The creekit

[welshwhite]

The best thing for the English & Welsh Cricket team would be to try and find a way for Novak Djokovic to open the batting......It took the Aussies almost 2 weeks to get him out.

[AndyPaul]

The best thing for the English & Welsh Cricket team would be to try and find a way for Novak Djokovic to open the batting......It took the Aussies almost 2 weeks to get him out.

[Trumper]

The best thing for the English & Welsh Cricket team would be to try and find a way for Novak Djokovic to open the batting......It took the Aussies almost 2 weeks to get him out.

Got to pay that

[Proud to be Leeds]

I suppose my passing summary on this idiotic farrago is:

1. Sale of school playing fields. Yes, cricket takes a massive space and unfortunately dozens of secondary school pitches which were used in the 70s are covered in houses now. If you reduce the pool of potential professional players to cunts from private schools (with a few exceptions) you're obviously going to fuck it. The answer must lie in school use of club pitches, I guess.

I just watch Yorkshire and am not in touch with local club cricket. Has the reduction in the number of school pitches (and the reluctance of non-sport teachers to lose part of their weekends by umpiring school cricket) resulted in a smaller number of local cricket clubs? I don't recall many local club pitches being sold off for housing, so is the pool of young players still available or is the average age of club cricketers verging on W G Grace territory?

When I was at school our cricket team was pretty competitive and 2 or 3 of the more solid all rounders each year ended up with club teams aged 15 and up.

My kids’ school didn’t play cricket competitively but they did twat around with indoor stuff and taster days with local clubs if you opted for it. Maybe it’s a subtle difference, but I think the disconnect must reduce the overall pool and quality of young players.

My school was always more successful in cricket and we shared their cricket pitch with the local youth on the proviso we didn't fuck up the cricket pitch. However, as a member of the local youth we always preferred to play football. And even when we were asked to look after the cricket pitch, we would eventually five ourselves on the very shitty football pitches.

[MightyWhite]

My experience of cricket at school was a token, curriculum complying, couple of PE lessons per year. The rugby-centric PE teacher would send us to the nets (with practically no netting remaining) in an overgrown corner of the field, with a few tatty bits of padding and busy himself whilst we aimlessly smashed balls at each other’s head. I seem to recall we had to share communal boxes with each other . Wonder why it never really caught on for me?

[eric olthwaite]

I seem to recall we had to share communal boxes with each other

Oh fuck, that takes me back. The ritual of going out to bat and pausing to receive a warm, sweaty box from the lad on his way back in.

[AndyPaul]

At school we played football, rugby, gymnastics, athletics, tennis and Volleyball. Girls did some netball and we did some basketball. The occasional dance in PE too. Never once did we do cricket.

[welshwhite]

Communal boxes, you were lucky. We had to stuff a used jam-rag off one of the girls down our pants.

[Bobbycollins]

I seem to recall we had to share communal boxes with each other

Oh fuck, that takes me back. The ritual of going out to bat and pausing to receive a warm, sweaty box from the lad on his way back in.

Yep, that was always the indication of whether you were actually good at cricket. Never mind that you had your own bat.

[FredFlintstone]

We had cricket and a protected square on the top fields. Mind, I went to school in Knaresborough so they wouldn't even let us play Rugby League in winter...

Plenty of inter-school cricket back then though in the spring/summer terms. We also had indoor nets in the sports hall.

[Trumper]

Quite surprised England tests are not on FTA TV over there. Mandated here that that will never happen for home tests or UK Ashes series. I know not many watch FTA these days but for many that can’t afford cable or streaming it’s a must

[the flying pig]

our games teacher was Scottish. whilst the playing fields were plenty big (if possibly not flat) enough for one or more cricket pitches I'm not totally sure there was one. certainly had indoor nets & all that. couldn't tell you whether my year group ever played a competitive fixture. my instinct is not.

[Trumper]

A very minor ‘incident’ and not sure why Thorpe would think filming it was a good idea. Or why the footage was released.

Aside from that ..good to see the teams mixing. Should happen after every test like the old days

[the flying pig]

Quite surprised England tests are not on FTA TV over there. Mandated here that that will never happen for home tests or UK Ashes series. I know not many watch FTA these days but for many that can’t afford cable or streaming it’s a must

yeah, dunno.

as i expect you know, 2005 was the last ashes series to be shown on UK fta. now, it is potentially a bit misleading to compare subsequent ashes with that one since it was: (a) overall such a tight, high-quality contest; and (b) england's first win in aeons. but the fact remains that there's been relatively little popular interest over here in any of the series since, not even the home series wins. and as for this latest one, an away series that from early on looked like a bit of a lost cause - it's hardly scraped the surface of wider [i.e. non hardcore cricket fans'] public consciousness.

[dirty leeds]

Quite surprised England tests are not on FTA TV over there. Mandated here that that will never happen for home tests or UK Ashes series. I know not many watch FTA these days but for many that can’t afford cable or streaming it’s a must

yeah, dunno.

as i expect you know, 2005 was the last ashes series to be shown on UK fta. now, it is potentially a bit misleading to compare subsequent ashes with that one since it was: (a) overall such a tight, high-quality contest; and (b) england's first win in aeons. but the fact remains that there's been relatively little popular interest over here in any of the series since, not even the home series wins. and as for this latest one, an away series that from early on looked like a bit of a lost cause - it's hardly scraped the surface of wider [i.e. non hardcore cricket fans'] public consciousness.

The fact remains that all the tests over here sell out.

[AndyPaul]

The fact remains that all the tests over here sell out.

Of course they do. There's what 10 to 12 home tests a year with capacities at 15 to 20 thousand. More people watch football teams like Burnley, Middlesbrough than test matches. As there's not many of them they will sell out as there still is a base of fans, viewing figures on tv would be more telling compared to the T20 world cup for example.

[the flying pig]

The fact remains that all the tests over here sell out.

Of course they do. There's what 10 to 12 home tests a year with capacities at 15 to 20 thousand. More people watch football teams like Burnley, Middlesbrough than test matches. As there's not many of them they will sell out as there still is a base of fans, viewing figures on tv would be more telling compared to the T20 world cup for example.

https://www.footballwebpages.co.uk/leag ... ttendances

[dirty leeds]

So what? Football has always outsold cricket. Has done all my life.

[AndyPaul]

So what? Football has always outsold cricket. Has done all my life.

They played cricket in 1800s?

[dirty leeds]

So what? Football has always outsold cricket. Has done all my life.

They played cricket in 1800s?