England A to play in India's Duleep Trophy

[Salamuddin]

Schedule:

February 14-17: South Zone vs East Zone, West Zone vs Central Zone

February 21-24: England 'A' vs South Zone, North Zone vs Central Zone

February 27-Mar 1: England 'Al vs East Zone, North Zone vs West Zone

March 5-9: Final.


Should be interesting to see how they go....who's likely to be in the England A side ?

What do people think about this -- a foreign side being invited to play in the domestic comp of another country -- the West Indies started this trend I believe.

 

[Salamuddin]

England A may have a decent chance to get to the final....they are in a relatively easy pool.

East Zone are the weakest of the Indian provincial teams and South Zone are not quite the side they used to be:

The Likely South Zone lineup will be:
Ramesh, Vidyuth, Sriram, Badani (c), R Barrington, D Chowgule, R Uthappa, A Rayudu, T Naidu (wk), MSK Prasad (wk), S Nair, U Patel, L Balaji, Sreeshanth, T Yohannan.

Not a bad batting lineup but poor bowling.

 

[Rik]

Errrm, don't you mean the academy? The "A" team was disbanded a while ago, in much the same was as that famous band of mercenaries we all knew and loved

 

[Arjun]

It's a good idea, which will help both English and Indian cricket.

This will definitely be England's second best team, so the local teams in India will get some good competition.

I don't rate Central Zone and East Zone- Central has just 1 slightly-better-than-ordinary team in the Elite league (another got relegated), while East has 3, of which only Bengal are of any real quality.

South Zone will be a good bowling side. Balaji is quite effective in India, if not abroad, where the ball comes nicely on the bat.

Of the bowlers, Balaji and Nair are quite good. I have not hear much of Udit Patel, or Vidyut, but they are quite good. Sreeshanth was quite good in the tour match against NZ, but lacks the power. Tinu Yohannan is an obvoius weak link.

 

[Tim]

I recall that a couple of years ago New Zealand 'A' played a couple of these Trophy tournaments in India.

Players like Shane Bond, Hamish Marshall & Jacob Oram emerged from that team so im not sure why NZ haven't seen a team back for so long.

 

[iamdavid]

If its true its a great move , dont know why the hell they got rid of A tours in the first place , a great place for all the players on the fringe yet to old for the academy (Smith , Dean , Saggers , Fulton , Wagh , Bell , etc) to prove themselves.

But I think as Rik says that you mean the academy , as I checked BBC Cricket & ECB.co.uk & neither mentiond it

 

[V Reddy]

Yeah it is an Academy team. At first they thought of Surrey but they ended up with Academy team. I think the Academy team is playing some other matches too. Btw, i expect some more players from Hyderabad as they have made it to the semis

 

[SpaceMonkey]

i think the Acadamy team also play a few games in malaysia too. Its a concerted effect from the ECB to get our young best players playing in spin conditions as much as possible. Which can only be good for them.

 

[Bazza]

This will definitely be England's second best team

I don't think so!

SpaceMonkey is right though - they are going to Malaysia as well - that famous cricketing nation.

Anyone read this article?

http://www-usa.cricket.org/db/ARCHIVE/CRICKET_NEWS/2003/DEC/011964_WCM_10DEC2003.html

 

[Magrat Garlick]

i think the Acadamy team also play a few games in malaysia too. Its a concerted effect from the ECB to get our young best players playing in spin conditions as much as possible. Which can only be good for them.

Malaysia? Why not take a trip here if you want that kind of opposition?

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Malaysia? Why not take a trip here if you want that kind of opposition?

MONEY

Plain and simple. Malaysia will pay them a fair bit to go play a few 1 day matches there i would imagine. Theres nothing wrong with that as its only gonna be for a few days and if it helps partly pay for the Acadamy im all for it.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

MONEY

Plain and simple. Malaysia will pay them a fair bit to go play a few 1 day matches there i would imagine. Theres nothing wrong with that as its only gonna be for a few days and if it helps partly pay for the Acadamy im all for it.

Ah...that would explain it. Funny, didn't know the Malaysian Cricket Board had any financial assets to speak of

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Malaysia is a well off country though. So it would help the tourism a great deal i would imagine.
Does anyone actually know how big cricket is in malaysia? for all we know they could be the dark horses for world cup winners in 2031!...or not

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Malaysia is a well off country though. So it would help the tourism a great deal i would imagine.
Does anyone actually know how big cricket is in malaysia? for all we know they could be the dark horses for world cup winners in 2031!...or not

Last two ICC trophies: 16th and 19th...

Reckon Norway could give them a good run for their money

 

[marc71178]

This will definitely be England's second best team, so the local teams in India will get some good competition.

It'll be a team of promising players, but nowhere near the second best team (owing to the absence of recent Test players who aren't currently playing for the Full side)

 

[Arjun]

Are we going to see a whole lot of rank outsiders then? That's what it might be, if you say it isn't a second best team. I was expecting a team of fringe players like Tudor, Blackwell, Troughton, Bell, Keedy and all those about whom I read quite often when there is news on English domestic cricket.

 

[Hero_Don]

Wait a minute. ENGLAND A. Bloody hell the actual england team isnt even that good, so the sub side is just a question of how much they're going to get smashed, at least an INdia A

 

[luckyeddie]

Wait a minute. ENGLAND A. Bloody hell the actual england team isnt even that good, so the sub side is just a question of how much they're going to get smashed, at least an INdia A

It's part of a learning-process - sure, they'll probably get panned, but the exposure to quality spin bowling might come in handy in the future. They sure as hell don't face much day-to-day over here.

 

[Richard]

Maybe they'll face testing spinning conditions but they'll not actually face spinners of an especially larger quality than they do at home.
It would, IMO, be more beneficial for England A to play in the Duleep Trophy than The Academy.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

The England Acadamy is supposidly made up of the best of englands youth talent. But that might not be the case