Preparing for a test series

[greatwhiteshark]

I am finding it a little hard to get my head around how England and for that matter Australia can go into a Test series such as the ashes with such little preparation playing Red Ball cricket.
It's like playing in an AFL grand final and you have not played a game for 10 weeks.
I understand that with so much short format cricket being played these days that it may be more difficult but I think it's not professional or good enough to turn up to play such big test series so under prepared.
England had only 3-4 players from this test squad in the 20/20 world cup and the rest of them should of been somewhere in the world just churning out 4 day cricket matches weekly getting ready for the Australian summer ashes series.
And even though the Aussies are two nil up we hardly had any special preparation also for the such a big test series.
Do the nations take these series as seriously as they once did? or are they just now more for the public to believe in and the players are just going through the system waiting for their next big payday?
Is there another sport in the world that such poor preparation is done to play in such so called big events?
Thoughts?

 

[PhatBoy]

I understand that the nature of international and franchise cricket means everything is compressed but the whole England performance so far aside from some of the bowling smacks of lack of preparation. Look at the guys who have been respectable:

Robinson: he’s going to bowl solidly now matter what. He’s shown that in almost every innings he’s played in his young career
Root: he’s a superstar
Malan: franchise cricket star, international t20 star. He’s conditioned to adapting quickly To new environments and he’s played here and succeeded before
Buttler: like Malan he’s well travelled.
Anderson: never bowls a poor spell really
Wood: will always appreciate faster bouncier wickets

Look at all those who have relatively speaking failed:

Stokes: he’s legitimately tried hard and he’s clearly short of a gallop. A practice match or two would have done him wonders
The openers: both totally unproven out here, how could they be expected to adapt quickly to a new ball, a different ball, in polar opposite conditions to what they’re used to, without proper preparation?
Pope: gun county player with little overseas experience, same as the openers
Woakes: has done all of his best work at home so maybe someone MIGHT just think he’d benefit from some extra long preparation here?
Leach: the best spinners in the world have struggled here and that’s against a team that Aside from Martyn and Clarke and Smith haven’t had a recognised good player of good spin in 17 years. How the hell would a garden variety spinner be expected to succeed here without proper preparation?
Broad: can’t doubt his effort but he’s a player who even in friendly conditions, has often struggled from that ‘he takes a while to find the right length for the conditions’ perspective. And not only do they not prepare him properly, they leave him out and expect him to come in and get it right instantly in the second test.

That’s just from a planning perspective.

From a tactical perspective it looks like they’ve had some ok general plans to bowl to albeit their lengths haven’t been spot on. However it seems to me like they’ve tried to play on Australia’s patience which in some series previously may have worked. I guess you could say it might have worked if they caught better. But equally austtalia to their credit have been far more willing to give respect to the quicks and take their time and they deserve applause for that. So what’s their plan b? What’s their ‘we think this guy might have a weakness against xx type of bowling’? It’s been to bowl short. Again, credit to someone like stokes for coming in half fit and trying to be that guy and he’s shown glimpses but they don’t HAVE a Wagner who can give you 8 overs of relentlessly accurate body bowling. Even if they did, their fielders would probably drop the chances anyway as stokes is the only reliable catcher they have.
With the bat, root and Malan have batted Well and had clear plans to simply be respectful but proactive. Stokes too, albeit not executed perfectly yet, has had a clear plan. Soak up as much as he can, then try to open up if he gets set.

Everyone else has simply looked like they don’t have a clear idea of what they want to do beyond survive.

 

[greatwhiteshark]

I understand that the nature of international and franchise cricket means everything is compressed but the whole England performance so far aside from some of the bowling smacks of lack of preparation. Look at the guys who have been respectable:

Robinson: he’s going to bowl solidly now matter what. He’s shown that in almost every innings he’s played in his young career
Root: he’s a superstar
Malan: franchise cricket star, international t20 star. He’s conditioned to adapting quickly To new environments and he’s played here and succeeded before
Buttler: like Malan he’s well travelled.
Anderson: never bowls a poor spell really
Wood: will always appreciate faster bouncier wickets

Look at all those who have relatively speaking failed:

Stokes: he’s legitimately tried hard and he’s clearly short of a gallop. A practice match or two would have done him wonders
The openers: both totally unproven out here, how could they be expected to adapt quickly to a new ball, a different ball, in polar opposite conditions to what they’re used to, without proper preparation?
Pope: gun county player with little overseas experience, same as the openers
Woakes: has done all of his best work at home so maybe someone MIGHT just think he’d benefit from some extra long preparation here?
Leach: the best spinners in the world have struggled here and that’s against a team that Aside from Martyn and Clarke and Smith haven’t had a recognised good player of good spin in 17 years. How the hell would a garden variety spinner be expected to succeed here without proper preparation?
Broad: can’t doubt his effort but he’s a player who even in friendly conditions, has often struggled from that ‘he takes a while to find the right length for the conditions’ perspective. And not only do they not prepare him properly, they leave him out and expect him to come in and get it right instantly in the second test.

That’s just from a planning perspective.

From a tactical perspective it looks like they’ve had some ok general plans to bowl to albeit their lengths haven’t been spot on. However it seems to me like they’ve tried to play on Australia’s patience which in some series previously may have worked. I guess you could say it might have worked if they caught better. But equally austtalia to their credit have been far more willing to give respect to the quicks and take their time and they deserve applause for that. So what’s their plan b? What’s their ‘we think this guy might have a weakness against xx type of bowling’? It’s been to bowl short. Again, credit to someone like stokes for coming in half fit and trying to be that guy and he’s shown glimpses but they don’t HAVE a Wagner who can give you 8 overs of relentlessly accurate body bowling. Even if they did, their fielders would probably drop the chances anyway as stokes is the only reliable catcher they have.
With the bat, root and Malan have batted Well and had clear plans to simply be respectful but proactive. Stokes too, albeit not executed perfectly yet, has had a clear plan. Soak up as much as he can, then try to open up if he gets set.

Everyone else has simply looked like they don’t have a clear idea of what they want to do beyond survive.

Even sending your batsman out to australia to play grade cricket would be a far greater prep than they have had. Like I said can you imagine playing a big game of footy with no prep. It is just totally unprofessional.

 

[PhatBoy]

Even sending your batsman out to australia to play grade cricket would be a far greater prep than they have had. Like I said can you imagine playing a big game of footy with no prep. It is just totally unprofessional.

Was literally thinking about this the other day - Jim Maxwell pointed out that Mark Stoneman who played some useful innings’ here four years ago made a big hundred in first grade last weekend. I would take a punt on him before bringing in Crawley or someone

 

[Golumless]

I am finding it a little hard to get my head around how England and for that matter Australia can go into a Test series such as the ashes with such little preparation playing Red Ball cricket.
It's like playing in an AFL grand final and you have not played a game for 10 weeks.
I understand that with so much short format cricket being played these days that it may be more difficult but I think it's not professional or good enough to turn up to play such big test series so under prepared.
England had only 3-4 players from this test squad in the 20/20 world cup and the rest of them should of been somewhere in the world just churning out 4 day cricket matches weekly getting ready for the Australian summer ashes series.
And even though the Aussies are two nil up we hardly had any special preparation also for the such a big test series.
Do the nations take these series as seriously as they once did? or are they just now more for the public to believe in and the players are just going through the system waiting for their next big payday?
Is there another sport in the world that such poor preparation is done to play in such so called big events?
Thoughts?

COVID, the T20 world cup (which was only ~month ago), and bad luck (seeing the practice game England was going to have got washed out).

 

[frankrizzo]

England just don't have the batting depth, they had right idea with bowling but their express quicks are all made of glass and so the odds of them all being fit and firing for a 5 tests series are maybe one in ten but they could spend 6 months here pre series and the batting still won't be there so this isnt just an issue of overseas adjustment this is a team that lost back to back home test series because the batting simply isnt good enough.

 

[Cleavy]

the days of having 3-5 warmup games around and in-between Tests is long gone.

 

[cricketnut14]

with all countries trying to fit into each others summer schedules and having separate odi and 20/20 tours makes it difficult.

these franchise 20/20 tournaments are also taking priority because of $$$$$.

not sure why we cant host 2 teams every home summer in a test series consisting of odi's & 20/20's and then 2 winter tours.

the white ball stuff could be the lead up (i know not all test players are in the white ball sides) and then perhaps a 3-4 first class game. maybe another first class game mid test series.

only other way around it in this climate is too have separate test teams to the 20/20 side to accommodate tour matches.

 

[Gethelred]

the days of having 3-5 warmup games around and in-between Tests is long gone.

No small part of the reason the 2017 Australian tour of India was so hyped was because for the first time in a long time Australia has apportioned time to prepare. They had a camp between playing in the UAE and India; they hired specialist coaches to work with O'Keefe and Lyon to get them bowling in the right way. The side they selected demonstrated a preference for horse for courses, as opposed to our convention of just picking our best side. This bore genuine dividends when the series got underway; we won the first test by a crushing 333 runs, and only just lost the second, drawing the third, and forced them to revamp their tactics for the fourth test.

The lesson here isn't that warmups don't happen, but that they require a board who is less committed to the financial side of the game to make them happen. India could do it; New Zealand can do it; Australia outside of their summer are perfectly willing to do it. England's issue seems to be that they are unwilling to lose money in order to ensure adequate preparation, and that's stifling their ability to perform even at home.

 

[t_94]

the days of having 3-5 warmup games around and in-between Tests is long gone.

Yes but the end product will suffer dramatically.