Have England got the scheduling right to defend the Ashes?
The full schedule for England's defence of the Ashes has now been revealed, with an extra first-class warm-up game added to the itinerary:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/8499627.stm
Have they got the scheduling right this time? And how many of you England fans bothered to stay up and watch after the Third Test, last time round, when Australia went 3-0 up? I'm afraid to say I didn't.
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Filed under: Watch Live Cricket
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I’m not so sure to be honest. In fact I’m erring on saying that it’s not enough.
While it’s important that the team isn’t overworked coming into The Ashes Test series proper I think the organisers need to strike the right balance with the amount of warm up games, and preparation, that take place. There needs to be enough competitive cricket leading into the Test series that will enable the England team to perform to their highest standards.
Last time when England prepared for The Ashes I’m sure they played more games, at least 5 (if I remember correctly those games were against a Prime Minister’s XI, New South Wales and South Australia before The Ashes and further games against a Cricket Australia Chairman’s XI and Western Australia in between Test matches). This time around I don’t think that there are enough matches for adequate preparation. And neither do I think that the England team are going out to Australia early enough to either prepare or acclimatise properly. For example, England are still only playing 3 warm up games before The Ashes start (against Western Australia, South Australia and a, seemingly [to me at least], pointless game against Australia A) and they’re now only playing one game in the middle of the Test series (against Victoria) so they have one less game (afterwards they have another pointless [again, to me at least] game against a Prime Ministers XI before launching the Twenty20 series and the ODI series and then they go home).
Now, considering that there were many complaints that England didn’t prepare enough last time they went to Australia (and lost 5-0) and in the wake of the Schofield Report (which has, admittedly, mostly been ignored) under which one of the recommendations stated was that they need more time in the international programme to provide more opportunities for players to prepare, so that they can perform properly, I don’t see how they can do that with the current schedule.
On the other hand, and like I said, England don’t need to be overworked and nor do they need to go there feeling exhausted. They do, after all, have a series against Pakistan (I think) that takes place not long before The Ashes starts so it’s not like they’ll be rusty going into the games against Australia. However, I just don’t think they’ve got the correct balance at this moment in time and I can’t help thinking that the preparation IN Australia isn’t enough.
As for the second part of the question; yes I did stay up and watch after the third Test but not all of it.
It will be a tight series. i hope and i think if Australians does not birbe the umpire and cheat.
I think this time they have put a little more in to the pre-ashes schedule this time round, and i think they’ve got it right, we just have to not get complacent.