English Spinners

[legspinner_don]

Re: English Spinners

Yeah it's hard for me to imagine the cold. In winter I think it's absolutely freezing at times... but last year I wore a jumper twice.

All in all which would be the better place to play cricket from your point of view?

I don't think there's much of a debate in that? There's a reason why, despite the UK's much larger population, we're on a level footing with Australia in sporting terms.

Although along with the weather, the other problem with sport in this country is facilities. Because of the weather, there needs to be more access to dedicated sporting arenas, indoor and outdoor. I was at university in Glasgow and if we wanted to play a game of 6/7 a side football we'd have to take a 15/20min car journey to a suburb of Glasgow and pay £4 each for an hour of football. Whereas, in places like Brazil, there are many more floodlit pitches with fully organised games.

 

[Boris]

Re: English Spinners

Jesus! Your place without a doubt, but then again some of our pitches as Jim mentioned are 200 - 300 years old maybe more and they're in amazingly beautiful locations and are the birth-place of this great sport, so yeah if you think about it, we have crap horrible winters, but come this time of the year it turns into something a bit special albeit be it unpredictable, so maybe not? If you're priveliged enough to be able to travel around the world, it would be great to be able to say that you'd experienced both in all the varieties.

Yeah I can see where you are coming from... it's better but you just can't quite say why.

I'd love to play on some of those grounds simply because someone 200 years ago did. White people weren't in this country that long ago, let alone playing cricket.

The beautiful locations thing... I have to say over here we get some quite awe inspiring places. I've been to a cricket ground on top of a hill before, if you looked to the right from the club house you can see the ocean from the whole side of the hill, on the left vast acres of national forest. This hill ain't small either, just round enough and level enough for a cricket ground.

Of course never been to England to see, but I would have to say that's the best place I've played. In fact I've opened a thread about that sort of thing in the Boundary Chat section.

This comparison of countries makes me want to play over there and have you guys play over here. See how you pommy bastards go in the heat of mid summer!

 

[Boris]

Re: English Spinners

I don't think there's much of a debate in that? There's a reason why, despite the UK's much larger population, we're on a level footing with Australia in sporting terms.

Although along with the weather, the other problem with sport in this country is facilities. Because of the weather, there needs to be more access to dedicated sporting arenas, indoor and outdoor. I was at university in Glasgow and if we wanted to play a game of 6/7 a side football we'd have to take a 15/20min car journey to a suburb of Glasgow and pay £4 each for an hour of football. Whereas, in places like Brazil, there are many more floodlit pitches with fully organised games.

The facilities are a big problem here too.

In Australia we have 21 million people - that's 1 person per square acre on average. Most of them are crammed into coastal cities (which sprawl like crazy) and with so much area with so few people it's hard to pay for things.

To give you and idea of the sizes, if Western Australia (look it up if you aren't sure of where the state is) were to break off and become it's own country it would be the 10th largest country in the world via area, with only 2 million people living within it!

This spread of population means great driving distances just to get to a cricket game on roads worse than you could believe. It's about 250km for me to get to a game on at The Gabba, so watching international cricket is quite a great deal of planning. And people come from as far as 600km away by car to watch games there.

That rules quite a few people out playing club cricket on weekends when the urban sprawl is huge. Especially in the rural areas the amount of population that can actually get to a cricket game is half of what it would be if they lived closer IMO.

This means that in Queensland we have a population of 4 million, 2 million of which live in the capital city, and another great deal just south of that. That leaves about 1.6 million people spread quite wide across something the size of 9 Englands.

Now try supplying enough coaches to that 1.6 million people. It's hard enough to supply them for the 2 million in the city, let alone ones north of there. This is the same countrywide. If you have a cricket coach at your club they either aren't very good (as in a team mate doing a dodgy course and saying they are), you are very lucky or you are good enough to get into some sort of representative team.

Then cricket nets are quite few and far between. Usually they are pretty spread apart and not the greatest quality. Indoor centres are mostly unheard of, but I guess there isn't much use for them over here.

Saying all this, though, I reckon we have about the same chance at a facility as you guys, if not more. It's quite phenomenal to have such a diluted population and still get the sort of facilities that we have. I think that's why for a country of 21 million, and where half of them don't have the opportunity to play sport, play so well. Great conditions and lifestyle for it.

And that ends one of my mass reports on nothing in the end!

EDIT: Just while talking about population/area comparisons, Brickwaller just worked out that if the whole world were to be populated like Australia, then the world's total population would be 51 million people... less than Britain.

 

[legspinner_don]

Re: English Spinners

Interesting, I'd never really considered the problems of such a disperse population. I suppose I always considered the rural population to be tiny in Australia, and thought the vast majority of folk would be in population centres.

In all of this, however, I'm not talking from and England POV, but a Scottish one - I've never lived in England so can't really say. I'd guess facilities in England for cricket would be better...? Only privately owned nets exist here. There's the odd wicket that's council owned. However, practicing on these is pretty hard and time consuming given the lack of nets!

 

[macca]

Re: English Spinners

EDIT: Just while talking about population/area comparisons, Brickwaller just worked out that if the whole world were to be populated like Australia, then the world's total population would be 51 million people... less than Britain.

That cant be at all possible. If that were so Australia would be almost half the worlds landmass wouldn't it? I think brickwaller got his name from bashing his head against a brick wall.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: English Spinners

I'm always amazed that with a population of 65 million or whatever ours is and with a cricket pitch every mile or so in some places, we struggle to get together 30 blokes that can put up a fight with your blokes coming from a pool of 22 million. How do you lot do that?

 

[macca]

Re: English Spinners

I'm always amazed that with a population of 65 million or whatever ours is and with a cricket pitch every mile or so in some places, we struggle to get together 30 blokes that can put up a fight with your blokes coming from a pool of 22 million. How do you lot do that?

We haven't done that good over there the last two tours.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: English Spinners

We haven't done that good over there the last two tours.

Yeah given, but you've not been thrashed in the same way as we get thrashed in your backyard and that's with all the positives that are on our side with regards resources, population etc. Statistically it looks as though on paper we should be winning all the time? I think it comes down to the fact that you lot have the weather on your side and you play a bigger range of sports through what you'd call the closed season. What's it like in schools for instance these days - my kids for instance have not been allowed out on to the grass at their school since November for H&S reasons and the fact that they don't want people getting muddy. They're not allowed to take balls and bats into school not even KWIK cricket bats in order that they can play in the playground during the breaks - again as it's a H&S issue. Do kids in OZ take bats and balls to school and play their breaks?

 

[macca]

Re: English Spinners

Do kids in OZ take bats and balls to school and play their breaks?

At the local primary school they provide all the gear to play cricket on the oval. The older kids play with a hard ball but the younger ones have to use a softer ball. Kids still take their bats to school.

My young bloke started high school this year and they play in the nets at lunch a bit.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: English Spinners

At the local primary school they provide all the gear to play cricket on the oval. The older kids play with a hard ball but the younger ones have to use a softer ball. Kids still take their bats to school.

My young bloke started high school this year and they play in the nets at lunch a bit.

That must have stopped here back in about 1979! No wonder your lot do so well! Having said that some of the better schools have nets, but I would imagine that they're out of bounds during break times and the idea that school kids have 5.5 oz cricket balls to throw around is just bizarre from an English point of view. (Not my own mind you).

 

[Jim2109]

Re: English Spinners

I'm always amazed that with a population of 65 million or whatever ours is and with a cricket pitch every mile or so in some places, we struggle to get together 30 blokes that can put up a fight with your blokes coming from a pool of 22 million. How do you lot do that?

its probably a combination of genetics and lifestyle. whilst it is now used as an insult to Australians by us English, its a fact that quite a lot of the earlier immigrants were British convicts. your typical convict that has commited serious enough crimes to be sent to the other side of the world is probably quite strong physically.

combine that with the weather in Australia, the overall lifestyle, and the more sensible running of the country and thats probably why. over here we are so overly politically correct that it totally hinders everyone. im amazed cricket is still allowed to be played by kids, the hard ball might bruise one of them!! and i saw a post by Liz Ward the other day talking about coaching primary school kids, and the teachers not thinking they should be playing competitive sports because one might be better than the other!! its ridiculous.

in Australia, based on what ive seen and heard, common sense prevails, and they are pretty hardline about it. so kids are encouraged to compete, which drives them to success. occasionally one kid might smack another upside their head, but thats what kids do. 30 years ago kids in England got beaten at school for discipline, and went to work at a younger age in manual professions. and its no coincidence IMO that kids lack the discipline and physical attributes of previous generations. over here kids are taught to be ordinary, so its no wonder we are sub-standard at every sport we compete in, and in decline.

in terms of cricket, half of our international side is made up of naturalised South Africans now. Strauss, Trott, Pietersen, Kieswetter, Prior off the top of my head. Lumb is another S.African waiting for a call-up. based on the tiny number of S.Africans eligible to play for England (100,00 maybe?), it would stand to reason by the law of averages that they should have no hope of beating off 60+ million English people (i say English, because all Scottish and Welsh are eligible for England at cricket as well). perhaps 1 or 2 might break through, but 4-6 out of 11 in the first team?! thats just ridiculous.

but S.Africa is another country without ridiculous political correctness. they maybe go a little too far in the other direction, but we wont get into that. boys are allowed to be boys, and they arent wrapped in cotton wool through their childhood like they are in England.

 

[SteveyD]

Re: English Spinners

Australia's weather is equally weird, but in other ways, and not so much effecting cricket. Plus the weather more carries over longer distances, so bigger areas all at once.

I'm sure you mean affecting


Back on topic.
I would love to go over to oz for some cricket!
Also you forget we have the gulf stream which means that whilst we may get cold air from the north, we also have the warm sea water too .. . Its tres complicated

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: English Spinners

I'm sure you mean affecting


Back on topic.
I would love to go over to oz for some cricket!
Also you forget we have the gulf stream which means that whilst we may get cold air from the north, we also have the warm sea water too .. . Its tres complicated

16 degrees centigrade at it's max isn't what I'd call warm!!!!

 

[SteveyD]

Re: English Spinners

16 degrees centigrade at it's max isn't what I'd call warm!!!!

Warm enough if you swim !

This weekend is meant to be a sunny weekend, and i'm off for a charity match in nottingham. should be good fun

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: English Spinners

Warm enough if you swim !

This weekend is meant to be a sunny weekend, and i'm off for a charity match in nottingham. should be good fun

I surf and even on the hottest days when it's 30 degree in the air and you're using a long board and therefore virtually out of the water I can tell you an hour in 16 degrees is bloody cold and swimming e.g. moving around I reckon 20 minutes max. I know for sure if you get in trouble and panic e.g. use your adrenlin up most people wont survive for more than 5 minutes and even the strongest water people are likely to survive no more than 20 minutes!

It looks like I've been dropped this weekend after Sundays performance, I've put in a request to play if a space becomes available though and yeah the weather looks very promising, that'll be 3 weeks of sunshine and no rain if I'm not mistaken down here in sun drenched Essex and it's only April!

 

[LIONS then DAYLIGHT]

Re: English Spinners

its probably a combination of genetics and lifestyle. whilst it is now used as an insult to Australians by us English, its a fact that quite a lot of the earlier immigrants were British convicts. your typical convict that has commited serious enough crimes to be sent to the other side of the world is probably quite strong physically.

combine that with the weather in Australia, the overall lifestyle, and the more sensible running of the country and thats probably why. over here we are so overly politically correct that it totally hinders everyone. im amazed cricket is still allowed to be played by kids, the hard ball might bruise one of them!! and i saw a post by Liz Ward the other day talking about coaching primary school kids, and the teachers not thinking they should be playing competitive sports because one might be better than the other!! its ridiculous.

in Australia, based on what ive seen and heard, common sense prevails, and they are pretty hardline about it. so kids are encouraged to compete, which drives them to success. occasionally one kid might smack another upside their head, but thats what kids do. 30 years ago kids in England got beaten at school for discipline, and went to work at a younger age in manual professions. and its no coincidence IMO that kids lack the discipline and physical attributes of previous generations. over here kids are taught to be ordinary, so its no wonder we are sub-standard at every sport we compete in, and in decline.

in terms of cricket, half of our international side is made up of naturalised South Africans now. Strauss, Trott, Pietersen, Kieswetter, Prior off the top of my head. Lumb is another S.African waiting for a call-up. based on the tiny number of S.Africans eligible to play for England (100,00 maybe?), it would stand to reason by the law of averages that they should have no hope of beating off 60+ million English people (i say English, because all Scottish and Welsh are eligible for England at cricket as well). perhaps 1 or 2 might break through, but 4-6 out of 11 in the first team?! thats just ridiculous.

but S.Africa is another country without ridiculous political correctness. they maybe go a little too far in the other direction, but we wont get into that. boys are allowed to be boys, and they arent wrapped in cotton wool through their childhood like they are in England.

Australian's have more opportunity to play cricket than the English; Australians are exposed to a lot more cricket through the media as well.

Channel 9 still shows every international cricket match played in Australia, in fact, it is law that any international match involving Australia in Australia must be shown on free to air television. Overseas tours are always shown on Foxsports on Pay tv, which the majority of people have and it is reasonably priced.

During summer Ch 9 ratings are always high for the cricket; lots of people watch the cricket. As a kid going through school I remember the day-nighters the most, you'd come home for dinner and turn on the television. The white ball, the lights, the coloured clothing, Australia chasing 250 odd, Ponting in bat with Gilchrist, it was intoxicating to watch cricket played at night.

During summer cricket is the dominant format of the game, the children play football in the winter and cricket in the summer. That formula is universal across Australia.

Also, in Australia the club cricket format encourages more players. It is common to see young players playing a under/age game on Saturday morning before backing up again for a grade game that afternoon.

Australia's climate is more conducive to playing good cricket.

In Australia it is a honour and a glorious day whenever we beat the Poms at cricket - in any format. We can't let the English win, it is built into us; however, when we do lose we immediately put it behind us and find a way to get better.

Many of us look forward to the day when Australia regains that urn, and the glorious celebrations that will follow. It is intoxicating just thinking about it, because it is just a matter of time until that urn returns.

That is why Australia is consistently producing the best cricketers, and the most attacking cricketers.

We like winning. Winning is better than losing.

 

[Boris]

Re: English Spinners

That cant be at all possible. If that were so Australia would be almost half the worlds landmass wouldn't it? I think brickwaller got his name from bashing his head against a brick wall.

Yes, it's wrong but only from a mistake on my part. He was comparing another country and I took the wrong figure.

He's an advanced mathematician so I wouldn't exactly disregard his maths from now on!

 

[Boris]

Re: English Spinners

This isn't an Australian vs England bashing thread remember. It's simply comparing the two objectively.

Replying to a few threads:

I think another thing for the schools would be space. Over here we have space for numerous ovals, nets, indoor centres and very sprawled out schools. In the cities it can be different, but then again the best cricketers quite often don't come from the cities.

From the stereotyped views I see from TV shows and general people around, some schools in England don't even have ovals to play on? If that's the case than that would be pretty much discrimination over here.

Right now it is getting very politically correct around the place, but that doesn't seem anything in comparison to English society looking at this thread.

Also a generalisation I have gotten from Liz is the want to get better and better all the time. Liz says that cricketers over there only want her help after they are injured or something goes wrong. If Liz was in Australia she would be downright over worked, everyone snaps up the coaches and any other aid straight away.

Also the ability to practice in your own backyard seems more likely in Australia. I myself growing up maintained two of my own pitches, they weren't that good but I was able to bowl every afternoon after school and occasionally a mate would come around and we would set up our own nets. To practice meant only walking outside with a ball, I'm thinkng in England you don't have that luxury of space?

 

[SteveyD]

Re: English Spinners

I surf and even on the hottest days when it's 30 degree in the air and you're using a long board and therefore virtually out of the water I can tell you an hour in 16 degrees is bloody cold and swimming e.g. moving around I reckon 20 minutes max. I know for sure if you get in trouble and panic e.g. use your adrenlin up most people wont survive for more than 5 minutes and even the strongest water people are likely to survive no more than 20 minutes!

It looks like I've been dropped this weekend after Sundays performance, I've put in a request to play if a space becomes available though and yeah the weather looks very promising, that'll be 3 weeks of sunshine and no rain if I'm not mistaken down here in sun drenched Essex and it's only April!

Yeah my second sport is triathlon, so i'm usually swimming in a swimming wetsuit which I find to be a hell of a lot warmer than a surfin wetsuit And it lets you float pretty darned easily.

To practice meant only walking outside with a ball, I'm thinkng in England you don't have that luxury of space?

I think the nearest place to practise is just over a mile away from me.
Maybe i should move to AUS !

 

[legspinner_don]

Re: English Spinners

I reckon we should email this thread to the ECB and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

The TV thing is interesting. It's well known that here you have to pay £20-30 a month to watch cricket, and obviously only a small percentage of people are willing to pay that. The ECB claim they need that money to fund the game, however where has that money gone? I'm in Scotland so wouldn't see any of it anyway, but do clubs in England get much funding from the ECB? It's quite possible that a chance to shine has done more for grassroots cricket than the ECB...

In you're patriotic rant there Lions, you've hit upon an interesting point. People who want cricket back on free TV usually suggest it should be Test cricket that is shown. However, youngsters would be far more likely to get interested in cricket if they saw T20 or ODIs, as in your case Lions. Perhaps the compromise is for Sky to show Tests and for BBC/ITV/4/5 to get a few T20s and ODIs a season. That should apease the Sky lot, who claim that without the Ashes, the TV money would be halved; and it would allow some national exposure for the more newbie-friendly version of the game.

I could only dream of having my own pitch in the back garden! Certainly a reason why more facilities are needed in Britain.