We’re all going on a European and West Indian tour

Please don't let Astra beat us again!!

West Ham and (Test) Cricket. Two of the many things I love in life.

The former have begun their journey, in their new home (The Estadio Olimpico). I feel like I don’t talk as much about West Ham on here as some people would expect, especially for someone who attends around half their games each season. That’s because, truth be told, I find it a bit boring talking about West Ham. Well on here anyway. Most of the stuff I write about West Ham comes in a fit of rage after a series of poor performances or something like that. That’s boring! I don’t want to be angry.

Then there’s the fact that we are in the Premier League. As I pointed out last week, I find it really hard (especially this year) to get on board the Premier League hype train. Maybe that will change in the next few weeks, who knows? But for now I’m not gripped.

I suppose it’s a good thing that tonight’s game isn’t in the Premier League then. Tonight is the 2^nd, and hopefully not final, trip on our European Tour. “Unfinished Business”, according to the West Ham Marketing team, against the mighty Astra Giurgiu (so mighty I had to look that spelling up). We dispatched of another European giant in the form of NK Domzale is the last round, putting them to the sword in our first outing in the aforementioned shiny new stadium. Now it’s time to book a place in the Europa League group stages, the part of the competition where I’ll stop taking the piss out of the fact that I’ve never heard of our opposition (probably because I will have). For me that’s when the European tour actually begins.

Obviously we have to get there first. I for one am not taking tonight’s match lightly. It was Astra who famously dumped us out last year, bafflingly to the delight of many fans?!? Probably the same fans that were then shocked that despite us having the money the, likes of Lacazette and, more realistically, Bacca have expressed that they have no interest in joining us (you have to build some sort of European pedigree in order to attract many of that next tier of players).

Going into tonight it would appear that we’re already all over the place. Defeat in our first league game of the season, granted this was against one of the favourites for the title; Our £20m striker getting injured in that game; “Minor injuries” to other key players, which I’m hoping is just them trying to avoid playing Astra; and reports of a player mutiny regarding Antonio playing at right back. It all sounds very West Ham already.

I’m going to reserve judgement until we’ve played a few games, although we’d better beat Bournemouth on the weekend. For now #COYI

Look at this guy, with his sunhat going on like he's some sort of "Batting Don"

As mentioned Test Cricket is another one of my passions. I’ve previously explained why it’s Test Cricket and not any of the shorter formats, so I won’t go into that again. This time of year is particularly busy in the test calendar. We’ve had Pakistan over here playing England; Australia touring Sri Lanka; and India in the West Indies.

The England Pakistan series was probably one of the most engrossing that there have been for a while. Unfortunately, such can be the nature of modern day Test Cricket, nowadays there aren’t often series where both sides manage to win multiple test matches. It all tends to play out as a bit of a mismatch in favour of one side or the other, so this summer’s series fascinatingly refreshing.

One thing I’ve been meaning to say for a long time, with regards to English cricket, is how good is Alistair Cook? Yes he’s very backfoot dominant, but the numbers don’t lie. There has to be an argument for Cook being the greatest ever English batsmen; if not in terms of flair, definitely in terms of consistent run scoring.

Meanwhile the series that has just finished between Australia and Sri Lanka has also been very interesting. While the Sri Lankans ultimately ran out 3-0 winners there were two of those test matches that the Aussies could have actually won, but for monumental collapses due to their inability to play spin. One of the Sri Lankan victories was such a turn around that I managed to make a bit of money betting on it (another reason to love test cricket is the stuff that you can bet on, as a causal gambler, if you understand cricket and can spot shifts in the momentum of the game).

Finally, actually not finally, New Zealand start their series with South Africa tomorrow and have been playing Zimbabwe, additionally there was the series in the Caribbean which pitted my beloved, seemingly in constantly turmoil, West Indians against a much stronger Indian side. Talk at the beginning of the series was of this being a chance for the West Indies to show signs of progress in the longer format of the game. Progress that was supposed to have come about as a result of the recent changes to the domestic setup; and an up and coming pool of players that have already demonstrated their ability at the U19 and T20 World Cups, which we won, held earlier this year.

What we actually have had so far is two crushing defeats at the hands of the Indians. But I do feel like there are signs to be optimistic about. In the last test for the first time in a long while I felts like we had a balanced line-up, including a top 6/7 that may genuinely be able to score runs at test level, and a bowling line-up that that could possible take 20 wickets in a 5 day game. “So why did they get their asses handed to them in the third test then Travis?” I hear you ask (you probably aren’t asking that but I’m going to give my opinion).

There is a key factor that I feel is responsible for the West Indies’ failure at the top level of international cricket. This is the domestic setup and investment in it. While it’s great that this new PCL 1^st class competition has been created and is being funded, we need to have a look at fundamentals such as the facilities being used to host West Indian cricket.

I’m not sure whether it’s due to apathy or a lack of funding, or whether it’s intentional, but too many wickets are flat and offer nothing to seam bowlers. Hence we’ve stopped producing them. When I was a kid every West Indian test side consisted of 3 (often 4) fearsome fast bowlers. Where are these guys now? The last test was the first time in a long time that I’ve seen us play four seamers. More tellingly, I feel like our batsmen are always being bounced out and tested with short deliveries yet we never seem to be able to give the treatment back the same way.

Pitches that are more conducive to fast bowling will encourage more kids to become seamers when they grow up, and in turn will give our batsmen more exposure to hostile fast bowling at domestic level. I remember the days when mediocre players like Keith Artherton would bat in sun hats with quick bowlers steaming in at them; now our top order are struggling to deal with fast bowlers with averages that are above 35, like Ishant Sharma!!

We also need to sort our outfields out. The outfield in the last test was nothing short of a disgrace. I can comfortably state that no other test playing nation would host a match on an outfield where it was nigh on impossible to score a boundary if you played the ball along the floor. I’ve struggled at played Saturday cricket with better outfields than the one in St Lucia. How can we expect our batsmen to grow up playing proper, risk free (or reduced), attacking shots along the ground and do rudimentary things like rotating the strike when they aren’t rewarded. This is what breeds sloggers like Kieron Pollard and will also be a factor in our poor approach to batting in the middle of limited overs games when the field is out.

On top of the above our players make the daftest decisions in match situations. I feel like this is in part due to things like not being able to rotate the strike & relieve pressure, handle hostile short pitched bowling, or bowl the right type of seam delivery (with the right field set) for the type of batsman at the crease. The seeds are there but we need to establish a credible 1^st class competition, played in arenas, which have surfaces that both test and reward, batsmen and bowlers. How hard is it!??! I’ll come down and cut the bloody outfield for you!

Sorry I’m aware that this is more of a non-humorous brain dump today. If this is the first time you’ve been on here, it’s normally better! Honest!