Sky Sports crew discuss the England Test Team of 1999

Variety KZbin Channel : / @trinividman
The Sky crew had a discussion about the England test team of 1999.

[@dazpearce2096]

great piece here - there were two elements to this:- 1) New Zealand were way, way better than first thought. 2) the South Africa series win in 1998 was built on the bowling of Cork, Gough and Fraser - none of whom played in the summer of 1999. That England tail at the Oval was eye-watering. Scary.

[@akamiguelsanchez9985]

Love this doc. I can just picture my dad sat in his arm chair fuming at selections, how bad our batting was and everything Tuffers did. Great times

[@randyborstol2491]

Tufnell was another who was badly treated. He was a proven match winner and should always have been in the team.

[@arjunps6776]

I wish they had shown those Chris Cairns slower balls that bamboozled Graham Thorpe and Chris Read in the Lord's test of that series. What an all-rounder Cairns was! Sad whatever happened in his life later on.

[@kennethcrowther2277]

You're not wrong! Had it not been for so many injuries he could've been one of the greatest allrounders of all time. He played 62 tests and yet missed more tests than he played in throughout his career! Could've been damn near a great bowler aswell as world-class attacking batsman that he was. Keith Milleresque. If you double his number of tests and double his stars accordingly, they're better than Kapil Dev's, who played just over twice as many tests with 131. Also, with twice the matches and much less injury, his actual stats would've been better too because his development would've been more consistent. Absolutely fabulous cricketer, and a genuinely great allrounder anyway in my opinion.

[@mrkipling2201]

Same with Ian Botham. If his off field refuelling habits were a lot better and he didn't have the injuries in the 2nd half of his career, along with missing a couple of series due to his ban, along with pulling out of the India away series in 1984/85, his stats would have been double what he actually got. Which were still pretty impressive anyway.

[@soumyashreebiswal14]

Mate, the stuff that you upload are so good! Thank you.

[@trincric2701]

Thank you mate. Wish I could do more but much busy with school as of late. Have some backlog will get out this week hopefully.

[@ludaheracles7201]

Mate you're Indian. Stop pretending otherwise.

[@madmusician91]

I love this short documentary because it literally shows the difference that Sunset and Vine made when televising English cricket (for Channel 4). All the match footage up until the second test of the summer was either filmed by the BBC or Sky, and then S&V took over from the Lord’s test. And, my goodness, you can see the difference. The clarity of the picture! The close-up camera work! Those replays! Just brilliant and we forget how much that production changed how cricket was televised the world over.

[@trincric2701]

I absolutely love these technical facts about cricket broadcasting

[@parkjohns9696]

And it’s sadly regressed this summer. Appealing camera work

[@robertkingston6164]

Now you mention it, the difference is so stark!

[@RalphBrooker-gn9iv]

Worth watching the to film The Edge, another England reset. Brilliant film as England go from no hopers to ICC No.1 Test side, massive Ashes victory in Australia and possible SAS candidates under Flower’s pre-tour!!

[@St_AngusYoung]

I remember the English media and the guy who was the editor at Wisden Cricket saying before the series that New Zealand were not worthy of a four match series. The kiwis made them all eat humble pie.

[@RalphBrooker-gn9iv]

I think Athers when he was skipper had gone to Steve Waugh and asked him how do we stop the rot and Waugh said something like ‘make yourself difficult to beat’.

[@martinharvey3990]

Brilliant piece. Back in 1999 at Uni, I answered a question for my essay... What is wrong with English cricket? Did my research, and my conclusion was an Australian type state system built around the 6 Test grounds... Similar to The Hundred franchise. The counties would still exist, but as a feeder to the franchises above them.

[@stepheng8779]

Nasser dragged England from the pits & got great performances from players that Atherton had sold down the river to his mates in the press. Caddick, White, different players under him.

[@johnnynochance]

Remember that series as if it was yesterday

[@dsintheb]

2:11 "He was someone who I thought underachieved for England." Caddick was a very good bowler, but like many English players of this period, was doomed to play an enormous amount of cricket against an Australian side that became all-conquering. Caddick's career record of 234 wickets @ 29.91 becomes 170 @ 26.11 when you take away his games played against Australia. His record IN Australia (4 Tests, 20 wickets @ 34.50) is basically the same as Stuart Broad and James Anderson. Like Atherton, his overall record suffers due to how lopsided the punishments from that Australian side were compared to everybody else.

[@kennethcrowther2277]

That's true. Atherton's back injury later on really didn't help either, especially when having to try and deal with McGrath. He was a top class opener and certainly deserved a test average of over 40, as opposed to the 37 that it ended up being. Similar can be said of other fine test batsmen over the years however, and 37 is still very respectable in certain contexts. Averages certainly don't tell the full story.

[@kennethcrowther2277]

Atherton, Stewart and Hussein all averaged under 40 in their test careers, although Stewart's at 39 was partly due to wicket keeping duties. His test average when playing as a pure batsman was 46! He was a fine wicket keeper though, and said he enjoyed keeping, buy that in retrospect should probably have just been an opener. They perhaps should've played Jack Russell more consistently. He was a fabulous wicket keeper and a very respectable batsman too. It was slightly prior to the days when keepers had to be specialist batsmen aswell, ie the post Gilchrist years. Russell however, might not have been specialist test batsman class, buy he was very good nonetheless. 2 test hundreds with an average pushing 30-odd if I remember correctly. It would've allowed Stewart to focus on being Atherton's opening partner. After Gooch's retirement, Atherton needed a consistent partner, with all due respect to Mark Butcher, who was a very talented player who had a few fine moments as a match winner, especially his 173* to win that Ashes test almost single handedly. However, Butcher didn't quite fulfil his potential as an opener. He might've been better off at number 3. Not sure. But Atherton and Stewart were a top class opening combination when they were together for sure. Ambrose and Walsh would tell you how good they were.

[@kennethcrowther2277]

Nasser Hussein is another player who should've averaged upwards of 40 given his ability. But having to deal with that almost unfair Australian bowling attack of the 90s probably more consistently than any other English player, aswell as having the burden of England captaincy against those Australian sides is probably why it dropped below 40. He was a very classy player too. I guess it all goes to show just how good a player Graham Thorpe was, who finished with an average of around 44, also playing that Australian attack on the regular. I thought he was damn near a great test batsman personally. Much has rightly been said recently about the English system back then however, with the focus being so much on County Cricket instead of putting the England team first and having proper test player contracts etc. The likes of Hick and Ramprakash in particular, neither of whom probably ever played a test match where they weren't specifically playing for their place in the team. They were both hugely talented players who would undoubtedly have benefited from the extra faith from selectors and the confidence it would've brought them. Both could've been great test batsmen.

[@randyborstol2491]

I got so disillusioned with England then that I stopped playing cricket. Which I regret now. The 1980s and 1990s were horrible at times in test cricket. So many stupid decisions made. Atherton and Stewart had a great opening partnership and taking that away so Stewart could be a wicket keeper was a mistake. It reduced Stewart's average. Robin Smith was treated abysmally. I remember actual discussions about him being dropped while he was making 175 in the Caribbean! I saw Graeme Hick score a hundred on a dodgy wicket at Bristol against Walsh and Lawrence. He had talent but England never got the best out of him. He was dropped after making 60 in an Ashes test. And Atherton declaring while Hick was on 98 is the cruelest thing I have seen in cricket. Who does that? Hick never did get an Ashes hundred. Atherton took that player's dream away from him. It also deflated the dressing room and possibly cost England a win. In 1998 Hick gets called up for an Ashes in Australia as a replacement. He is in the team the day after he arrives on a 24 hour flight. Jet lag and no preparation and gets a duck. So many stupid decisions. I will say tough on reflection the 1990s was the golden age for Test Cricket. So many good teams - West Indies, Pakistan, South Africa. Australia a great team and even Zimbabwe had a good team. The likes of Atherton and Hick would come up against Wasim, Waqar, Mushtaq, McGrath and Warne, Bond, Streak, Ambrose and Walsh, Donald and Pollock. The best bowling era in my opinion.

[@randyborstol2491]

I remember Caddick taking 100 first class wickets in a season. Bob Willis faded in 1984 and England did not have a good bowling attack for 15 years. Not sure why. An aging and heavy set Botham would carry them at times. I always wondered why Caddick unperformed for years. Players like Jarvis, Radford, Agnew, Igglesden were fast and good in county cricket but never performed in test cricket.

[@johncourtneidge]

Interesting. As Geofrey Boycott said, "The aim is to win."

[@paulgill2042]

Was it usual to have a 4 Test series against NZ back then?

[@trincric2701]

Not sure but would make sense since T20 and its leagues didn't exist. Had more time for real cricket.

[@paulshawley6490]

I played with Alan Mullally in club cricket, back when he was Australian and he was rubbish then.

[@rajivradha]

I will never forgive Butcher for getting the captaincy over Thorpe! kzbin.info/www/bejne/bWPdmmaZZpWtaKs 😂

[@rajivradha]

I also wish Thorpe a speedy recovery. I am very upset.

[@pauljohnson4539]

​@@rajivradhaWhat's the latest news on him? At the last count, he had a serious (unspecified) illness.

[@rajivradha]

@@pauljohnson4539 a hero to me, I hope all ok. It’s very sad.

[@jimmyodriscoll9273]

That so funny! that. Nasser Hussain said, we will be told where the worst side in the world. You was the "bloody" worse side in the world..🤣 & (2023)-BAZZBALL.. what a difference 24 years make😃.

[@kennethcrowther2277]

It's funny how they don't seem to want to mention Chris Cairns who bowled just as well as Nash, if not better. He was definitely quicker, being fully fit and at top pace in that series, bowling at around 90 miles per hour. He took more wickets also, and bowled quite magnificently. OK, they've just mentioned Cairns' match winning innings of 80 in the 4th test at The Oval, so fair enough. I just wondered if the match fixing allegations might've put them against him. Of course, he was found not guilty in a court of law, and was a truly fabulous cricketer. He might've missed a lot of cricket through injury throughout his career, but he was a truly great test allrounder nonetheless. His test stats are wonderful and would doubtless have been better still if he hadn't had to deal with so much injury. He was a match winner. To be fair, they were right about Dion Nash aswell. He also was injury prone but was fully fit during that series, and did bowl magnificently. He was also quite slippery at the time. That series win was achieved by a New Zealand team in very good form, and Cairns and Nash as the in-form new ball combination was probably the primary factor, with excellent bowling support from Daniel Vettori, and at times from the left-armers, Geoff Allott and Shayne O'Connor. All the batsmen chipped in with wonderful hundreds from Matt Horne at Lords playing the tough opener's innings, and Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan who both played fabulous attacking knocks at Old Trafford. Not one England batsman made a hundred in the whole series, (Alex Tudor 99*). I just wish New Zealand could play four test match series these days. Even 3 would be good enough. This 2 tests business is just bloody ridiculous!

[@raheelakhtar7]

I was hoping that they would show the Chris Read slow ball dismissal by Cairns 😉

[@kennethcrowther2277]

@raheelakhtar7 it's an absolute classic isn't it! He thought he was getting a beamer until it looped and dropped on to the perfect Yorker length right beneath his feet and on middle stump. The one that got Thorpe was every bit as good and obviously got rid of a much better player. But the Read one just looked so remarkable. Rabbit in the headlights stuff, and yet he was no bunny.

[@johnnynochance]

@@kennethcrowther2277 I remember Walsh getting Thorpe with one the next summer his celebration was funny