English Spinners

[Boris]

Re: English Spinners

Yeah my second sport is triathlon, so i'm usually swimming in a swimming wetsuit which I find to be a hell of a lot warmer than a surfin wetsuit And it lets you float pretty darned easily.

I think the nearest place to practise is just over a mile away from me.
Maybe i should move to AUS !

Well in Queensland you can swim all year round without the need of a wetsuit. The beaches are deserted by Australians during the winter, but then filled up by tourists. Tourists come out during winter because they think it's warm, while all the Aussies are home curled up under a blanket dying of the cold. Meanwhile all the Europeans are out in the surf lapping up the so called heat!

Quite dangerous actually, there are no life guards on patrol in winter when a lot of inexperienced swimmers are swimming.

And we are getting to many immigrants (hahaha we are running out of room! )! Might make an exception for cricket players though...

 

[SteveyD]

Re: English Spinners

Well in Queensland you can swim all year round without the need of a wetsuit. The beaches are deserted by Australians during the winter, but then filled up by tourists. Tourists come out during winter because they think it's warm, while all the Aussies are home curled up under a blanket dying of the cold. Meanwhile all the Europeans are out in the surf lapping up the so called heat!

Quite dangerous actually, there are no life guards on patrol in winter when a lot of inexperienced swimmers are swimming.

And we are getting to many immigrants (hahaha we are running out of room! )! Might make an exception for cricket players though...

What bout the dreaded J-Fish ?

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: English Spinners

This isn't an Australian vs England bashing thread remember. It's simply comparing the two objectively.

Replying to a few threads:

I think another thing for the schools would be space. Over here we have space for numerous ovals, nets, indoor centres and very sprawled out schools. In the cities it can be different, but then again the best cricketers quite often don't come from the cities.

From the stereotyped views I see from TV shows and general people around, some schools in England don't even have ovals to play on? If that's the case than that would be pretty much discrimination over here.

Right now it is getting very politically correct around the place, but that doesn't seem anything in comparison to English society looking at this thread.

Also a generalisation I have gotten from Liz is the want to get better and better all the time. Liz says that cricketers over there only want her help after they are injured or something goes wrong. If Liz was in Australia she would be downright over worked, everyone snaps up the coaches and any other aid straight away.

Also the ability to practice in your own backyard seems more likely in Australia. I myself growing up maintained two of my own pitches, they weren't that good but I was able to bowl every afternoon after school and occasionally a mate would come around and we would set up our own nets. To practice meant only walking outside with a ball, I'm thinkng in England you don't have that luxury of space?

So much of this is spot on - Over the last 30 years we've had a situation that started around 1979 where schools had their funding changed and had to become more self sufficient. One of the options that was made available to them was the selling off of their sometimes enormous playing fields for housing development. Cricket fields would have been one of the first sacrifices leaving a football field or two. Nets in most schools would be subjected to vandalism as there's also a perception that cricket is for 'Posh kids' and therefore a potential target for vandals. Nets are a feature of most schools, even my school in Tilbury (which must be one of the most God forsaken places on the planet http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&s...=hyx53w351o-CXyngDJuasQ&cbp=12,289.3,,0,12.12 have a look, this is where I used to live!) had nets, but no teachers to teach cricket and I think this is the case even now in most schools. My own kids in their Primary school (aged 8 and 11) have a school that has cricket on the curriculum and unusually for a primary school has three fairly young blokes as teachers. But they're all footballers and have no interest in cricket, the cricket is taught by a young female teacher who's boyfriend plays cricket and therefore has some idea and enthusiasm which my lads were well impressed by. But you can almost guarantee that once they get to senior school their cricket opportunities will be incredibly limited if not non-existent despite the fact that the school sports hall will be equipped with cricket nets. I know one of the schools we looked at did have a cricket team but it was only once the boys were in the last year of their 5 years at that level of education and that's probably subject to whether there's a games master that is interested enough to create, form and run a team. So as a nation you can easily see that in the suburbs we're definitely on the back foot compared to you Aussies.

The English attitude..... I think that at the minute there's this weird hang over that's more than a 100 hundred years old and comes from the Empire years, further made worse from the fact that we won the World Cup in 1966. I've always been brought up with this sense that we win everything and that another world cup win in imminent and that we don't really need to train hard or work hard because we're either 'Jolly well English and win at everything' if we're a bit posh or we're 'British Bulldog working class types' who fight to the death and win through sheer grit, bravery and determination having done no real preparation in a kind of Dads army approach.

With regards back gardens and space again you're spot on - just have a look at the same link above and zoom out a bit and just see the size of our backyards, most people's back-yards are like this, my current house has a backyard that is 30' x 30' and any new builds are similar or smaller. The current trend in the private house sector is to buy bigger houses with 1920's type gardens (long and thin) and build 2 or three units with small gardens where there may have been just one 3 bed house.

 

[LIONS then DAYLIGHT]

Re: English Spinners

I reckon we should email this thread to the ECB and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

The TV thing is interesting. It's well known that here you have to pay £20-30 a month to watch cricket, and obviously only a small percentage of people are willing to pay that. The ECB claim they need that money to fund the game, however where has that money gone? I'm in Scotland so wouldn't see any of it anyway, but do clubs in England get much funding from the ECB? It's quite possible that a chance to shine has done more for grassroots cricket than the ECB...

In you're patriotic rant there Lions, you've hit upon an interesting point. People who want cricket back on free TV usually suggest it should be Test cricket that is shown. However, youngsters would be far more likely to get interested in cricket if they saw T20 or ODIs, as in your case Lions. Perhaps the compromise is for Sky to show Tests and for BBC/ITV/4/5 to get a few T20s and ODIs a season. That should apease the Sky lot, who claim that without the Ashes, the TV money would be halved; and it would allow some national exposure for the more newbie-friendly version of the game.

I could only dream of having my own pitch in the back garden! Certainly a reason why more facilities are needed in Britain.

When I was a kid Id also watch test matchs, in fact, I rated all the formats the same and wanted to win them all.

I distinctly remember the day nighters though, especially around the 2001/02 season, and the 2002/03 season.

Your on school holidays, you'd play cricket on the neighbours drive way the entire afternoon, then come in at night and watch the cricket under lights.

The white ball, in comparison to the red, makes the ball look like it is going faster, getting hit harder, flying further, combined with the lights and the coloured clothing and Bill Lawry screaming made it a memorable experience, IMO, more so than the test matchs.

The crowds were packed, you'd here the chants, you'd see the odd invader, it was great entertainment. One of the negative points often put foward about ODI cricket is that it is forgettable, lost in the saturation of ODI games.

I disagree fundamentally, maybe it was just by teenage enthusiam, I'm not sure. I still remember like yesterday seeing Brett Lee charge in to steal the 2nd final against England at the MCG in 2002/03, I still remember Australia having to fight to get back into the 2001/02 series against South Africa and New Zealand; Andrew Symonds hauling in a screamer off Boucher in 2001/02 at the Gabba; Ponting's pull shot into the hole at the MCG against England in 2002/03.

So many great memories of ODI cricket played in Australia under lights when I was a kid at high school.

Ponting was my favourite player, for the attacking shots and the electric fielding; Mark Waugh was another; even the freak 'Ian' Harvey.

Ponting is the only player still playing that was playing when I first watched cricket back in the mid 90's, when he retires, that link will be lost, and maybe the love I have for ODI cricket will die with it.

Cricket at night is the way to grow the game, I have no doubt about that, the balance has to be right between good competitive cricket and entertainment.

You need that balance, because it makes the game worthwhile, T20 is all to friendly for mine.

 

[macca]

Re: English Spinners

And we are getting to many immigrants (hahaha we are running out of room! )! Might make an exception for cricket players though...

They should let all the Sri Lankan boat people land then Boris, they all play our game. The more the merrier. Come to think of it they have been playing cricket in Afghanistan for a long time as well so that mob are welcome too.

 

[Spiderlounge]

Re: English Spinners

Your on school holidays, you'd play cricket on the neighbours drive way the entire afternoon, then come in at night and watch the cricket under lights.

I assume you mean "watched it on TV", and I think this is another reason why Australia's better than the UK at producing more good cricketers per head of population.

You may recall half a dozen great ODI matches you saw on TV, I can only remember the two I actually went to, because we just don't get enough cricket on terrestrial TV. We don't even get The Ashes live, having to put up with highlights which might boil down a patient, well-thought out spell lasting an hour or more into a dozen boundaries and a wicket at the end. How can you teach leg spinners how to work a plan if they never see the whole of that plan and only see the bowler being whacked for four?

Wider than that, I think the ECB's idea of promoting grass-roots cricket by using the money from SKY is flawed. There's no point all the clubs in the land having great facilities if kids don't grow up watching cricket. The best way to have kids grow up with cricket in their blood is to give them every opportunity to watch it at home.

 

[LIONS then DAYLIGHT]

Re: English Spinners

I'll tell you a story.

In 2003 I went on a UK tour as part of a rugby/cricket trip for my high school.

It was predominately a rugby tour, we had taken some cricket gear with the thought of getting 2 or 3 one day games in against schools. Some of the rugby boys were going to have a hit to make enough for a cricket team, but most of those guys played cricket at school anyway.

We couldn't get a game the entire tour, and it was such a disappointment. Some of us on here bag England as a bit of a laugh, but the thought of playing a cricket match in England against another English school was a great attraction; almost like a mini-ashes series.

We had grown up playing cricket on regional cricket grounds in Australia; turf wickets surrounded by a dead grass outfield due to the drought. Some of the school grounds we saw in England/Scotland were amazing.

Green outfields, white picket fences, pavillions, visually the grounds were magnificent.

The tour was in September, so it might have been a bit late, but even then, you would have though one of the schools we went to could have got together 11 guys to play an Australian school team.

We tried, make no mistake, but we were meant with little enthuasium in return.

We didn't play a cricket game all tour, although, I had a net with some of my billets and there mates, which was enjoyable.

 

[legspinner_don]

Re: English Spinners

I reckon after 2005 you might have had a better chance of finding a game. I think it's difficult to overstate what the Ashes series did for cricket in Britain (and I include Britain as there was even Ashes fever in Edinburgh...!). Unfortunately, when cricket was at its most popular for decades, perhaps ever, the rights to cricket were sold to pay TV and the chance to build on that great series was lost.

Some cricket really has to return to free TV, I think. You just need to look at the apetite for it when you see the viewing figures for the IPL on ITV4, a backwater channel hidden away in the TV guides.

 

[mas cambios]

Re: English Spinners

I'll tell you a story.

In 2003 I went on a UK tour as part of a rugby/cricket trip for my high school.

snip...

We didn't play a cricket game all tour, although, I had a net with some of my billets and there mates, which was enjoyable.

The problem was you were touring in September, the traditional start of the school winter season. Schools are very precious over their 'seasons' with cricket rarely, if ever starting before the break for Easter (even when it's late).

The pitches would have been put to bed for the year and the sole focus on winter sports. You probably would have gotten a friendly against a club side but as I said, very unlikely to get a game against a school.

 

[LIONS then DAYLIGHT]

Re: English Spinners

I still got the impression that cricket wasn't exactly a high priority sport in England.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: English Spinners

I reckon after 2005 you might have had a better chance of finding a game. I think it's difficult to overstate what the Ashes series did for cricket in Britain (and I include Britain as there was even Ashes fever in Edinburgh...!). Unfortunately, when cricket was at its most popular for decades, perhaps ever, the rights to cricket were sold to pay TV and the chance to build on that great series was lost.

Some cricket really has to return to free TV, I think. You just need to look at the apetite for it when you see the viewing figures for the IPL on ITV4, a backwater channel hidden away in the TV guides.

the problem with cricket on television is that prior to the 2005 Ashes, the free channels had absolutely no interest in cricket, and werent willing to put up any money.

Sky Sports, being specialists and showing just about every sport, whether popular or not, stumped up good money to show the cricket, and then spent good money on creating excellent standards in broadcasting it.

then England have some success for 4 years and all of a sudden Channel 4/ITV/BBC are whining because they think it should be free to air. but where were they when the cricket was boring? they werent prepared to stump up the money. so i dont think its right to steal it away from Sky.

Sky have spent a LOT of money on technology for cricket. their coverage is probably the best in the world, especially considering that viewing figures for all forms of cricket apart from the Ashes are tiny compared to football matches.

if channel 4 were given the right, by law, to show the Ashes, would they spend millions of pounds on HD cameras, super high speed cameras, hot spot, snicko, etc, etc? my money is on no, they might send some HD cameras, but thats as far as it would go. they also wouldnt be paying the ECB obscene amounts of money in television rights.

without television money the counties get less money, as do clubs. less is spent on player development. before you know it theres a shortage of promising young players, and English cricket slumps back back into the 90's with no success.

compare this to football, and the obscene amounts of money that get thrown around for television rights. and thats why the English leagues are the best in the world. if English cricket wants to follow that path then money is required. and Sky are the only ones that are willing to pay it.

 

[mas cambios]

Re: English Spinners

I still got the impression that cricket wasn't exactly a high priority sport in England.

It is and it isn't. Depends on what schools you visit and where they are located. Go to a private school and cricket is very much the summer sport. Go to a state school and other sports are likely to take preference.

Also, state schools will often rely on an enthusiastic teacher who is willing to sacrifice time to take a team and allow them play matches. It can be lot of hassle, even just to arrange fixtures if other schools in the locale can't be bothered.

As I said, schools here work to a fairly rigid structure, maybe due to the curriculum they are forced to work under, maybe for other reasons. My experience has been that unless it is the 'season' then teachers have no interest in others sports. It can even be that you'll have a half term of athletics and one of cricket (for example) rather than both existing side by side.

 

[Spiderlounge]

Re: English Spinners

My final word on the TV thing is - look at Formula 1. Loads of people who don't watch it complain that it's boring but it's one of the richest and fastest-growing sports in terms of viewers and has been for a decade or so. It's no accident that it has been shown on free-to-air TV in the UK every year for the last 30 years - Bernie Ecclestone, who controls the TV rights, knows that his sport is healthier and more money will come into it if people have every opportunity to watch it. He took it to the BBC last year specifically on the condition that they put on a good show in terms of red button, internet coverage, i-Player availability and so on, and while you may or may not like motor racing you have to say the BBC's coverage of it is outstanding. Like I say, the fact that it's like this is no accident. Sadly, English cricket doesn't have a figure as decisive and business-savvy as Bernie, but it looks like India does...

If I ran the ECB I'd whore myself round the terrestrial TV stations offering county cricket coverage for free, as long as they show it in good time slots. Initially the counties would see it as a threat, but after a while they'd probably find many more people coming through their gates on match day. For me getting more people interested in cricket is the key to having a healthy sport.

 

[Boris]

Re: English Spinners

On the TV thing (not sure how we got to TV rights from English Spinners, but anyway ).

Sports is slowly moving over to pay TV in Australia, but as soon as it started there is no a campaign to get sports going out free to the public. There are ads now on TV started by various governments stating things like "it is everyone's right to see your country/state play sport against another country/state", they talk as if sport is a god given right. In fairness, though, in Australia it pretty much is.

This sort of campaign is probably something that English TV could do with.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: English Spinners

I'll tell you a story.

In 2003 I went on a UK tour as part of a rugby/cricket trip for my high school.

It was predominately a rugby tour, we had taken some cricket gear with the thought of getting 2 or 3 one day games in against schools. Some of the rugby boys were going to have a hit to make enough for a cricket team, but most of those guys played cricket at school anyway.

We couldn't get a game the entire tour, and it was such a disappointment. Some of us on here bag England as a bit of a laugh, but the thought of playing a cricket match in England against another English school was a great attraction; almost like a mini-ashes series.

We had grown up playing cricket on regional cricket grounds in Australia; turf wickets surrounded by a dead grass outfield due to the drought. Some of the school grounds we saw in England/Scotland were amazing.

Green outfields, white picket fences, pavillions, visually the grounds were magnificent.

The tour was in September, so it might have been a bit late, but even then, you would have though one of the schools we went to could have got together 11 guys to play an Australian school team.

We tried, make no mistake, but we were meant with little enthuasium in return.

We didn't play a cricket game all tour, although, I had a net with some of my billets and there mates, which was enjoyable.

Yeah September, not a good time admin wise at schools and you'd be lucky to get that together at that time of year. You'd have been far better off approaching a cricket club and playing a colts side, they'd have probably been falling over themselves to sort something out I reckon?

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: English Spinners

I still got the impression that cricket wasn't exactly a high priority sport in England.

Yep - that's about right. Football's the one even though we're dog-crap useless at it.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: English Spinners

the problem with cricket on television is that prior to the 2005 Ashes, the free channels had absolutely no interest in cricket, and werent willing to put up any money.

Sky Sports, being specialists and showing just about every sport, whether popular or not, stumped up good money to show the cricket, and then spent good money on creating excellent standards in broadcasting it.

then England have some success for 4 years and all of a sudden Channel 4/ITV/BBC are whining because they think it should be free to air. but where were they when the cricket was boring? they werent prepared to stump up the money. so i dont think its right to steal it away from Sky.

Sky have spent a LOT of money on technology for cricket. their coverage is probably the best in the world, especially considering that viewing figures for all forms of cricket apart from the Ashes are tiny compared to football matches.

if channel 4 were given the right, by law, to show the Ashes, would they spend millions of pounds on HD cameras, super high speed cameras, hot spot, snicko, etc, etc? my money is on no, they might send some HD cameras, but thats as far as it would go. they also wouldnt be paying the ECB obscene amounts of money in television rights.

without television money the counties get less money, as do clubs. less is spent on player development. before you know it theres a shortage of promising young players, and English cricket slumps back back into the 90's with no success.

compare this to football, and the obscene amounts of money that get thrown around for television rights. and thats why the English leagues are the best in the world. if English cricket wants to follow that path then money is required. and Sky are the only ones that are willing to pay it.

This has been discussed elsewhere, but there's a lot of people including me that differ in opinion with regards to this. During 2005 when the Ashes was free to air 7 million people watched it and it generated the 'Shane Warne' phenomenon that see me now in clubs all over the country and that includes so many of us on this forum right now. If it wasn't for the free to air factor I'd have never been enthused and introduced to the phenomenon that was Warne and the excitement of the Ashes. With regards the technical coverage I'm not fussed on all those details I just want to see cricket without adverts being forced down my throat which i cannot abide and have a bloke talk about it.

The last Ashes was noted for it low viewing figures, I saw none of it because it's restricted to SKY and a commentator in one of the better national papers here noted that in his village in 2005 the local playing field was full of small boys shouting Owzat and being Freddie Flintoff. This time around he didn't witness it once.

Most of us in the UK can't afford or would want to afford Sky and some of us find Murdoch and his dominance of the media worrying and politcally fuelled.

Whilst at the same time we must still acknowledge as Jim has pointed out that Murdoch has under-written English cricket and in some way we need to be thankful for that albeit begrudgingly. But moreover the majority of blokes that have Sky are football fans and they buy the packages for the football and whereas starved of football they may have taken a cursory glance at the cricket during the last ashes and bumped up the viewing figures to the 1.7 million or whatever it was, but rest assured the impact on small boys being inspired and coming into cricket off the back of Murdochs expensive cricket coverage would be minimal and there will be no 'Shane warne affect this time' and cricket will suffer in the longer term. That's why we have no spinner maybe?

 

[SteveyD]

Re: English Spinners

Yep - that's about right. Football's the one even though we're dog-crap useless at it.

qft!

 

[LIONS then DAYLIGHT]

Re: English Spinners

On the TV thing (not sure how we got to TV rights from English Spinners, but anyway ).

Sports is slowly moving over to pay TV in Australia, but as soon as it started there is no a campaign to get sports going out free to the public. There are ads now on TV started by various governments stating things like "it is everyone's right to see your country/state play sport against another country/state", they talk as if sport is a god given right. In fairness, though, in Australia it pretty much is.

This sort of campaign is probably something that English TV could do with.

What sports are going over to pay TV? I'd argue that pay tv, used correctly, complements free to air coverage of sport to give an overall better product.

International cricket games in Australia, involving Australia, are shown on free to air. Foxsports then shows highlights on TV after the game.

State cricket is now shown consistently on pay tv, when before Ch 9 used to show the odd state ODI game every now and then.

Overall, pay tv was boosted the coverage of domestic cricket in Australia.

Some AFL and Rugby matchs are shown on free to air, while others are shown on pay.

I'd strongly argue that pay tv was boosted the coverage of all sport in Australia.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: English Spinners

there will be no 'Shane warne affect this time' and cricket will suffer in the longer term. That's why we have no spinner maybe?

the fact that Shane Warne didnt play in the 2009 Ashes might have had some bearing on that lol.

also, the series as a whole was lacking the star players that the 2005 series had. almost all of the top Aussies retired after regaining the urn in 2007, and England lost a few of their top players too. plus the fact that we had already won it in 2005 meant that it was no longer quite as impressive. il bet the viewing figures for the first few matches in 2005 were pretty low. but once England had a real chance of winning it il bet they rose. the figures on the final day of the final test were massive if memory serves correct. 10's of millions.

if Channel 4 or the BBC were to offer a broadcast to the same standards as Sky do at present then i think it would be excellent for Cricket if they were to show all of Englands games. especially in the long term.

however, we live in a short term society, where the people in charge of the counties are only likely to be in charge for a few years, and they get paid based on how much money the county makes. so they are always going to take the quick buck. and Sky are the only ones offering that.

in terms of terrestrial TV showing cricket, and the ensuing pickup among kids, and the eventual profits that would create, youre talking maybe 10 years? nobody in the management of cricket is planning to be in the same position that far ahead, and they are all about the money. so they will take the fast money on the table every time. screw long term development. it doesnt even feature into their minds.

they also have to compete with the IPL and other countries cricket leagues in terms of keeping their players. if the ECB was to take a terrestrial TV deal for 90% less money than Sky pay, and that 90% filtered down to the players, then youd end up with the entire England team ditching their country to play as T20 mercenaries for as much money as they can grab.

and in fairness, we arent talking football money here. if a cricket player has a career in full time cricket until they are 35, theyve got probably 50 years to live beyond that where they would like to not have to work again. so theyve got to earn probably £3-5m in their 15 year playing career in order to achieve that and be comfortable. thats not an obscene amount of money.

contrast that with footballers, where the top players get £7m per YEAR, and have career earnings potentially in the hundreds of millions. thats greedy and ridiculous. but cricket players just dont get anywhere near that kind of money. the richest players on the planet are probably worth single million figures.