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Originally Posted by Jungle Jumbo
They may be substandard in your eyes (and I sympathise with this, there are some dire players on show in Division Two) but as long as there are 18 counties, there will be a certain number of players in the professional game. So saying they shouldn't be playing cricket because they aren't good enough doesn't really hold water, because they can't be replaced by anybody. It's like saying that the standard of teaching is substandard, so all that don't meet your expectations should be fired. As poor as they might be, they're employed for a reason: because they're better than the alternative.
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My gripe has always been that far too many professionals are employed. There is absolutely no good reason whatsoever for 18 First-Class counties to employ 20-odd pros each; 13-14 at best is sufficient, with the rest on part-time or season-long contracts (yes I realise this isn't easy when you're playing a game that is effectively five-days-a-week but there are those who do it - not every single player who appears in First-Class cricket every season has a county contract).
If fewer professionals, especially from overseas, were employed in county cricket the amount of money spent by counties on mediocrity at the present time would be vastly reduced, and more could be spent on aiming for excellence in the future. It would also encourage less chopping and changing, because there would be far less incentive to go outside your pro structure if large numbers of injury didn't force your hand.
While James Anyon, Gareth Andrew, Mark Turner and the like may be better than the best alternatives as far as playing is concerned, that doesn't make them worthy of being professionals.
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Plus while there may be "sorts of things you can earn money by doing - plenty of which pay a hell of a lot more than county cricket", they aren't accessible to everyone playing county cricket. It might be that professional cricket will earn them more than any other career pragmatically accessible for them will.
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I realise that, but cricket is by nature a short-term career anyway - it's not one that can sustain you for a whole lifetime unless you a) have a very short life or b) have been damn good at cricket (and by nature the sort of cricketers I'm on about haven't been). So the point is, by hanging on in pro cricket when you're not good enough you're merely delaying the inevitable. You're going to have to get another job sometime, and TBH everyone is best off if that's sooner rather than later.