If the population of England is 58 Million

[corbies]

I'd still back England to beat Australia in a ODI or T20 neglecting finals pressure. Test cricket is just not their priority. I suspect like Australia their young people are losing interest in cricket also.

England's ODI side are 29 wins, 36 losses in the last 5 years and 7 wins, 16 losses in the last 2 years. They're 8th in the rankings.

 

[Jack Mundy]

And we have kids choosing nrl and afl

More people play soccer here than either

 

[Moonwatcher]

More people play soccer here than either

Is "here" England or Australia?

 

[Jack Mundy]

Is "here" England or Australia?

Both. Soccer is no 1 participation sport

 

[sabso]

At grassroots level:
Private school mentality. No real route into cricket for youngsters. A depressed economy and counterproductive working culture that discourages people from taking enough time to play cricket outside their jobs. Cricket on tv paywalled for 20 plus years.

At county level:
Said economy and culture precluding people from going to games. An overseas player policy that allows international quality cricketers a free go at beating up kids and lower level pros and getting used to English conditions which aren’t that special or rare in a wider context. Discrimination, real or perceived, against south Asian origin players eg azeem rafiq.

International:
Bazball philosophy, once game changing now almost completely impotent now the shock value has gone. Its attitude to player selection, especially keeping Crawley and Pope, not picking the best wicketkeeper, ignoring fielding discipline and wasting caps on bowlers who get no chance to prove themselves: same as englands selection has been for at least a decade but not solving the problem of building a base of batsmen who average mid 40s at least.

 

[Partridge]

International:
Bazball philosophy, once game changing now almost completely impotent now the shock value has gone. Its attitude to player selection, especially keeping Crawley and Pope, not picking the best wicketkeeper, ignoring fielding discipline and wasting caps on bowlers who get no chance to prove themselves: same as englands selection has been for at least a decade but not solving the problem of building a base of batsmen who average mid 40s at least.

Part of this, but it's broader and more cultural. The country is weak, soft, and pathetic, and so it their cricket team. It seems they are always far more concerned with appearances than performance. They select batsmen who apart from Root have no idea how to actually occupy the crease and protect their wicket. They select bowlers who don't know how to maintain line and length. They seem genuinely astonished that conditions here are different. And the neverending sludge of T20 - which too many amazingly think it still comparable to four and five day cricket - just wrecks technique, preparation, and everything else.

Nothing will change. They might appoint another coach or two, I'm sure that will magically help.

 

[sabso]

Part of this, but it's broader and more cultural. The country is weak, soft, and pathetic, and so it their cricket team. It seems they are always far more concerned with appearances than performance. They select batsmen who apart from Root have no idea how to actually occupy the crease and protect their wicket. They select bowlers who don't know how to maintain line and length. They seem genuinely astonished that conditions here are different. And the neverending sludge of T20 - which too many amazingly think it still comparable to four and five day cricket - just wrecks technique, preparation, and everything else.

Nothing will change. They might appoint another coach or two, I'm sure that will magically help.

Yep. Forgot to put that bazball is just baylissball reincarnated, and that died after like two years and Englands odd team went back to being dogshit cowards.

 

[Howard Littlejohn]

It's not really comparable on TV viewership alone though. Put games consistently on free to air TV, make games a lot more rare and play them all in London at weekends and naturally you're going to get better peak viewership. The latest YouGov polls put the number of adults in England who follow cricket and rugby (either watching live or supporting a team) as almost identical, and the number that play cricket as almost double the number that play rugby.

Its a lot easier to keep playing village cricket through your 50s than it is a contact sport like rugby. Which may (only may) suggest a lower playing pool among the peak sport playing ages and younger.

 

[A Pom]

Its a lot easier to keep playing village cricket through your 50s than it is a contact sport like rugby. Which may (only may) suggest a lower playing pool among the peak sport playing ages and younger.

This is true, but the numbers still show higher participation in cricket than rugby for adults below the age of 50 too.

 

[Gibbke]

Early 1995, I was at the MCG watching Australia play Australia A in the WSC finals, a week after England had been ousted...

A British film guy with a mic and his mate with a camera were walking around our stand asking punters if anyone would like to venture an opinion as to why England sucked so hard they couldn't even beat Australia's second team. The usual line bandied about back then was that England had too many teams at home, played too many matches, and there were too many imports, and like the dozen around me I said the party line...

Then I read the match programme which had an article about English cricket, and one line stuck out: 9/10 English schools don't play cricket (or at least didn't at that very moment in the 1990's)...

Looking out at the arena, there were two Australian sides playing off for a world trophy who had all learned their cricket not only against the rubbish bin and alternatively at a top Australian academy, but also having done the middle ground - Wednesday arvo or Saturday morning sport against the primary or high school down the road, umpired and catered for by mum and dads and teachers, all of whom were either wannabe national coaches or annoyed by having to be there in the first place but still did the job at a level above street grudge. At the same time, the declining Windians were still full of players who said they only way they would ever get a game or even the ball in the street at home was to be more competitive and aggressive than every other kid around them, in island nations that had little else going for them. All of this happening at the age where the kid is young and impressionable enough to get hooked and old enough to be able to show a few skills and get results...

Every kid in Australia back then could do this. Since then, it has dropped off, and several years ago the NQ school I taught at removed both its concrete pitch and the nets...ask the kids in class if they follow cricket, and it's a couple of white Aussies with ocker dads, 1-2 girls, and the newly arrived kid from South Africa! The rest hate it. However, we still have enough impetus in the capital cities, where interest and facilities exist, to drive powerful academies, so finding a strong XI isn't usually a problem...at that critical level, though, everyone in the country who qualifies is up for grabs...

So if 58m people are 90% unexposed to playing the game at a middle formative level needed if you're to become one of the 0.001% who can represent England, then expect them to have the same starting point as NZ - same population, up against a national football code the entire country worships, with a favourable economy to build an elite structure and maximise it to world domination level if they want to...something both nations talk the talk in, but don't always walk...

And that line about too many teams, matches and the imports? Bollocks, in hindsight. 3 times the teams (proportionately the same as Australia) leading to many times more matches, and bowling from the other end to the run of the mill medium pacer you just hit for two fours is frigging Wasim Akram...good thing you've got Viv Richards at the non-strikers end giving you some pointers...

 

[sabso]

Early 1995, I was at the MCG watching Australia play Australia A in the WSC finals, a week after England had been ousted...

A British film guy with a mic and his mate with a camera were walking around our stand asking punters if anyone would like to venture an opinion as to why England sucked so hard they couldn't even beat Australia's second team. The usual line bandied about back then was that England had too many teams at home, played too many matches, and there were too many imports, and like the dozen around me I said the party line...

Then I read the match programme which had an article about English cricket, and one line stuck out: 9/10 English schools don't play cricket (or at least didn't at that very moment in the 1990's)...

Looking out at the arena, there were two Australian sides playing off for a world trophy who had all learned their cricket not only against the rubbish bin and alternatively at a top Australian academy, but also having done the middle ground - Wednesday arvo or Saturday morning sport against the primary or high school down the road, umpired and catered for by mum and dads and teachers, all of whom were either wannabe national coaches or annoyed by having to be there in the first place but still did the job at a level above street grudge. At the same time, the declining Windians were still full of players who said they only way they would ever get a game or even the ball in the street at home was to be more competitive and aggressive than every other kid around them, in island nations that had little else going for them. All of this happening at the age where the kid is young and impressionable enough to get hooked and old enough to be able to show a few skills and get results...

Every kid in Australia back then could do this. Since then, it has dropped off, and several years ago the NQ school I taught at removed both its concrete pitch and the nets...ask the kids in class if they follow cricket, and it's a couple of white Aussies with ocker dads, 1-2 girls, and the newly arrived kid from South Africa! The rest hate it. However, we still have enough impetus in the capital cities, where interest and facilities exist, to drive powerful academies, so finding a strong XI isn't usually a problem...at that critical level, though, everyone in the country who qualifies is up for grabs...

So if 58m people are 90% unexposed to playing the game at a middle formative level needed if you're to become one of the 0.001% who can represent England, then expect them to have the same starting point as NZ - same population, up against a national football code the entire country worships, with a favourable economy to build an elite structure and maximise it to world domination level if they want to...something both nations talk the talk in, but don't always walk...

And that line about too many teams, matches and the imports? Bollocks, in hindsight. 3 times the teams (proportionately the same as Australia) leading to many times more matches, and bowling from the other end to the run of the mill medium pacer you just hit for two fours is frigging Wasim Akram...good thing you've got Viv Richards at the non-strikers end giving you some pointers...

Australia has shit tons of private schools too, England has hardly any