Some cricket questions regarding scheduling of matches?

[starseo38]

1. why sri lanka doesn't play tests at r premadasa stadium. it hosts odi's and t20's there every year.it seems they separated stadiums in terms of tests and limited over games. premadasa and dambulla for odi's and ssc and p sara oval for tests only. any particular reason.
2. why england play 2 tests at lord's every year out of possible 7 when they do have more than 7 test grounds in their country. the same thing doesn't happen with oval. how come?
3. whenever australia goes to sri lanka they play a complete tour i.e. 2-3 tests,3-5 odi's and 1-2 t20's. however when sri lanka visits australia lets say 3 times they play only odi's and t20's on two of those occasions and a complete tour on the remaining one. why is it so?

 

[sifter132]

Answer to question 2 would be that Lord's is the home of cricket! It's the iconic, most legendary venue in England and it will ALWAYS be the schedule - they don't want to rotate it out like the Indians do with their many venues. The Oval always gets a Test, but it will always be 2nd to Lords based on tradition.

Question 3...Australia used to do this because they needed a 3rd team for the ODI tri-series, but would often only play 1 Test series in the summer. I can think of 1998/99 and 2002/03 off the top of my head where England came out to play 5 Ashes Tests, but SL were invited to be the 3rd team for the tri-series. They couldn't play Tests vs SL because they didn't have time after all the England ones. I think occasionally when SL have come over for some Tests they have been early in the summer and they couldn't hang around for 2 months to wait for the ODI series to begin because it clashed with another tour. So that is why sometimes they only get 'half' a tour in Australia.

 

[Owzat]

re Lords, I heard something regarding timing of Tests this year being interrupted by the limpdicks. There's something like a contractual obligation about hosting two matches or something in Londinium. And Lords is where all touring sides want to play, while the ECB does spread the matches around. I get the feeling there may be a "bidding system" for hosting creeped in in recent years, they pay lots of money to host which is a joke system.

I would imagine a lot boils down to s*y and ??????

As for the aussies, well they have low regard for a lot of countries and Bangladesh/Zimbabwe they only play as much and often as they absolutely have to by (ICC) law.

Tests vs BAN/ZIM/SRI

Pakistan (66) : 8 v BAN, 15 vs ZIM, 43 vs SRI
India (53) : 7 vs BAN, 11 vs ZIM, 35 vs SRI
England (40) : 8 vs BAN, 6 vs ZIM, 26 vs SRI
South Africa (35): 8 vs BAN, 7 vs ZIM, 20 vs SRI
Australia (30) : 4 vs BAN, 3 vs ZIM, 23 vs SRI

Despite not being allowed back until the early 90s South Africa have played only three less matches against Sri Lanka than the aussies. That is the only team against which the aussies haven't played the least games, and only because South Africa missed over a decade of chances to play that side.

Pakistan, even with issues over home series, have played those three most recent Test nations the most or equal most. I left out the kiwis, windies etc as they're relative minnows these days so going to make up more series against the three newer nations than big guns.

For the aussies only to have played Sri Lanka 23 times in over three decades is poor, likewise England who played them once in 88, once in 91, once in 93 and then once in 98. It was only when the Lankans beat England twice in a row that they afforded them more than one Test in a series, so 20 of the 26 Tests between the two sides have come in the past 11-12 years in a period spanning three decades

 

[icyman]

First up, in the sub continental nations, the ground associations are governed under the 'rotation policy'. So, in India, you will find that the ODIs can go to any nook and corner of the country. For SRL, its been a while since they have been doing this. However, I feel they are quite flawed in allocating their matches. They seem to have seasonal affections for a particular ground. 2006 onwards, they started hosting matches in Dambulla in a big way. Right now it is Pallekele and Hambantota. Even Kandy is back in the fray.

For you second Q- its got to do more with tradition. Add to that the monetary factor as well. They would not want to miss out on hosting a team at Lords-given its the home of cricket. If you observe the schedule a bit closely, you will find that:
1. Boxing Day Tests are generally held in Melbourne and Durban.
2. New Years Test -Sydney
3. First Test of the Australian Summer - Gabba.

Its always the tradition.

 

[sifter132]

I would imagine a lot boils down to s*y and ??????

As for the aussies, well they have low regard for a lot of countries and Bangladesh/Zimbabwe they only play as much and often as they absolutely have to by (ICC) law.

Yeah the scheduling is very unbalanced. Whether this was the way of Cricket Australia to say they thought promoting Zimbabwe and Bangladesh was a bad idea...I don't know. But now they are in Test cricket EVERYONE should be playing them regularly.

Only factor I can think of for Australia is that being the world #1 team for most of the last 15-20 years, they have been in high demand for ODI series, and longer tours, ie. they are the main touring drawcard so teams like to have Australia come for as long and as often as possible. Naturally the richer countries like England and India can bid for those tours a bit better than Sri Lanka can. So yeah, money has a lot to do with it