Test Cricket Future Bright?

England 1 Bangladesh 1 - what a great Test series we've been treated to, with Bangladesh thoroughly deserving to come out of the series on a level pegging against England. The only regret of this series must be that we aren't fortunate enough to be able to witness a series decider, which it undoubtedly deserved.

Fingers will inevitably be pointed at England. To collapse from 100-0 to 164, no matter who the opposition, is very poor. But Bangladesh deserve all the credit in the world for their performance, with Mehedi Hasan looking like a real talent, backed up superbly by Shakib Al Hasan, who also looks the part with bat and ball (how many other players in the world open the bowling and bat at 5?).

Turning to their batting, Tamim Iqbal and Imrul Kayes also look like thoroughly good players - with Mahmudullah and captain Mushifqur also looking fairly handy. Their weakness, understandable considering the amount of test cricket that they play, is strength in depth, and this is the area which will be their un-doing against teams who play better cricket than England have done on this tour.

Having said this, their success during this series is a massive bonus for the future of Test Cricket, proving that the game is still as nailbiting as ever, and demonstrating that it's the format of the game that tests players abilities the most. It would be great to see more series such as this in future years, with perhaps the introduction of teams such as Afghanistan and Ireland another possible option that could enhance the longest form of the game.

As for England and their upcoming tour against India - they will undoubtedly need to improve on their performances in these two games, with both the bowling and batting lacking consistency. But do not underestimate the strength of this Bangladesh team in the conditions that England faced them in. Any team unfamiliar to these conditions would have found it a real test, and so it proved.

Team selection? For me, Ballance has to go. I don't think he did enough this year with Yorkshire to merit a call up in the first instance, and his performances here haven't bolstered his claims for a starting place in India. Before England's final innings of the tour, I would have gone for Hameed to open, with Duckett dropping down the order, but Ducketts impressive knock of 56 confuses this slightly. I'll leave that one down to the coaches and captain.

Bowling wise, I certainly would have taken Jack Leach on this tour and the India tour also, but that boat seems to have sailed, and so I'd probably have to stick with the same spinners used in this game, with Mo in particular looking like he might be gaining some more consistency with his bowling. Woakes has had his best year in the England team, and has to be included, whilst Finn will surely be replaced by Broad, if fit.

I hope that the India tour is just as entertaining as this one - and lets all hope that once again, Test Cricket will be the winner.

The English Cricket Team

2015: A dismal World Cup, stalemate against New Zealand, an Ashes victory against Australia and defeat to Pakistan in the UAE.

In short, a horrid World Cup campaign meant a more positive approach was adopted in One Day Cricket, and this positivity carried through to the Test team, who played out an entertaining two match series against New Zealand, before reclaiming the Ashes after the humiliation down under 18 months earlier. This all preceded an interesting series against Pakistan, which many predicted to be dull due to the poor attendances and batting-friendly conditions in the UAE, but was actually rather good. Although the series was lost, it was good to see such an entertaining series, where the outcome could have been very different if the first test in Abu Dhabi had gone England's way. 

However, what does the past twelve months tell us about England's prospects going forward into the upcoming series against South Africa and 2016, which includes a T20 World Cup in Asia, and home series' against Sri Lanka and then Pakistan? 

Firstly, the Test series in South Africa is sure to be an intriguing one. Although England lost in the UAE, this is no disgrace, since Pakistan have played their home fixtures in the UAE, they are yet to lose a home series and have become very competent at using the unique conditions to their advantage. South Africa, although rated as the best team in the world, have shown recently in India that they are not the team they used to be, with their fragile batting line-up highlighting their woes. AB De Villiers and Hashim Amla will be crucial in the series, and if England can keep these two world class players at bay there is no reason why the series cannot be won. 

England's batting line-up is too sure to be tested, with South Africa's bowling threat coming overwhelmingly from their pace attack. Alex Hales, who is likely to deputise, along with Nick Compton, James Taylor and Jonny Bairstow are all sure to be tested against arguably the best pace attack in the world, and how they compete is sure to shape the series. If England are to win the series, they need these players to step up to the mark, and support the likes of Cook and Root, who are sure to score big runs at some point during the series. 

This series will be a very interesting one, but if England take the same intensity that they displayed against all their Test opponents in 2015, this series is sure to keep us all glued to the latest score updates, with South Africa wanting to prove that they are still the best team in the world on home soil following their, at times, poor display against India recently. 

In terms of the T20 World Cup, it is very difficult to predict how England will fare. Although India are likely to be favourites, with home advantage being critical, the explosiveness of this format of the game means that the tournament is up for grabs to anybody. 12 months ago, I would have said England did not have a chance of winning the tournament, but after the one day series against New Zealand and victory against Pakistan in ODI's and T20's, this has changed my opinion. Jason Roy and Alex Hales have proved to be a good opening partnership, with Reece Topley, David Willey among others proving that they have what it takes with the ball. It has been refreshing to see these types of players, of which some could be classed as one day specialists, given a chance in the England team with free reign to play their natural game, and this has translated into wins on the pitch. Whatever the outcome, the World Cup will be a good watch, and how far England can go could depend on very small margins which cannot be foreseen.

Lastly, the home series against Sri Lanka and then Pakistan should (if England perform how they did this summer) result in home series wins. In home conditions, against opposition which are good, but not world-class, many of England's Test team will want to mark their territory in the team, and ensure that they are regarded as key players in the team. This is a good opportunity for players such as Hales to finally stamp down the position of a  reliable opener that England have been searching for since the retirement of Strauss, and bowlers such as Finn and Footitt (who may be seen as a possible replacement for Anderson in the long term) to prove their credentials on the Test arena. 

In summary, the next twelve months should be positive ones as far as the English cricket team is concerned. The team is in a process of change, and looks to be finally plugging the holes left by Pietersen, Swann and Prior. Personally, I predict a series draw in South Africa, followed by reaching the Semi-Finals of the T20 cup before two home victories in the series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan. However, even if the team is not that successful, as long as positive, aggressive cricket is pursued by the team, then fans like me will feel that the team is heading in the right direction after a period of uncertainty following the Ashes whitewash down under two years ago.

Lastly, I look forward to seeing how Eoin Morgan and the One Day teams fare after their change in approach following the World Cup disaster. The team look to be really enjoying their cricket, and in beating Pakistan they showed that this positive attitude is translating into results. It will be interesting to see how the One Day matches against Sri Lanka and Pakistan pan out, and I expect to see games which could be somewhat closer than the Test Matches between the sides.  

The Corruption of Football

Although this is a cricket blog, as somebody who has an interest in several sports, I felt compelled to write something about the absolute disgrace that is FIFA. On the evening of Sepp Blatter being "re-elected" as President for another four year tenure as chief of a corrupt and disgraceful ship, most of European football hangs its head in shame and hopes that UEFA will make a stand and refuse to accept what is happening to the beautiful game.

The large majority of people with half a footballing brain cell are oblivious to understand how anybody, let alone people meant to run and advance the game of football, would vote to hold a World Cup in Qatar, a country where not only is football virtually non-existent, but the utterly blistering summer heat would surely affect the abilities of the players to play high quality football for 90 minutes. The whole process is an absolute shambles, with the original bid stating that the competition would still take place in its traditional summer slot, with air conditioned stadiums helping to cool the players and fans inside the oven. This turned out to not be true, with organisers now trying to get the World Cup moved to Winter, which not only will destroy the legacy of the tournament being held in Summer, but will severely disrupt leagues across Europe in particular.

Worse than any of this, is the horrendous death toll among workers attempting to build the stadiums in the blistering heat of Qatar. This image highlights the catastrophic loss of life, and with 7 years still to go until the tournament will actually go ahead, this begs the questions, "How many more will lose their lives?"

Ally to this, living conditions for workers are supposedly terrible. I say supposedly, as Qatar have not allowed reporters to investigate properly the conditions in which workers are forced to work in, with some crews even claiming that their filming equipment was taking away from them and their memories erased to ensure that they couldn't return home with any damning images. This makes FIFA's betrayal to football even more severe, meaning that the almost undoubtedly corrupt members who voted for Qatar not only should hang their heads in shame in terms of their dis-service to the game of football, but to the workers who have lost their lives trying to put together the grounds that will house some of the best footballing talent worldwide. All in all, it can be seen that the arguments against holding the World Cup in Qatar severely out-weigh any counter arguments (I am yet to hear one of credible value).

Despite all this, and the seven officials which have been arrested just this week (with surely many more to come, we can hope), Sepp Blatter has appeared defiant to carry on his reign as President. As a football fan as well as a cricket one, I, among with millions of others, can only hope that his deficiency will be broken at some point in the near future to start the process of mending the beautiful game.

The 2018 World Cup will be held in Russia, a decision which most would understand. However, Russia's claim that their computer files which held information regarding their bid for the competition had been "accidentally destroyed" also brings into question the genuineness of their bid.

It appears that FIFA is an organisation whose members are largely motivated by money, and perhaps it may take a stand from the sponsors to withdraw their support in order to influence change. Failing this, members themselves may be forced to take direct action themselves, and surely if enough countries boycotted a competition or took similar direct action, some kind of change would have to be taken?

The only positive thing to be taken out of this is that the game of cricket has not descended into anarchy such as this, and we can only hope that controversy on this level never corrupts our game, like it has in football...