Do domestic structures define the test rankings?

[Neil Pickup]

I'm guessing morgie's talking about a lack of "exciting" young talent, forgetting that the likes of KP, Anderson, Bell and Cook were all at one point exciting talents in their early 20s. If we don't appear to have produced many exciting batsmen in particular over the last 5-6 years then it's because the generation that debuted between 2004 and 2006 have been so bloody good.

Root, Buttler, Hales, Wright, Bairstow, Stokes, Roy, Vince, Taylor, Bell-Drummond, Foakes...

And then Meaker, Brooks, Harris, Woakes, Buck, Finn, Mills, Borthwick, Briggs, Ball, Topley...

I'm not worrying.

 

[Flem274*]

God these statements about production of young talent have ground my gears lately. ****s with no knowledge of other countries ****s just assume other countries have less talent than their own because they haven't heard of them. It was especially bad the other day with the South Africa-England nationalistic dick waving.

No ****, it just means you don't read outside your own country.

Just because England have a relatively settled side it doesn't mean there is nothing in County Cricket.

 

[Daemon]

It's just the old idea of England having orthodox and boring cricketers throughout their ranks.

The same people who believe that feed their misconceptions with guys like Trott, while conveniently forgetting blokes like Flintoff ever existed.

 

[GIMH]

Freddie

 

[benchmark00]

Root, Buttler, Hales, Wright, Bairstow, Stokes, Roy, Vince, Taylor, Bell-Drummond, Foakes...

And then Meaker, Brooks, Harris, Woakes, Buck, Finn, Mills, Borthwick, Briggs, Ball, Topley...

I'm not worrying.

Other than Bairstow and probably Root, you're not making a compelling point...

Wouldn't be crowing about that list of names at all just yet. Just because you can name a number of county players, doesn't mean they're good, or more importantly, will be any good at international level.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Quite right. Wouldn't surprise me if half of that lot didn't play internationally, either.

I was just assuring Morgie that there was the odd player or two that we'd managed to come up with over the last year or so that might have a chance. It seems to have satisfied him, too.

 

[NasserFan207]

Domestic structures mean everything. Ireland doesn't have one, which is why we have zero chance of ever becoming a test side. Zimbabwe cricket was kept alive during the last five years by its domestic structure.

England has the best and most competitive four-day competition in the world, helps them massively.