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Cricket 42: The answer to life, the universe, and the inevitable English batting collapse


Xray the Enforcer

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11 minutes ago, Hereward said:

I’d have more empathy if their mental exhaustion led them to go home to their families rather than to yet another bubble in Dubai.

Quite a few of them (Virat for example) are travelling with their families. Their families will also accompany them to Dubai for the IPL. 

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11 minutes ago, Mosi Mynn said:

That's ... a bit of a stretch!  

The players' physical and mental welfare should definitely be the most important thing.

But the last minute-ness of this decision and the fact that the BBCI were grumbling about this Test existing before the series started are unique to this situation.  And I guess we'll never know what would have happened if the IPL was due to start mid-October instead of mid-September ... ;)

Fair enough! Like I said, I understand the frustration. 

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Just now, Paxter said:

Quite a few of them (Virat for example) are travelling with their families. Their families will also accompany them to Dubai for the IPL. 

In that case, what has changed? They were too mentally exhausted after being stuck in a bubble in England to play, despite previous reports that they enjoyed being on tour in England because they could go out without being constantly recognised, so they are moving to another bubble, also with their families, but that’s OK? Please.

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1 minute ago, Hereward said:

Please.

I love your 'insight' into people you don't know, circumstances you don't understand and are not a part of, and experiences you've never had.

Christ, you're out of touch and completely lacking in any sort of empathy.

( Also, it's a test series, there will be another one soon. These things are not that important :dunno:)

 

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The whataboutery with the England tour to South Africa is a bit much. It's not the same situation. That was meant to be a strict bubble, the players probably weren't fully vaccinated and there were particular concerns about the South African variant. India came into the tour knowing it wasn't going to be a strict bubble like last years tours and brought an expanded squad because of that.

You're right we don't know the mindset of the Indian players but the grandstanding about how cool you were with England pulling out of a different tour in a different situation isn't as impressive as you seem to think it is.

For me if the Indian players felt unable to play then, ok, you can't really argue with that. But that's forfeiting the match in my book.

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To clarify, I don’t really blame the players, and their mental health is paramount. I cannot imagine Kohli, for one, wanting to tarnish their victory, and I’m pretty sure it would have been a 3-1. As Pax said, the schedule is stupid, but I do blame the BCCI. They never wanted this match, because the IPL cash cow is more important. If the IPL wasn’t about to resume, this match would have gone ahead, I believe.

 I worry for the future of Test matches, especially after such a brilliant, seesaw series could not even be concluded, and I would hope that most of you would recognise that doesn’t make me racist, sociopathic, immature or stupid.

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Andy Bull has the answer: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/sep/10/england-india-cricket-test-blame-game

Quote

Well, yes. Like it or not, the IPL has more viewers than there are people in this country, and makes more money in seven weeks than the entirety of English cricket does in a year. To be blunt, the question isn’t whether the tournament is beginning to eclipse Test cricket, but why it hasn’t already done so.

Since we’re asking, a large part of the answer is because the Indian team haven’t allowed it to. If you doubt their commitment to Test cricket, then you can’t have been watching too closely these last few weeks. They’ve already played more Tests in the last 12 months than any other team, and will have played away series in Australia, England, and South Africa by the time the year is over. It wasn’t long ago that Virat Kohli was asking for more, calling for the World Test Championship final to be a best-of-three series. Right now, India are one of the teams who are propping up the format, not trying to polish it off.

As to what actually transpired to make this cancellation happen, we'll have to take another look at it in a few weeks after things quiet down a bit. Regardless, I think we can all agree Shastri is a bit of a tool. Not sure what possessed him to have a party of that size.

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12 hours ago, Raja said:

( Also, it's a test series, there will be another one soon. These things are not that important :dunno:)

 

It's important to the fans who forked out loadsa cash only to be told after travelling to the venue that the match had been cancelled.

It matters to the fans who wanted to watch the conclusion to this awesome series.

It is important to Old Trafford who was relying on the revenue.  Not to mention the employees, stall-holders, local economy.

And it should be important to the players, for professional pride if nothing else.

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On 9/11/2021 at 10:15 PM, ljkeane said:

The whataboutery with the England tour to South Africa is a bit much. It's not the same situation.

It's not exactly the same, you are correct, but similar enough to draw a comparison, in my opinion. Obviously you do not think so and that's totally fine, we differ on that point. However, this isn't just some Indian fan being 'nationalistic' or whatever, firstly the comparison was initially brought up by Paxter and not me. In fact, my first few posts were about how this is expected in a covid world.

Secondly, I'm not the only one making the comparison, and it's not just us 'nationalistic Indian fans' - On Sky, Atherton & Hussain also both brought up the comparison and were fairly good at what they said regarding the issues with moving from one bubble to the next ( and the potential impact of the IPL) and the kind of stress that can entail, not just for the players but also the broadcasters ( it's all available on youtube if you want to catch the segment I'm taking about) - on this thread, that has been completely dismissed by people who have zero experience in this situation whilst also being entirely flippant about mental health.

On 9/11/2021 at 10:15 PM, ljkeane said:

 isn't as impressive as you seem to think it is.

I don't think it's impressive. I think it's the only humane/ decent response one can have when a team or an individual cites mental strength as the reason why they were unable to play. And I would hope that was the reaction on these threads when England pulled out of the SA tour, but I don't remember what people in here said.

On 9/11/2021 at 10:15 PM, ljkeane said:

For me if the Indian players felt unable to play then, ok, you can't really argue with that. But that's forfeiting the match in my book.

I agree with that.

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I am extremely happy how things turned out with Eng v Ind series. I was going to be sad if England won and slightly less sad if India won. Somehow they managed to create a scenario where they both lose and everyone is unhappy.

This is great :laugh:

(let's hope Eng or Aus don't pull this shit for Ashes though.....)

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Pretty bad week really with the Manchester test off, the Hobart test likely off and NZ’s tour of Pakistan cancelled.

Not sure what will happen to England’s Pakistan tour now. And of course it’s becoming more and more likely that England will take a B (or at least A-) team to Australia for the Ashes.

On the bright side…no one can say there’s too much cricket being played! Australia for one barely plays anymore…

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8 hours ago, ljkeane said:

Apparently New Zealand and England have the same security consultants so it's hard to see England not deciding to pull the plug on their tour too.

Gah what a shame.

What a crappy world we live in. The greatest rivals in world cricket don’t play bilateral tests against each other and the second most populated cricket country can’t host matches.

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No surprises in the end that the England tour of Pakistan is also off. 

A little more surprising is that Kohli is handing over the India T20 and RCB captaincies. The official line is that this is about managing his own workload, but there is a bit of buzz/rumour-mongering about dissatisfaction with his captaincy. And Virat enjoyed working with Shashtri, who has ended his involvement with the team as coach.

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Perhaps slightly surprisingly Moeen Ali is apparently going to retire from Tests to focus on white-ball cricket. I think it is a loss to England to not have him available, even if he's never lived up to his potential as a batsman. As a bowler he has sometimes lacked a bit of control but you can't argue too much with almost 200 Test wickets.

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I'm not surprised with Moeen's decision. England has managed him extremely poorly in long-form cricket.

On the English decision to pull out of the Pakistan tour...now that I've learned more about it, I'm not sure there's many excuses for it.

I say this based on:

  • No specific security threats were cited in the ECB statement (unlike in the case of NZ)
  • The British High Commissioner to Pakistan did not advise against England touring and UK Government travel advisories remain the same
  • The fact that, if the ECB was worried about the wellbeing/bubble fatigue of the first XI, they could have simply selected a second XI
  • It was an extremely short tour (four days, two matches)
  • The English players' association played no role at all in the decision and were not refusing to tour
  • The lengths gone to by the Pakistan team to tour the UK twice during the pandemic (and the UK being one of the worst-affected countries globally)
  • No English tour of Pakistan since '05
  • England just experienced first-hand the devastating effects of a refusal to play scheduled matches
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