Tim Wigmore believes more thought needs to go into preventing tour matches from becoming tedious and irrelevant
So far, then, so predictable.England’s first month Down Under has brought little surprise: three low-key warm-up games which went well enough, and then a Test in Brisbane which emphatically did not.
The two are inherently linked. Substandard opposition in warm-up games means that, even when tourists play three warm-up games – something now unheard of outside Ashes tours – they can still appear woefully short of preparation come the first Test, giving the home team a huge advantage.
This matters – not just for England in this Ashes series, but for Test cricket more broadly. As Gideon Haigh wrote recently, every Test series has become a referendum on the game’s future – a test not just of the players, but Test cricket’s very popularity and relevance.
Talk to broadcasters about sport, and they emphasise how much viewers value unpredictability: essentially, turning on the match and not knowing who is going to win.
この記事は The Cricket Paper の December 01,2017 版に掲載されています。
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この記事は The Cricket Paper の December 01,2017 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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