If your domestic cricket is a of a high quality, it will serve as a much better grooming place for potential test players.Fair enough. The A team is the best place to groom the potential prodigies IMO. Off to bed now.
Domestic cricket should be the basic level of grooming but the A team provides a finishing touch - an opportunity to play in overseas conditions. No matter how good your home pitches may be, playing abroad is a very different experience and it separates the universal batsmen from the home soil batsmen.If your domestic cricket is a of a high quality, it will serve as a much better grooming place for potential test players.
And yet, many of the more successful countries don't place nearly as much importance on the A teams as we do. If your home pitches are varied enough, A teams become less essential and all your first class cricketers can hone their games in different conditions instead of just the select eleven that make the A team. And thats another thing, our A team should consist of people close to making the playing Test XI, not 18 year old hopefuls.Domestic cricket should be the basic level of grooming but the A team provides a finishing touch - an opportunity to play in overseas conditions. No matter how good your home pitches may be, playing abroad is a very different experience and it separates the universal batsmen from the home soil batsmen.
The "more successful countries" are missing out but they have such great domestic systems that it really doesn't matter. Until our domestic system reaches that ideal state, the A team is the best immediate option. The A team should consist of people close to making the playing XI, even if they are 18-year olds with a year (or more) of success in domestic cricket. This is not the national side - you can take more risks.And yet, many of the more successful countries don't place nearly as much importance on the A teams as we do. If your home pitches are varied enough, A teams become less essential and all your first class cricketers can hone their games in different conditions instead of just the select eleven that make the A team. And thats another thing, our A team should consist of people close to making the playing Test XI, not 18 year old hopefuls.
Can I ask why you are keeping out The Netherlands from all this?I wouldn't. It's poor.
Personally I'd go back to the old C&G format - straight knockout, with all Major and Minor counties involved, plus all the Board XIs - first 2 rounds a la FA Cup with the big fish coming in in the 3rd round.
Then I'd have a combined First-Class and one-day league - same games, same everything, except a points-tally combined. This'd cut down on travel costs - massively - and make it harder to try in one form and not the other. You could include Ireland and Scotland in an ideal World.
Then, of course, you'd have the short'n'sharp Twenty20 Cup in the middle of the summer, which would be done-and-dusted ASAP, so as not to kill the golden goose.
Ideally, too, one-day league games would be 45 or 50 overs, not 40.
Forgot you. Simple as.Can I ask why you are keeping out The Netherlands from all this?
You realise that the Titans are the old Northern Province/Northern Transvaal, which was renamed to Limpopo a few years ago? Same place, even though Centurion is in Gauteng.. Dale Steyn comes from Tzaneen which is quite a way from Gauteng..****ing Limpopo? What has that got to do with Pretoria or Northern Gauteng?
Centurian is in a completely different Province and Limpopo is poor and underpopulated.
It would be like having Manchester United play at Old Trafford but calling them Cumbria.
Half of me guesses you only said that to stir the pot
Id rather Tshwane than Limpopo and that is saying something
Yes, but Pretoria is still the key to Northerns cricket and is not in Limpopo. Noone would let it be called Limpopo.You realise that the Titans are the old Northern Province/Northern Transvaal, which was renamed to Limpopo a few years ago? Same place, even though Centurion is in Gauteng.. Dale Steyn comes from Tzaneen which is quite a way from Gauteng..
Eastern Transvaal/Mpamulanga/Easterns played in Benoni, which is also in Gauteng..
How'd'you know that?Indian cricket needs only 6 clubs not 26 clubs
Which, if true (and we don't have any way of telling) is purely down to organisational problems not the calibre of cricketers available.Well some of them are rubbish worse then some English Club Sides
The population is misleading. Only a very very small percentage of that population gets to play with a real bat and ball, let alone get anywhere near a cricket club.How can such a massive population not produce a massive number of high-calibre cricketers?
If the organisation of teams is done better, it's reasonable to suggest more of that talent would get its chance to play.
It's pretty much impossible though. Even though the cricket watching population may be large, the actual number of people who have a shot might be similar to that of England or Australia. I wouldn't be surprised if that were so.That's exactly what I mean. It's all the more reason to give such people a chance.