A lot of the batsman coming through have poor defensive games. Duckett had a non existent defense against spin. Attacking is the best way for these batsmen to prosper.

England have benefited in this series and last summer from playing on result wickets. They attack the bowling and bat deep.

When they play on flat wickets they don't have either the bowling or the batting to win. The batsmen play with too much risk on flat wickets and thus can't bat the really long time required to win games on flat wickets. Buttler's playing as a batsman and I doubt he's batted for more than a day of a fc game possibly ever. The bowling still lacks pace and deception when conditions are flat.

 

[SeamUp]

As a conventionalist that will allow a little outside the box thinking I can't get my head around this working in test cricket & to an extent it has. ODI cricket fine. Am I alone in thinking this ?

Sure someone will come off and another 1 or 2 will support with the ball. The they have 5/6 of the different bowling options to expose opposition batsmen's weaknesses but are they all top test material ? The success in the bowling does seem to come from someone leading the way though.

I would think the opposition just need to make sure they absorb/create pressure for just a bit longer than they are against England.

I don't think we will see other sides follow to be honest. It is fairly unique situation having duel cricketers who don't exactly consistently excel and struggling to find 100-makers with the bat. Could we say it was almost forced on England or are we going to say that stats have this time worked for England to forge their way forward with what they have ?

The change of planning for tests teams changed ? Not yet for me.

 

[StephenZA]

How to play 'total cricket ' rather than 'half cricket'? #intent

It's like the thought of playing attacking cricket has never come up before.... lets just ignore the great WI and Australian sides, at least they understood the game well enough on when to do what.

 

[trundler]

It's really just England making best use of their resources. It's not exactly mind blowingly innovative either. Haven't South Africa always punched above their weight by having multiple all rounders? Definitely the winning strategy for LOIs though.

 

[vcs]

Good post by theegyptian. Clear weaknesses in this England team, but they've done a good job of working around them to get results nevertheless. They've also built great bench strength. Think India and England have both done a excellent job on this over the past few years, loads of options to call upon depending upon conditions.

 

[Beamer]

This really winds me up and comes across as very arrogant. A series win against a severely weakened Sri Lanka team (even compared to the one we played) and it's a big enough sample for this total cricket description?

Maybe win more than one overseas series and come back to us.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

This really winds me up and comes across as very arrogant. A series win against a severely weakened Sri Lanka team (even compared to the one we played) and it's a big enough sample for this total cricket description?

Maybe win more than one overseas series and come back to us.

Well in fairness it is just the numptie who wrote the article saying this. Us fans know we aren't that good a side yet.

 

[NZTailender]

#suckit

 

[NZTailender]

Was this a very long winded way to defend why England is short a proper batsmen and to justify Test cricket moneyball?

 

[andmark]

Well in fairness it is just the numptie who wrote the article saying this. Us fans know we aren't that good a side yet.

Indeed, I don't think many fans are getting carried away by England at the moment. It also feels like arrogance is a lazy stereotype used against English fans frequently.

 

[Beamer]

Indeed, I don't think many fans are getting carried away by England at the moment. It also feels like arrogance is a lazy stereotype used against English fans frequently.

My experience of English fans, particularly here, is actually not arrogance at all.

Journalists, however, are seriously arrogant and often poorly informed or jumping to conclusions, like this one.

 

[andmark]

My experience of English fans, particularly here, is actually not arrogance at all.

Journalists, however, are seriously arrogant and often poorly informed or jumping to conclusions, like this one.

Ah, yes. A lot of England fans aren't arrogant and have actually been worn down over the years by the many losses. The journalists can frequently differ on the other hand.

 

[Starfighter]

Lol is that bollocks, for the reasons that others have already said. Try not getting smashed in Australia (on slow dry sockets that should have offered their batsmen a great chance to boot) first. Beating Pakistan in the UAE would be good too. England simply have a surfeit of no. 6, 7 and 8 batsmen/keepers/allrounders
It says something that Jones is just parroting his company's statistics without really understanding why they might have arisen and then drawing analogies without checking to see whether said strategy has actually been consistent and succeeded. I consistently accuse CricViz of missing the forest for the trees and being like the drunk man and the lamppost, because they are.
You see some good specialist batsmen/bowlers come through and the allrounder emphasis will decrease. Also, remember this XI? England have been stuffing the team with allrounders for ages, yet no-one else has deliberately chosen to follow their lead.

 

[cnerd123]

What will be interesting to see is if England Cricket buys into this way of structuring a Test team. When the current batch of allrounders fade away, will they look to replace them with other allrounders, even if they are inferior (and if superior batting and bowling options exist)? Would be pretty hilarious if they do tbh.

 

[andmark]

Disregarding the point about whether this approach is on purpose or whether it's just England adapting to their players, the two sports' version of "total" are generated in completely different ways. Teams which play a Total Football style often have academies for their youth players, teaching them to be able to play well both in attacking situations and defensive situations. Indeed, Johan Cruyff took what he learned with the approach of the Ajax academy and put his own spin on it in the Barcelona academy, La Masia. Could this really happen for cricket? I'm not convinced you can simply teach cricketers (however young) to be good at both batting and bowling. If it was the case, surely we would've seen more decent allrounders than we have?

 

[Starfighter]

I don't think it's really possible all. You can definitely improve someone's batting and bowling, but that may come at the expense of their stronger skill (by robbing practice) and some players will never actually be decent at both. Football is different in that attack and defence are both drawing from the same fundamental skill set. If this worked for something like cricket I'd have thought you might have seem something similar in baseball, but I'm not aware of it.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

this is what happens when you set a journalist loose on a data set without any ability to draw context outside the data set he's been given

 

[Starfighter]

this is what happens when you set a journalist loose on a data set without any ability to draw context outside the data set he's been given

It's not a journalist, it's a CricViz analyst proving all my criticisms of them.

The same organisation that gave us greater-than even chance of winning the T20 at the start of our innings.

 

[NZTailender]

If having batting depth in your bowlers is total cricket, can hardly go past the Warne-Lee-Gillespie combo. Even McGrath has a test 50.