I get that people want to see them fail. It’s England, everyone who doesn’t follow them likes watching them lose.
Everyone who likes test cricket likes watching matches where players have to use different strengths and overcome weaknesses and teams have different parts that thrive in different circumstances etc etc etc. I get it. Seeing a team where everyone just comes out and thrashes from ball one is not suppose to work, it is tactless, and it does not appear to be ‘proper’ cricket.
But until it doesn’t work, it works. And so far it has. That’s not disputable. Even the games they’ve lost, the early declaration: well who the f*** is to say they even get to a score where they can declare, if they play the way they would have played pre-McCullum and inch their way to 8-215 by stumps? Do people NOT REALISE THIS??
And yeah Lyon missed the best part of three tests, Jack Leach missed all of them. He’s not as good as Lyon but he’s their first choice spinner and he’s a shitload better than Moen Ali. Why is it only one team’s misfortune that ever gets remembered?
And we throw stones at all these mediocre first class players that England bring in and tell to just go out and throw the bat. Adam Gilchrist had a fairly ordinary domestic record save for some good List A outings before he caught the eye, then he forged his reputation in OdI cricket.
Suddenly he was playing every test innings with abandon and no one cared because it worked and aside from Warne he was honestly, to quite a few people, the main reason that side was so brutally dominant; once you saw off this powerhouse top six the most dangerous guy of all comes out with no regard at all for his wicket and you just copped it from ball one.
Not that I’m suggesting any English players are in anywhere near the same hemisphere as Gilchrist but that’s the sort of attitude McCullum is trying to get them to play with and more often than not so far, it has worked
Everyone who likes test cricket likes watching matches where players have to use different strengths and overcome weaknesses and teams have different parts that thrive in different circumstances etc etc etc. I get it. Seeing a team where everyone just comes out and thrashes from ball one is not suppose to work, it is tactless, and it does not appear to be ‘proper’ cricket.
But until it doesn’t work, it works. And so far it has. That’s not disputable. Even the games they’ve lost, the early declaration: well who the f*** is to say they even get to a score where they can declare, if they play the way they would have played pre-McCullum and inch their way to 8-215 by stumps? Do people NOT REALISE THIS??
And yeah Lyon missed the best part of three tests, Jack Leach missed all of them. He’s not as good as Lyon but he’s their first choice spinner and he’s a shitload better than Moen Ali. Why is it only one team’s misfortune that ever gets remembered?
And we throw stones at all these mediocre first class players that England bring in and tell to just go out and throw the bat. Adam Gilchrist had a fairly ordinary domestic record save for some good List A outings before he caught the eye, then he forged his reputation in OdI cricket.
Suddenly he was playing every test innings with abandon and no one cared because it worked and aside from Warne he was honestly, to quite a few people, the main reason that side was so brutally dominant; once you saw off this powerhouse top six the most dangerous guy of all comes out with no regard at all for his wicket and you just copped it from ball one.
Not that I’m suggesting any English players are in anywhere near the same hemisphere as Gilchrist but that’s the sort of attitude McCullum is trying to get them to play with and more often than not so far, it has worked
