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Steve Tikolo in Tests?

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Bradman never played county cricket either. However, it's easier for guys from test nations to make a living from cricket without playing in the county championship than it is for Kenyans. Da Silva or Ranatunga might have preferred the English summers off, I doubt Tikolo would've.

My point was not to talk up the CC as a gold standard of cricketing excellence, rather to point out that counties preferred to hire non-capped Aussies or Saffers for their overseas pro(s) rather than Tikolo. He may've been a success in tests, but the fact that no county was prepared to take a chance on him in the FC game suggests reservations were held.
 

Chemosit

First Class Debutant
Bradman never played county cricket either. However, it's easier for guys from test nations to make a living from cricket without playing in the county championship than it is for Kenyans. Da Silva or Ranatunga might have preferred the English summers off, I doubt Tikolo would've.

My point was not to talk up the CC as a gold standard of cricketing excellence, rather to point out that counties preferred to hire non-capped Aussies or Saffers for their overseas pro(s) rather than Tikolo. He may've been a success in tests, but the fact that no county was prepared to take a chance on him in the FC game suggests reservations were held.
I'm sure the fact had nothing whatsoever to do with the comparative ease of getting a visa if you come from certain parts of the world...
 

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
DeSilva is one of the top 100 batsman of all time. According to Days of Grace rating system and my personal estimation. He is definitely better than 99.5% of the local players in county cricket. Are you including the English international cricket team Kevin Peitersen and company in the definition of a local player? He might make up the 0.5%
If he had played in the same era of course, which is not the case. De Silva played from 1984-2003. Only one I could include in that 0.5% is Graham Gooch, but they are more or less comparable.
 

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
I think English counties are reluctant to sign up even a test class player from asian countries, because of the fact that they have seen very little of the players. Only SLpalyers to play in English CC are de Silva (Kent), Murali (Lancs) and Vaas (Glamorgan) and Jayasuriya. There were Ranatunga, Tillekaratne, Mahanama and Upul Chandana, who were quiet achievers. English FCC wanted real showmen type charachters who could decimate the oppositions. That is the reason why de Silva, Murali, Tendulkar, Akthar, Waqar, Wasim were always prefered to Ranatunga, Dravid, Kumble, Vaas, Tilekaratne or Inzamam. The former set are crowd pullers.

English CC will certainly offer a contract to Dilshan or Malinga. But I cannot see the same happening for Samaraweera or Kulasekara despite having superior performances.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
I am not saying that Tikolo is better than 99.5% of county players.
But you did say de Silva was, which suggests that over his career you think there was only 1 player better than him - hence I call it an exaggeration.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
How many home-grown county players were better than Aravinda during his time as a serious Test batsman then?

2 or 3 at best. It's possible to argue 0.
 

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
But you did say de Silva was, which suggests that over his career you think there was only 1 player better than him - hence I call it an exaggeration.
And could you name any English player who was better than de Silva 1984-2003 out of hundreds of local players? Only Gooch and perhaps Gower (I think de Silva is better than Gower), that also in tests. ODI, there was absolutely no English player close to him. Yes, 99.5% may be exaggeration, 99.7% would have been a better value.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
I'd easily add in the likes of Hick and Ramprakash for starters, before going onto the overseas batsmen like Richards and any number of Australians.
 

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
This is getting ridiculous.

And could you name any English player who was better than de Silva 1984-2003 out of hundreds of local players? Only Gooch and perhaps Gower (I think de Silva is better than Gower), that also in tests. ODI, there was absolutely no English player close to him. Yes, 99.5% may be exaggeration, 99.7% would have been a better value.
Sorry mate, Ramprakash is light years behind de Silva with class. Hick has a decent shout as a class player, but he excelled against medium pacers only. Ramprakash against really quick bowlers we have seen the results. Same with Hick. De Silva just took bowlers like Ambrose, Walsh, Donald, Wasim, Waqar. Imran and Hughes to cleaners when he was in the mood. I don't know how old are you to remember de Silva in early to late 90s, but if you have seen him batting, you wouldn't have compared him to Ramprakash.
 
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Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
TBF while I've no hesitation in placing Aravinda above Ramprakash and Hick, with all levels of the game under consideration, it isn't a light-years matter.

BTW Migara, for your information Marc is rather fond of replying to what he'd like to have been written rather than what has been, even after what has been written has been stated several times over. So don't be surprised at that. :)
 

Top_Cat

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Migara in 'the world is biased against Sri Lankan players' shocker. Yawn.

Anyway, back to Tikolo, am largely in agreement with Brumby; if he was that good, he'd have been picked up by a county, especially in light of how much club cricket he played there. Decent player but I'd not back him to average 40 in Tests.
 
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SaeedAnwar

U19 Debutant
Guys I have to agree with Migara here, Desilva was far ahead then any English Batsmen in the era he played. Like Migara said Gooch is the only one who could equal or better then him

Desilva was my fav batsmen between 1996-1998
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Migara in 'the world is biased against Sri Lankan players' shocker. Yawn.
Hardly TBH. It's quite true that the number of Pakistani and Sri Lankan overseas-players in county cricket is, frankly, miniscule compared to Australians, Kiwis and South Africans. And, until pretty recently, West Indians.

No-one's exactly suggesting bias as such, just a pattern. And it's a fairly obvious pattern, frankly, as I say.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
I think English counties are reluctant to sign up even a test class player from asian countries, because of the fact that they have seen very little of the players. Only SLpalyers to play in English CC are de Silva (Kent), Murali (Lancs) and Vaas (Glamorgan) and Jayasuriya. There were Ranatunga, Tillekaratne, Mahanama and Upul Chandana, who were quiet achievers. English FCC wanted real showmen type charachters who could decimate the oppositions. That is the reason why de Silva, Murali, Tendulkar, Akthar, Waqar, Wasim were always prefered to Ranatunga, Dravid, Kumble, Vaas, Tilekaratne or Inzamam. The former set are crowd pullers.

English CC will certainly offer a contract to Dilshan or Malinga. But I cannot see the same happening for Samaraweera or Kulasekara despite having superior performances.
You exaggerate. Plenty of players from Asian countries have played county cricket. I'm thinking Ranji, Duleepsinji, the Nawab of Pataudi, Hardit Malik, Imran Khan, Mushtaq Ahmed, Rana Naved ul-Hasan, Saqlain Mushtaq, Yasir Arafat, Mohammad Sami, Piyush Chawla.

To the list of Sri Lankan players who played county cricket you can also add Colombo-born Gehan Mendis and also, although he played for a less notable county team than the others, Dr Churchill Hector Gunasekara.
 
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zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
English FCC wanted real showmen type charachters who could decimate the oppositions. That is the reason why de Silva, Murali, Tendulkar, Akthar, Waqar, Wasim were always prefered to Ranatunga, Dravid, Kumble, Vaas, Tilekaratne or Inzamam. The former set are crowd pullers.
I don't understand at all. Waqar was never in competition for a place with, say, Inzamam. And I'm baffled by your suggestion that Inzy wasn't a crowd puller. Any county team would have loved to have had him as an overseas player.

Besides which, Dravid, Kumble, Vaas and Inzamam all played county cricket. Vaas and Kumble each played for 3 counties (Vaas didn't play for Glamorgan though).
 
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Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
I don't understand at all. Waqar was never in competition for a place with, say, Inzamam. And I'm baffled by your suggestion that Inzy wasn't a crowd puller. Any county team would have loved to have had him as an overseas player.

Besides which, Dravid, Kumble, Vaas and Inzamam all played county cricket. Vaas and Kumble each played for 3 counties (Vaas didn't play for Glamorgan though).
It's not that Dravid etc. not played FCC. But the counties like to sign a flashy player than an mechanical one. Inzamam was a very aggressive player in his early days, but the aggresiveness was much less when we saw him in early 2000s.
 

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