Specifically for those two cases… There is a case for having a regular European Cup featuring England and Ireland and probably two associate qualifiers (most like Netherlands and Scotland, the step down to the likes of Italy and Germany is pretty steep) as a mirror of the Asia Cup which also features full and associate members. I think the Asia Cup tends to be T20 or ODI depending on which format is currently most useful (eg in run up to 50 over World Cup you want a few more ODIs so that’s what they use the Asia Cup for). You could have a round robin and a final in not much more time than an England ODI bilateral. Now there are two full members in Europe and a few more pro or semi-pro associate teams, this kind of idea might be a more meaningful use of the summer calendar space than a bilateral.

The problem from an England perspective would be the quality and commercial viability of the opposition, though England men have lost to Ireland, Scotland and Netherlands before. You might want to invite the West Indies (and let USA/Canada into qualifying, Brazil too if there’s a parallel women’s tournament, as there should be) and have a Euro-American Cup. I hope this is the kind of context-creating idea people are at least thinking about, given how well the Asia Cup has worked.

It would help England because every ODI also involves as much travel as a Test match.

But totally agree that it’s far from beneficial for plenty of nations. What would the likes of Ireland or the Netherlands get out of it? Almost zero cricket? Great. Really helpful.

A hundreds and five-fors rating, did you say?

https://www.kingcricket.co.uk/the-hundreds-and-five-fors-rating-why-moeen-ali-is-englands-best-player/2017/07/11/

England really haven’t played many bilateral ODIs since the last World Cup. In the four years since they’ve played 36 ODIs, nine a year. That’s less days than 2 complete test matches. Abandoning ODIs for three out of every four years will make very little difference to England but may cause much bigger issues to the smaller nations.

I think you need to pick the batsmen with the best chance of scoring a hundred if things go well for them, and the bowlers who could get you 5 wickets. I know this sounds like pick the best players, obviously, but pick ones who can be match winners, not just bits and pieces players.

I so agree with “this”, APW, not only the stuff about fewer bilateral ODIs, but also the stuff about ringfencing serious money for test cricket and for women’s cricket.

Harry Brook has a Major League Baseball logo on his bat.

Coincidence?

No, it’s a prearranged marketing tie in.

Or is it?

Yes.

The story of how cricket reached America.

…your “44 more runs” figure is flawed.

I’m flawed, I mean, I’m floored by your cruel dismantling of my analysis. You are of course correct, mathematically. I would say though that the deliveries England were wont to leave all those years ago were more like 80/20 balls, 70/30 at worst. It was virtually anything that didn’t actually need to be hit for defensive reasons. That would give somewhere around 10 to 15 extra runs, which because this was an all-batters disease could mean 60 to 100 extra team runs per innings.

We worked out here years ago that in certain circumstances, runs are not the currency of batting. Balls faced is a far better way to assess an innings. But that is only when playing for a draw. When playing for a win, runs are in fact the right currency to use, because literally that is the only deciding factor. It’s often said that to win you need to take twenty wickets, but in fact that is neither necessary or sufficient. To win, you necessarily have to have more runs than your opponent.

To get runs, that is, to win, you have to let batters bat. We’ve had too much analysis of the specifics of failure over the years, to the point where our batsmen were scared to play a shot. There is no perfect tactic, but erring on the side of aggression is likely to lead to much better results than erring on the side of caution. There was a time when nil-nil or one-one in a home Ashes series would have been seen as a triumph. If there is any short definition of what Bazball actually is, maybe it is simply that in this team it would be seen as a failure.