At least Ireland eventually made a decent game out of it as at one point it was looking like total humiliation. They will improve. Look how long it took New Zealand and Bangladesh to win their first tests after being elevated.
Thought it took Kiwis ages simply because the Aussie teams were so good, for so long. ( l'm being serious ) ..... and that we neglected to play them for 28 years. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The New Zealand cricket team played its first Test in January 1930 against England in Christchurch, New Zealand. The team won their first Test 45 matches and 26 years later, against the West Indies at Eden Park, Auckland in the 1955/56 season. As of 1 January 2018, NZ has played 425 Test matches, won 92, lost 170, and drawn 163. NZ played its first test against Australia in 1945/46 and scored 42 and 54. Australia ignored NZ for 28 years after that claiming that NZ were not good enough to play them. NZ lost a 3 match series in Australia, 3–0 in 1973/74 but later in the same summer drew a 3-match series in NZ 1–1. It was in the second match of this series that NZ achieved its maiden Test win over Australia. Glenn Turner (101 and 110*) became the first New Zealander to get a century in each innings of a Test. Turner scored nearly half of NZ’s runs in the match while no other NZ batsmen got over 50. Turner also held the second innings together as NZ threatened to collapse chasing 228 for victory. Richard Collinge and the Hadlee brothers, Richardand Dayle dismissed Australia for 223 and 259 and gave NZ the chance to chase what appeared to be smallish total for victory. In the end though it required another heroic performance from Turner to secure the win. Australia won the third match to draw the series.
It took New Zealand 26 years. They were granted test status in 1930 but had to wait until 1956 to win their first test. Admittedly, the war got in the way but it probbly didn't make that much difference. On that scale Bangladesh have been rather more successful only have to wait 5 years for their first test victory since being granted full status in 2000 but they do hold the record for the most consecutive test loses (21) between 2000 and 2002.
I see Jos Buttler - who has been tearing up the IPL - has been recalled to the England test team and is set to bat at number 7, with Bairstow moving up to 5. It's a positive move, but an odd one in that Bairstow will retain the wicket-keeping role, so we will have a specialist batsman at 7 after the all-rounders.
Scotland going remarkably well against England in the one-dayer in Edinburgh, 244-3 after 37 overs. 350 on the cards, but they'd need more like 400 to worry England, I'd say. Going to the Oval on Wednesday for the Aussies, looking forward to that one.
Hope you are taking a good supply of sandpaper to throw on the pitch when the Aussies are in the field. Just banter, innit? Scotland doing very well.
Cool, we're next door to each other. It will my first match at the Oval, although I have been there on 'Shouts' when I was in the Fire Brigade.
What a game & what a win for Scotland, England’s bowling needs to be looked at but let’s take nothing away from the Scots.
