Some interesting stats?

[fredfertang]

Here are some positions from last summer's batting averages for the County Championship - number of matches played in brackets

3rd David Hussey (5)
10th Chris Rogers (15)
14th Adam Voges (3)
15th Mark Cosgrove (15)
27th Michael Di Venuto (16)
32nd Andrew MacDonald (6)

and some more

46th Alistair Cook (7)
55th Ian Bell (6)
57th Jonathan Trott (6)
103rd Andrew Strauss (8)
111th Matt Prior (7)

KP only played two matches and averaged 13 so 200+th
Colly played in 1 and averaged 12

[Prince EWS]

I think it's fair to say the Test players might not take county cricket as seriously as the Australians you listed. For Rogers, Voges etc it's their livelihood - if they don't perform they might not get signed as overseas players for the following season and there goes over half their annual wage. For the England players it's a chance to find some form and perhaps pay back the teams that got them where they are, which isn't quite as big an incentive to perform.

Interesting all the same.

[morgieb]

Proves that Australia picked the wrong team

[Spikey]

lol adam voges

[fredfertang]

I think it probably says as much about how competitive County cricket is these days as anything directly relevant to where the Australian selectors might have gone wrong, although I do wonder whether Hilditch and co have actually realised there are two different cricketers named Hussey

[Ruckus]

Who were 1 and 2?

[iamdavid]

For what it's worth I've been advocating Dussey at 6 for a couple of years lol

[fredfertang]

Originally Posted by DeusEx

Who were 1 and 2?

Greg Smith, a young Leicestershire batsman was 1, although he only played a few games - Hashim Amla was 2

[Woodster]

Originally Posted by DeusEx

Who were 1 and 2?

The positions don't quite reflect the true results of players seasons, because in first place was Greg Smith from Leicestershire but he only played five games, averaging 84.83 and in second was Hashim Amla who only played four games, averaging 75.40. Both were obviously excellent, but they barely played, so when you rate players based on average, that's the problem. Had they performed at that standard for the entire season, then fair enough.

Think the overseas players certainly feel more pressure to perform, there is a lot of expectation, the higher the pressure the better the standard the more accomplished players perform to. The England players will see the CC games purely as some match time, a chance to get prepared for England, and also the opportunity to represent their county and give the few supporters a bit of a treat.

[Burgey]

Irrespective of how seriously established players take county cricket, it used to be a great way for up and coming Australian players to round out their education, by playing in conditions where the ball swings and seams a lot.

I recall Steve Waugh going there in the late 80s, Mark Waugh too. Tubby played a year or two in League cricket as well. Even AB played in the mid-late 80s when he was arguably the best player in the world. These days the international caravan seriously inhibits players wanting to play county cricket, while the lure of T20 riches also seems to mean players' priorities lay elsewhere.

The moving ball seems something of an alien concept to a lot of our batsmen these days.

[superkingdave]

IIRC it always used to be the batsmen that came over to learn the different conditions and face our bowlers and the Aussie bowlers never came over. Is this just my fuzzy memory?

[Burgey]

Originally Posted by superkingdave

IIRC it always used to be the batsmen that came over to learn the different conditions and face our bowlers and the Aussie bowlers never came over. Is this just my fuzzy memory?

Yeah that's pretty much it. There were some up and coming bowlers who tried their hand.. I remember Dennis Hickey heading over when he was young and apparently the fastest bowler in Australia. He was used as an ingot he wind stock bowler and suffered stress fractures iirc, so to that extent the English system helped out!!

[Woodster]

Originally Posted by Burgey

Irrespective of how seriously established players take county cricket, it used to be a great way for up and coming Australian players to round out their education, by playing in conditions where the ball swings and seams a lot.

I recall Steve Waugh going there in the late 80s, Mark Waugh too. Tubby played a year or two in League cricket as well. Even AB played in the mid-late 80s when he was arguably the best player in the world. These days the international caravan seriously inhibits players wanting to play county cricket, while the lure of T20 riches also seems to mean players' priorities lay elsewhere.

The moving ball seems something of an alien concept to a lot of our batsmen these days.

Absolutely, has been a great finishing school for many an Aussie's cricketing education. Mark Waugh and AB made great names for themselves at Essex, and if committments allowed, I'd expect plenty of young Australians would benefit hugely from playing County cricket.

[Howe_zat]

County cricket is still a huge benefit to overseas batsmen, some of the backup batsmen during Australia's glory days staked their claims partly thorugh becoming a force in England as well as Shield cricket.

Darren Lehmann is one I'm thinking of in particular, his years at Headingley probably gave him more time facing the moving ball than Matthew Hayden did in his whole career.

[Uppercut]

There's definitely at least one additional piece of evidence for Australian selectors being complete idiots in there somewhere.