Do you think we will have a new 'major cricket country' anytime soon?

[Adders]

Things ive learnt from this thread.......

The English are bastards and are to blame for everything.

South Africa was a racist country.

India are greedy and the IPL is the devil's work (Satan being English though obs)

Australians are and always were *****.

Surely this isn't new news to anyone is it?

 

[TheJediBrah]

You are not on the side of good if you think any Limited overs Cricket was ever acceptable tbh, it's giving me "AOTC was a great film" vibes. Though yes, you cannot blame the creator for something eventually turning out to be a negative because of how it's used by everyone, I agree.

AOTC > TLJ

 

[TheJediBrah]

Things ive learnt from this thread.......

The English are bastards and are to blame for everything.

South Africa was a racist country.

India are greedy and the IPL is the devil's work (Satan being English though obs)

Australians are and always were *****.

Surely this isn't new news to anyone is it?

We owe the existence of world cricket to the English being bastards

 

[Xix2565]

According to Google. Abe Bailey was a big supporter of British Imperialism, and had British citizenship, so all roads lead back to England really

If you really want to nitpick, fine but that just means England/SA/Australia were willing to be racist for no justifiable reason which has had by far the biggest impact on the globalization of cricket bar none.

 

[Kenneth Viljoen]

Things ive learnt from this thread.......

The English are bastards and are to blame for everything.

South Africa was a racist country.

India are greedy and the IPL is the devil's work (Satan being English though obs)

Australians are and always were *****.

Surely this isn't new news to anyone is it?

I married an English lass so they aren't all bad but England really ****ed it up introducing T20. It created a monster that will eventually destroy Test cricket

 

[TheJediBrah]

It's been really hitting me this year more than any other how far downhill cricket is going. Depressing. It's just going to get worse too. Franchise T20 cricket is the death knell of what made cricket, cricket

 

[Ali TT]

Taken an interesting turn this thread.

I am still unsure as to why there's always this desire to add more test nations. Test cricket was probably seen to be at its best in the 80s/90s when you had 7-8 competitive nations. I think we'd be better off wanting that level of competition to return rather than wishing Netherlands or Nepal join the fray. Test cricket by design doesn't allow for great expansion, or at least not without significantly reducing series between the current sides.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Taken an interesting turn this thread.

I am still unsure as to why there's always this desire to add more test nations. Test cricket was probably seen to be at its best in the 80s/90s when you had 7-8 competitive nations. I think we'd be better off wanting that level of competition to return rather than wishing Netherlands or Nepal join the fray. Test cricket by design doesn't allow for great expansion, or at least not without significantly reducing series between the current sides.

Somewhat agree. More Test nations should always be (have been?) the goal. But not at the expense of the quality of Test cricket.

But the flip side is that most Test nations started out as low quality and took years to get to the level they peaked at. So there has to be a reasonable middle ground where other nations are being given the chance to make it in Test cricket but not so much that 50% of Test matches end up being lower standard than domestic first class cricket

 

[Chin Music]

You are not on the side of good if you think any Limited overs Cricket was ever acceptable tbh, it's giving me "AOTC was a great film" vibes. Though yes, you cannot blame the creator for something eventually turning out to be a negative because of how it's used by everyone, I agree.

I think a discussion was done on ODI cricket a few months ago where discussion focussed on the many 5 match and 7 match series in bilaterals that seemed to dumb the format down. That happened in the early 00s. There were some good multi-team tournaments in the 90s too.

 

[Xix2565]

Test cricket was probably seen to be at its best in the 80s/90s when you had 7-8 competitive nations.

This is a joke right? There were some horrendous sides who wouldn't measure up to even Bangladesh currently.

 

[Xix2565]

And as far as what Test cricket is designed for, there's nothing to suggest it can't support say 15-20 Test sides despite what some here believe. At least come out and say you want to be exclusionary because of tradition/whatever nonsense you prefer rather than pretending to want "quality Test cricket".

 

[TheJediBrah]

And as far as what Test cricket is designed for, there's nothing to suggest it can't support say 15-20 Test sides despite what some here believe. At least come out and say you want to be exclusionary because of tradition/whatever nonsense you prefer rather than pretending to want "quality Test cricket".

Plainly untrue. It can't even "support" 10 teams atm while maintaining quality. Bangladesh are just starting to be ok but Zimbabwe are worse than ever and Ireland are not close to standard

 

[Xix2565]

Plainly untrue. It can't even "support" 10 teams atm while maintaining quality. Bangladesh are just starting to be ok but Zimbabwe are worse than ever and Ireland are not close to standard

Not really interested in pretending like nostalgia is a valid argument for anything. And as far as support for the weaker sides goes, it's largely been the case in Test history that unless you're one of England/Australia you get little support (games) when you're weak. That's still a distinct issue from actual quality of players/teams, and again leads back to my point that we let close minded people from SA/ENG/AUS form the ICC and treat cricket like a club membership than an actual sport.

 

[Ali TT]

You could probably take it down a notch in how you engage on this.

Another approach is to not prevent any ICC member nation from self organising to play a test match, as long as the match meets the necessary conditions to call it self such.

The quid pro quo would be that there should be no expectation on any current full ICC members to either subsidise those matches or more broadly subsidise professional cricket in the associate nations, nor any expectation on them to extend their future tour programmes to play against such nations.

 

[Xix2565]

You could probably take it down a notch in how you engage on this.

Another approach is to not prevent any ICC member nation from self organising to play a test match, as long as the match meets the necessary conditions to call it self such.

The quid pro quo would be that there should be no expectation on any current full ICC members to either subsidise those matches or more broadly subsidise professional cricket in the associate nations, nor any expectation on them to extend their future tour programmes to play against such nations.

I mean ultimately the issue is that currently cricket's not really being run by a real global org. And so this leads to all the weird scheduling, payment/funding structures and so on.

 

[Dazinho]

And as far as what Test cricket is designed for, there's nothing to suggest it can't support say 15-20 Test sides despite what some here believe. At least come out and say you want to be exclusionary because of tradition/whatever nonsense you prefer rather than pretending to want "quality Test cricket".

I'd like to see a few more countries emerge and maybe have restrictions on who can play who while the game develops in those nations. But 15 test playing countries any time soon would mean a significant second tier, maybe even a third.

20 would be absolutely unsustainable and require 6-7 sides who were basically only allowed to play each other in very poor standard matches.

As much as Zimbabwe and Ireland aren't quite up to it they'd absolutely pummel sides 17-20 inside three days, god help them if a Sri Lanka or New Zealand was set loose on them.

 

[Chin Music]

I also think it is worth pointing out that it is only real the South Asian countries where cricket is not only the no.1 sport but the dominating sport. It is nothing like the national sport in England and it has contracted quite a bit in my lifetime and a big proportion of players at recreational level are of South Asian stock here. Perhaps South African and New Zealander posters here could give a bit more insight as to how big cricket is in their native countries compared to a) rugby union in both and b) football (soccer) in the former. I have visited NZ but not for long enough to have insight on how big cricket was there and it was some time ago. Australia, I'm aware is a multi-sport country but cricket still seems to have enough of a grip on a wide enough part of the population.

My view is that you would struggle to really get much of a foothold in many coutries for cricket in this day and age, given the dominance other sports have regardless of how great it would be to have more countries being good at it.

 

[peterhrt]

The original ICC was all about British commercial activity in South Africa that had little to do with cricket. Australia were reluctant members. They were not keen to play South Africa, or anybody else apart from England. There was no money in it and the Sheffield Shield was considered more important.

Pre-independence India had no interest in playing anyone but England, and even then, tours got cancelled for various reasons. The Bombay tournaments had a higher profile and generated more revenue.

New Zealand and West Indies joined the ICC with India in 1926, but the Kiwis didn’t visit the Caribbean until the 1970s. It simply wasn’t financially viable.

Australia only started touring West Indies, India and Pakistan in the 1950s because their government, anxious to expand influence overseas, told them to. After 1952-53, outside the Ashes, the Australians compensated by hosting no Tests for eight years.

Even had South Africa’s government agreed to matches against West Indies, India and Pakistan, it is unlikely that many would have taken place.

 

[Xix2565]

I'd like to see a few more countries emerge and maybe have restrictions on who can play who while the game develops in those nations. But 15 test playing countries any time soon would mean a significant second tier, maybe even a third.

20 would be absolutely unsustainable and require 6-7 sides who were basically only allowed to play each other in very poor standard matches.

As much as Zimbabwe and Ireland aren't quite up to it they'd absolutely pummel sides 17-20 inside three days, god help them if a Sri Lanka or New Zealand was set loose on them.

I mean what is ultimately wrong with tiers? Or having a slow start in general as a new team? It's not like we're starting with FC comps everywhere, these things will take time and a lot of investment before teams become "good".

Seems like people would rather generate excuses than ideas.

 

[Adders]

We already have 2 test sides (Ireland and Afghanistan) who cant land a spot on the rankings list because they don't (cant) play enough tests to qualify for a rating (8 tests in 3 years)

There is absolutely no point in adding more test nations if no one will play them.

The way I see it there is only 2 possible ways we ever expand beyond the 12 test teams we have now........

A huge change in direction in the way the game is managed financially. These new and lowest ranked sides would need to be heavily susidised for a prolonged period so they can actually play and set up strong domestic structures. Realistically this could be a massive investment for decades before they become anywhere close to self reliant.......if they ever do.

The only other way I see additional test teams is if either America or China suddenly decide they want in on test cricket and invest heavily in it.