I have turned from an every night viewer in the early years to a casual one unless the Thunder (aka my local cricket team) are playing.

I would say that it is the every night factor along with the many competing forms of cricket and usually tennis to compete directly for my sporting interest. Earlier on the star names were more recognisable which helped with the interest levels.

I would also guess that the players, especially imports, get more $ per week for a shortened version which allows them to earn elsewhere or return to first class teams earlier.

Hi Peter – overall I feel like you have hit most issues in a really good way. My comments on each one would be;

The gimmicks
– time-out – no real opinion, if it meant no drinks etc delivered between overs then great. As you touched on the advertising space needs to be maximised so could look at some kind of passive alternative between balls similar to the news ribbons.
– X-Factor – get rid of it, keep the rules as close as possible to international rules
– Bash boost – tinker with this, currently it is too much of a boost, but could be better used as a tie-breaker for table position

Game times
– This doesnt affect me much, 7pm starts are good on weekdays. Double headers should happen on weekends. Should also use the advantage of the Perth time difference to play some weekday double headers to give Perth a proper home night game time. Maybe start these at 6:30 and 9:30 eastern time.

International players must be available
– This is either #1 or #2 issue. You need the Australian test contingent (14 players) and access to international players for the majority of the tournament to raise the quality. I feel the trade off is in season length.

Season length
– I disagree with you here, the 8 week window is about 3 weeks too long. Maintaining interest for so long and the importance of each game is diminished with a longer schedule. There are currently 56 regular season and 5 play-off games. I would like to see this at 40-48 regular season games (5-6 home games each). A second alternative is 2 extra teams, play everyone once plus a rivalry round gets you to 50 games. Each team goes from 14 to 10 games to assist in reducing length. Adding in test players should offset the quality dilution of adding teams.
– I mostly agree with the calendar and feel that the typical season should focus on tests for December to New Years test in January, a small overlap with Big Bash starting Boxing Day and running through to end of January (regular season in school holidays).
– Your final summary points seem spot on

There are plenty of greats – he would be a tier 3 for me. When you get to that level there are a lot of players across a lot of sports that are worthy inclusions. Getting into tier 2 and 1 is truly elite and these are the sportspeople we will be talking about for generations.

Andrew Johns is one who should also be in tier 3. Wayne Carey, Steve Smith (potentially tier 2), Ian Thorpe (potentially tier 2) are some NSW participants that are easy to add.

I would also note that it is hard for a team sport participant to make it to tier 1 given how reliant you are on your team to drive the success. For as amazing as Jordan was his #2 is Scottie Pippen was pretty good in to have as a team mate, being a top 5 player (3 time first team All-NBA starting with the first Jordan retirement) when not in the shadow of Jordan and top 15 with Jordan there (2 x 2nd team and 2 x 3rd team All-NBA) – this is not a comment to bring down Jordan but to highlight the importance of the team situation.

I also found it difficult to find women who dominate over the longer periods to add into the tier 1 and 2 from the last 20 odd years. There are two stand-outs in Williams and Anika Sorrenston who have the combination of dominance and longevity. This is probably a combination of shorter careers and reduced media coverage / deification.

For the last approx 20 years I have a few tiers of outstanding sportspeople, I am sure that there are a lot that I have missed and would slip in somewhere.

Tier 1 – probable GOAT in their chosen sport and sport is world wide and largely accessible.
Bolt, Phelps

Tier 2 – all-time great of your sport and maybe in the GOAT discussion or GOAT of your regional sport
Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Williams, Messi, Ronaldo, Hamilton, Schumacher, Rossi, Marc Marquez, Brady, LeBron James

Tier 3 – best of generation level players
Cam Smith, Cronk, Slater, Inglis, McCaw, Dan Carter, Jamie Dwyer, Gary Ablett, Lance Franklin

Many many more to add but it has been a wonderful couple of decades in sport.

I am pretty sure that if you were looking for the 5th player to finish your team, Ingles would be a better fit to nearly every situation with his B+ skill in nearly every area.

Simmons needs to be considered when selecting other players as his skill sets go from A+ to an F. Better overall, but harder to fit in.

It would be great to see them share a court in the national colours. It’s a pity the bigs haven’t stuck in the NBA and Exum hasn’t lived up to draft expectations otherwise there would be a nice core of players.

As an aside, seeihg JeShaun Tate level of success I wonder how Nick Kay would go in the NBA and if he could get a situation where he would be able to get the consistent minutes.

Peak talent, probably third behind Bogut and Simmons given they both have made All NBA third team once in their careers.

Current players, behind Simmons given his All NBA third team was last season.

Overall achievements, I have him 5th behind the above two, Mills and Longley for being rotation players on championship teams.

He is really good and massively out performed any NBA expectations. I think every team would love to have him and he would fit in everywhere, but best ever is just a little too far to stretch.

While I applaud you for bringing an alternative that could be viable and has been (in theory) practiced by selectors across many sports through various age groups I feel like there are a number of areas where this may prove too difficult to implement or not provide the correct outcomes.

For the home test series, what you are proposing would need to find a place in the already packed schedule, something that has been discussed with great vigour around these parts. A proposed probable’s v possible’s match and training camp would probably take the best 24 players away from first class cricket, reducing the quality of that product. 24 players averages out to 4 players per state team. The alternative is to get these players playing first class cricket and improving the quality and significance of that tournament. I am sure everyone who has played any sport can feel the intensity difference between real games and practice/selection games.

Further to this point, would you propose having a squad of 24 travel overseas to aide selection? Or would you try to ensure that you have Australia A tours operating concurrently to be able to have ready made replacements? Both of these would be of great developmental benefit to our players but I am unsure of the costs and availability of opposition for these types of tours.

The second flaw is taking more stock into these selection trial matches than the larger body of work given how fickle the nature of scoring runs and taking wickets can be. Most teams have only 2-3 places up for debate at any given time, so these full trials are probably being pretty closely replicated in current training camp settings. You can easily have an 11 player fielding group and 4 batsman rotating in a match simulation to get a good idea of a batsmen’s form against your best bowlers.

That said, there is a time and a place for these types of camps to improve our players I just dont feel that it should be used as a main selection tool and efforts should be on improving quality and timeliness of the first class system to better augment selection of the test team prior to and during the series.

I remember reading about those now, be it the point is that I haven’t read about them being used regularly at international level, yet there are many post game fines for this kind of small stuff, especially among Aus, India and England where the money is proportionally less compared to match earnings where the umpire could stamp out in game with the relatively small five run penalty.

While I read the article and nod baking in agreeance I just wonder what can the umpire do about it?

Is there a warning and penalty system that just isn’t applied? I know of one for the intimadatory bowling but for all the other little indiscretions?

Can there be a warning system similar to hockey? First warning is a 2 minute penalty, 2nd is 5 minutes, third is expulsion from the game. This could be a 5 run penalty, 5 over suspension (removed from field, if batting can return after next wicket falls after 5 overs) and then expulsion.

Would Ashwin change his protection for the spinner if he was warned and would be removed from the crease on the next offence? Would Warner sledge the #11 if he could get a 5 over penalty and not be able to open the innings?

Right now it just feels like all the umps can do is have a nice word with the players.

While not quite a knighthood, I have always found it hilarious that the 2005 English ashes squad were awarded with MBE’s (The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire).

I am not sure how they furthered the British Empire by winning a test series.

Who would Shami be in this comparison? Jackson Bird?

I can’t think of any other experienced test players that Australia has.

Was KL Rahul a mainstay or is the the Travis Head of the Indian team?

I would go with it is the equivalent of having Smith (Kholi) , Cummins (Bumhra), Hazelwood (Sharma), Starc (Yadav) , Pattinson (Kumar), Wade (Vihari), Green (Jadaeja), Burns (Argawal) unavailable from your squad and Lyon (Ashwin) under an injury cloud.

Without the above mentioned the Aussies would field a line-up of:
Warner, Pucovski, Labuchange, Harris, Head, Henriques, Paine, Neser, Abbott, Swepson, J.Richardson.

I think you hit the key point or having the domestic season provide appropriate match practice for test selection.

My memory may be failing me but pre big bash the season was one test pre Christmas and then January tests or did it always finish in Sydney and then go into the ODI tri series?

I only mention March tests for those throw away two test series against Afghanistan or Bangladesh that the tv networks barely care about.

I feel like the Big Bash should be the dominant cricket for the school holiday period and then lead into a T20I and ODI series.

One of the scheduling tricks that I used to like was playing the Shield and then an one day game against the same opposition in the same week, cuts down a bit on travel and costs. With the 6 states you need to have 10 rounds of matches to complete the domestic competitions.

I would try and have something like:
Oct to mid Dec – 6 rounds of Shield and ODD (plus tour games for Test opposition)
Late Nov to early Jan – main test series
Late Dec to late Jan – Big Bash (8 teams, play once = 28 games)
Feb to Mar – complete 4 rounds + finals of Shield and ODD
Early Feb – T20I and ODI’s
Mar – late 2 test series (eg Afghanistan or Bangladesh)

Place a big emphasis on shortening the length on the Big bash to be able to get more international stars and have a bigger window for availability of the test players. I also don’t want to compromise the competition with ODI’s and T20I’s taking players away from finals of the Big Bash.

He certainly fits the role – I am somewhat surprised at his lack of T20 international experience.

You probably need 7 guys available to bowl and looking at our latest teams picked you have a few spots that are matchup determined. I have my selection below with the capitalized players near certainties to be picked.

FINCH, WARNER, SMITH, MAXWELL, CAREY
M.Marsh, A.Agar
STARC, CUMMINS, ZAMPA, HAZELWOOD

In the top 5, only Maxwell can be relied upon for a few overs. The 6/7 position need to have a capability of bowling at least 4 overs between them. I can easily see Dan Christian fulfilling this role.

As you stated, with the World Cup being in India, there may be more opportunity to play more spinners, either by sacrificing a fast bowler to add in Mitch Swepson or by adding in Ashton Agar as the other spinner. The first option probably lends itself to having two fast bowling all rounders which may see Christian competing with Marsh, Sams, Henriques and maybe Wildermuth for that spot.

Just as an aside – when quoting the stats, the runs per over is pretty important for a bowler and this would be a useful addition to the article – the batters strike rate is always mentioned.

I think something like this has merit, based on these assumptions an innings should take 220 minutes plus the time the clock is stopped. Probably looking at 240 minutes (4 hours) per innings which is too long. Based on the test match over rates of 15 overs per hour, you should be at 200 minutes to complete the 50 overs.

A clock in between overs would be really good as a starting point – whichever team isn’t ready gets a first warning per innings then a 5 run penalty for each subsequent breach. This can also fit in with the tv commercial break.

The idea of a batting time-out (say double the over break) would allow for the extra drink/glove change that cant be achieved in the 45 or so seconds the over change should afford you. They shouldn’t need a drink and new gloves every 2 overs.

Like a lot of punishments, you need to make it actually hurt the offender (match payment fines for big three don’t achieve this) and not take away from the entertainment (which suspending the captain does).

I am not sure why the compensation is linked with the players finishing position – you could decouple the compensation and have the bands providing a fixed level of compensation and ladder position only being a tiebreaker if two clubs receive the same compensation. Something like:
Band 1 – Mid first round
Band 2 – End first round
Band 3 – End second round
Band 4 – End third round

This would at least counter the Franklin/Frawley issue in any particular year or the Crouch shenanigans that could go on this year due to the Crows low ladder position.

A more left field solution could be to give the bottom 10 teams the first 20 picks and the finals teams receive the next 18. It would make it harder for the finals teams to trade for valuable players as they don’t have the premium picks to trade.

To say that everyone is wrong is a big stretch considering the history where he has worn out hs welcome everywhere he goes.

His story and how he has got himself to be consistently rated a top 15 player by most and top 10 by a fair few is a really good one but up until the current moment he hasn’t been able to have his playoff moment.

I feel his fit with the Heat culture is about as good as you could get and the way this season has played out has really allowed for his abrasive style to not wear thin – this Heat team was not going anywhere prior to the suspension of the season yet they came back looking to be the most prepared team in the NBA.

As with any team sport, being able to get your teammates all pulling in the same direction is a skill, Butler has willingly taken on the role as a leader yet this is the first place where it is working out amazingly.

The theory makes sense and doesnt seem to move away from the core essence of the game. It seems a lot of rules are put in place to improve safety or improve entertainment.

One way to improve entertainment on the 6-again would be to have an advangate applied to the first tackle after the infringement takes place – any error or turnover and you reset at tackle 1 where the original infringement takes place. This would allow for an attacking and expansive play which would increase potential for a try or line break. Any knock on, ball into touch or intercept pass has no consequence.

I understand that this is probably a bit radical, but is for purely entertainment purpose.

With that criteria the choices of Simon Katich, Mark Waugh, Brad Haddin and Stuart Macgill make much more sense over the likes of Phil Jaques, any batsman that is predominately in the 2000’s, Adam Gilchrist and Nathan Lyon.

I have you selecting 10/11 positions correctly. I do not like the selection of Brett Lee, the only thing he has going for him is his 310 test wickets (at 31). The counter is Starc has 244 at a better average (27) and strike rate. Hazelwood has 195 at a better average (26) and Stuart Clark has 94 at the third best average (23) of eligible fast bowlers. Even Doug the Rug took 50 wickets at 26.

What source do you use to know which player is aligned with which state? ESPNCricinfo doesnt have great first class data aside from the aggregates.

Knowing how well Arnab does compiling these series it was just a gentle question. When doing national teams it is a bit easier to say what is in and what is out. When you add timelines it becomes a bit harder to know what body of work is being judged. The complexity of state adds an even more complex and confusing layer as many have discussed in the comments regarding both upbringing and alignment throughout their career.

If you take the openers position you have a choice of 4:
– Simon Katich, but he is really a WA boy
– Shane Watson, but is he a Qld’er or a Tassie player
– Phil Jaques, but he was injury riddled in his test career
– Phil Hughes, but his test numbers aren’t that great

I would eliminate the first two and have Jaques over Hughes given they have similar first class averages and 100’s per game played but Jaques had a better test record in the limited appearances.

Hi Arnab,

Could you please expand on your selection criteria – is it players who were born in the state or contributions made while aligned with the NSW cricket team? Also, are you looking at post 2000 body of work or the whole career of players who appeared in the 2000’s?

If you are going with born in the state you may want to go with Gilchrist over Haddin, given Gilchrist also made his first class debut with NSW. On the other side you have to go with Jaques over Katich.

The other three current test bowlers would also warrant an honourable mention and potential selection over Brett Lee.

I agree in that you cant change the amount of the pie that the player share in without significant repercussions but you can certainly change the way it is distributed.

I am not sure if the players see themselves a s salaried employee or a retainer+commission type of employee, different people want different levels of certainty v maximising rewards.

One of the things that I have observed in salary capped sports here and in the USA is that the players union representatives are generally the high earners yet the majority of the membership are at the bottom end of the earning scale, yet there are very few measures to give more guarantees to the bottom half of the players on the list.

Maybe one solution is to split the cap into a base payments and match payments component (even have a third achievements based component). You could allocate 1% to each regular season round for match payments (26%) and the balance to the base payments cap. This would allow approx $100,000 in match payments to be made each game to each team.

The base payments component is pretty simple to manage and explain – this is the players base salary. I would propose that you have to spend a certain % of the base payment cap over a certain period (say 80% in any given year and 95% over a rolling 3 year period, not my original idea as already commented)

The match payments would be a little more difficult to calculate but would have some key components:
– Must be spent in full each match
– Minimum payment for match day 17 plus 50% of minimum for the four squad players
– Balance is split based on contract terms, which each player receiving a match payment points allocation in his contract (say between 0 and 10). For example, Cameron Smith negotiates for 10 match payment points and the rest of the playing squad has a combined 50 match payment points, for the game Cameron Smith will receive 16.7% of the balance of the match payment pool. The next week a couple of big name players return and the rest of the squad now adds up to 90 points, Cameron Smith would then receive 10% of the balance of the match payments.

One point against a mix of incentive based contracts and fixed contracts is that some clubs may be in a position (either financially or cap management) where they are unable to play a better player who is in line for a larger incentive payment than the player that is on a largely fixed contract – I would call that mismanagement but the goal is to have the best players available playing each week.

This has been my internal, un-shared opinion for a few years now. The only benefits the current system provides is manufactured TV drama, which becomes tedious very quickly as they sift through a minute of did he hit it only to find out that it pitched outside leg.

I would go as far to say that the need for a referral can nearly always be determined in a single slow motion replay which the third umpire can then relay through to the the main umpire who can then hold up play as required when a not-out decision has been given (the out decision was covered well in your piece).

On the not out decision, the 3rd umpire reviews a single replay with the stumps overlay and determines 1) fair delivery 2) pitches correctly 3) hasn’t been obviously hit and 4) hits the pads correctly. By doing this you can either confirm the not out call or escalate to an official review.
The challenging part is the time taken for ball tracking technology to be available will hold up the game where the initial replay confirms everything legal up to the point of impact, but probably less so than the current situation given you have an appeal, it gets struck down, then 10 seconds to deliberate before you consider walking back to your mark to bowl the next ball.

The last thing they need to do is go to ball tracking as soon as it is available for the reason I initially stated.