As someone who watches more red ball English cricket than most, I think there is a point being missed here.
Tests are played over five days, no more than 90 per day (though seemingly 81 will do), mostly on old fashioned cricket wickets (ie either solid, go the distance roads, or one which peak on the second morning and deteriorate slowly from there).
Championship cricket is played at the ends of the year. It is mostly played on either green seamers or hyper dry doctored pitches (Essex, Somerset, I'm looking at you). There are as few as a dozen games a year on really top class decks (Scarborough, The Oval, Edgbaston, New Road if the flood waters are kind).
What results is batsmen who, for the most part, reckon that a part of good technique is having a good go before the one with your name on it comes along and bowlers who, largely, favour control so that the one that inevitably does loads is on target over pace or real skills.
The sad thing is, six or seven years ago, we'd got our first class game to the level where it was played between almost test class sides on good pitches. Ho hum...
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Topic: England Tour of South Africa, Test ODI and T20 (Read 148873 times)