Thoughts

Fantastic to see Steve Finn in England’s one day plans. Wicket taker. Attacking bowler.

Like the way Tredwell varies his pace from 45mph-60mph. Fascinating stuff.

England resuming action on 26^th November – the day which brought Alastair his most famous Test win under his captaincy – A 10 wicket win at Mumbai to level proceedings

Glad to see Taufeeq back in the Test plans. When he last played Pak had only lost 1 Test in 8 series (2010-12). Best run I’ve seen from Pak

Steve O Keefe surely has to play. Might not be Herath but Pak are a hopeless bunch against SLA

Scotland defeated by 1 run to NZ. They meet in the first week of CWC.

You associate aggressive scoring rates with this Aus line up. Would be interesting to see if they can curb their instincts in conditions where scoring rates are known to be stodgy

Five Tests in 42 days for England-India in the summer. Five Tests in 40 days for Pak now against the hosting nations of the World Cup. Most challenging schedule since England 2010 where 6 in 7 weeks.

Misbah like Cook in the summer – five tests to get through in quick succession – get through it – prize to lead in cricket’s biggest global prize

Is the CWC what it once was?

So many different tournaments now

Since 1998 – Champions Trophy was introduced and there have been 7 editions

Since 2008 – IPL

Since 2009 – CLT20

Since 2008 – Asia Cup played every alternate year

Since 1998 - ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup has been played every alternate year

Since 2007 – World T20s have been introduced as an alternate year championship and we have already had five of them

When there was no Champions Trophy, Youth World Cup, IPL/CL, World Twenty20s or the Asia Cup played with regularity in the 90s then perhaps it was bigger.

Now there is so much choice.

The competition format for the World Cup doesn’t help:

Needless to have quarter finals after such a long qualification process

If they want to have as many knockout matches as possible – why not have a knockout from the start with 16 teams after a few warm ups?

Very few sides are eliminated despite the duration of the round games

Over half of the teams progress

All major teams are bound to reach QFs unless they are exceptionally poor