Proper cricketing tour for mine, none of these rock up, play a game against a local FC side in completely different conditions to which the first Test would be played at and play another Test after that, play a Twenty 20 game, play some ODIs and fly home all within 3 or so weeks.
Not advocating anything of the sort. Saying we should stick with the status quo tbh, as it is currently working very well for both nations involved.
Seems a great idea in Australia, don't see why what happens over here has to make any impact on that at all.
It's not, though - not from the dead-Tests POV. In the last 11 Ashes Series' of 5 Tests, only 4 times has the final Test not been dead.
There's also the purely qualitiative argument that six is simply too many because it feels like too many, which is good enough for me. Beyond which, if you do get a onesided series, you really want it over & done with ASAP. For much of the 1990's, I was with the Aus commentators who wanted the ashes to be reduced to 3 tests like SA et al.
) and drew 1; in 1993 they won easily at The Oval; in 1994\95 they could conceivably have won 3-2 or at least lost by only that scoreline; in 1997, as we know, they could easily have won 4-1 or at very least drawn 3-3.
Sounds like absolute purgatory to me. And the players would be traumatised for years. Apart from revenue, what are the reasons for playing six tests in Australia?
It's interesting that you'd feel that way when the first Ashes you'd remember clearly was a six-Test affair, and that there were more six-Test series (8) than five (6) between 1970\71 and 1997.
1970/71 was actually the last series before I started watching the game, so my first Ashes series was 1972. My first three home series were max of 5 tests, and perhaps they are clearer in my memory as we didn't actually get to see much of the Aus series in those days. When we added a 6th test in 1981, it felt to me like overkill. As for the series in Aus, six tests in 1974/75 definitely seemed too many, even if we won the last one. Ditto 1978/79 of course. I honestly can't remember feeling that an extra test after 5 would be a good thing, whereas I've often thought that a 6th test that took place was undesirable.
Tell the players to harden the **** up before they play against Australia
Would've been the only genuine 7-Test series in history. Often wonder what might have happened had that MCG Test in 1970\71 not been washed-out, apart from the first ODI being delayed a bit.