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County Championship- Where are they from?

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
This took a fair amount of time, but it was a quiet afternoon at work.

Cricinfo lists 449 players as members of County squads.

I thought Id breakdown where they were all born. With recent talk that some Counties employ too many Kolpaks, I wondered if this would be borne out and whether some Counties had little talent from them. EDIT- IMO the evidence is pretty clear

This list includes all squad players (as defined by Cricinfo). It includes, amongst others, Kolpaks, Overseas, young pros etc

There will be some players that were born somewhere and then move and grow up somewhere else but those exceptions do not change the core focus of the study. With so much data these do not impact the conclusions that can be drawn.

Code:
Name			Total
South Africa		58
Yorkshire		42
Lancashire		27
Australia		25
Wales			18
Nottinghamshire		17
Pakistan		16
Surrey			16
Kent			15
Middlesex		14
Warwickshire		13
Staffordshire		12
Essex			11
Durham			10
Sussex			9
Hampshire		9
New Zealand		9
Somerset		8
Derbyshire		8
Zimbabwe		8
Undefined London	7
Ireland			6
Gloucestershire		6
Buckinghamshire		6
Leicestershire		5
Northamptonshire	5
Worcestershire		5
Scotland		5
Barbados		4
Jamaica			4
Northumberland		4
Cornwall		4
Wiltshire		3
Hertfordshire		3
Norfolk			3
India			3
Berkshire		3
Oxfordshire		3
Shropshire		2
Bedfordshire		2
Lincolnshire		2
Devon			2
Kenya			2
Guyana			2
Cambridgeshire		2
Malaysia		1
Sri Lanka		1
Anguilla		1
Germany			1
Cumberland		1
Antigua			1
France			1
PNG			1
Denmark			1
Dorset			1
Bermuda			1
There are 9 Counties that can be termed Positives.

I use the term Positives to indicate Counties that have 11 players born in that county and then can contribute additional to the communal pot. Yorkshire being the 'King Positive' by contributing almost 20% of all English born players.

Amazingly, Staffordshire (with 12 players) is one of them and contributes far more players than a lot of other Counties.

Leicestershire, Northamptonshire , Worcestershire are the worst with each having only 5 cricketers in the whole of County cricket being born in that County.


More to come
 
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Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Who's the other Kenyan(\Kenyan-born) aside from Raghab Aga?

Have been thinking of doing a study to come to conclusions about this as well myself, though with different base elements. I'm going to wait until the season is finished completely to post it, as it's based on first-team appearances and there may yet be 1 or 2 more of these. But this is an interesting co-study.

Would it be possible to list the players? As we could then hope to do some form of "development" (ie, where they grew-up) story in addition to birth, which would be even more instructive. David Hemp, for instance, is in no way Bermudan, any more than Colin Cowdrey or Ted Dexter were Indian. Likewise Dawid Malan isn't really a Londoner.
 

Rickripper

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
Haha, that must have been a very long afternoon. Good work though.

It doesn't reflect well on the state of club cricket in my native Berkshire...
Who's from France? Du Plessis? And shouldn't there be at least one Dutch player? Ryan Ten Doeschate. Or maybe he was born in SA.
 
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Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Code:
			Number of Players born there in a County Squad
English County					227
Wales						18
Other Test Nation				132
Associate/Affiliate				19
Minor County					53
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Haha, that must have been a very long afternoon. Good work though.

It doesn't reflect well on the state of club cricket in my native Berkshire...
Who's from France? Du Plessis? And shouldn't there be at least one Dutch player? Ryan Ten Doeschate. Or maybe he was born in SA.
Nah, du Plessis is 100% South African UIMM, as really is ten Doeschate. Cue Lancashire fan pratts mentioning that there are actually 43 from France though. 8-)
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
I had the pleasure of meeting John Barclay last night. Nice chap. German.
As is Ollie "Fritz" Rayner.
 
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Rickripper

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
Nah, du Plessis is 100% South African UIMM, as really is ten Doeschate. Cue Lancashire fan pratts mentioning that there are actually 43 from France though. 8-)
I thought he might be, but it was worth a shout when his name translates to "French".

I'm gonna find who it is though. Took me a while to realise PNG was Papua New Guinea.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
I had the pleasure of meeting John Barclay last night. Nice chap. German.
As is Ollie "Fritz" Rayner.
Rayner is always a case that's puzzled me, as I've never heard his full story. Is he just a case of his British parents being in Germany when he was born or is he actually of German extraction?
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Rayner is always a case that's puzzled me, as I've never heard his full story. Is he just a case of his British parents being in Germany when he was born or is he actually of German extraction?
I would expect the former. His dad is a regular poster on the sussex messageboard and so I'll try to find out.
 

stumpski

International Captain
I was intrigued to know who the Frenchman is, so I had a look through Playfair. Hampshire's Benny Howell, born at Bridouc (or Bordeaux, according to Cricinfo, I imagine Bridouc is a suburb or neighbouring village).
 
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Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Id be embarrassed for any County with less than 10 players listed.

It means they couldnt even get a team out of local born players + an overseas player.

Id seriously look at their relevance in modern English cricket. I wouldnt use this as a sole criteria but if a County is getting massive ECB subsidies and it only contributes a handful of players to the whole county scene then Id be asking questions.

The Takers
Code:
Sussex			9
Hampshire		9
Somerset		8
Derbyshire		8
Gloucestershire		6
Leicestershire		5
Northamptonshire	5
Worcestershire		5
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Id be embarrassed for any County with less than 10 players listed.

It means they coulndt even get a team of local born players + an overseas player out.

Id seriusly look at their relevance in modern English cricket. I wouldnt use this as a sole criteria but if a County is getting massive ECB subsidies and itonly contributes a handful of players to the whole county scene then Id be asking questions.

The Takers
Code:
Sussex			9
Hampshire		9
Somerset		8
Derbyshire		8
Gloucestershire		6
Leicestershire		5
Northamptonshire	5
Worcestershire		5
Pchah, you're just trying to wind me up now. I stand by my Sussex boys.

- RMJ was born in Slurrey but raised a Sussex fan (his old man is a staunch Sussex supporter) and played his whole career for the county.

- Prior was born in SA but was schooled at Brighton College.

- Rayner was born in Germany (presumably to military parents - I will check this) but is a true Sussex man.

- Thornely was born in London but grew up in Sussex.

Your work this afternoon has been nothing short of heroic but while the overall statistics are revealing, when you start looking at individual counties the numbers involved are so small that a handful of anomalies can distort the picture significantly.
 

stumpski

International Captain
Re: Monsieur Howell, I just checked Berkshire's averages in 2007 for both the Championship and MCCA Trophy and he doesn't feature in either. So I imagine it was an under-19 side or similar.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
Pchah, you're just trying to wind me up now. I stand by my Sussex boys.

- RMJ was born in Slurrey but raised a Sussex fan (his old man is a staunch Sussex supporter) and played his whole career for the county.

- Prior was born in SA but was schooled at Brighton College.

- Rayner was born in Germany (presumably to military parents - I will check this) but is a true Sussex man.

- Thornely was born in London but grew up in Sussex.

Your work this afternoon has been nothing short of heroic but while the overall statistics are revealing, when you start looking at individual counties the numbers involved are so small that a handful of anomalies can distort the picture significantly.
All Counties will have similar. Its swings and roundabouts. Eg take Vaughan. Listed as Lancs but that doesnt hurt Yorkshires overall numbers as a player here or there shouldnt make much difference.

The numbers dont lie. A grasping at a player here and there (the type that all Counties will experience) is desperate.

And Im only half winding you up :p
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
All Counties will have similar. Its swings and roundabouts. Eg take Vaughan. Listed as Lancs but that doesnt hurt Yorkshires overall numbers as a player here or there shouldnt make much difference.

The numbers dont lie. A grasping at a player here and there (the type that all Counties will experience) is desperate.

And Im only half winding you up :p
You're only half succeeding :)

Yorkshire's numbers are pretty impressive, I have to admit. What's most impressive is how many of them were evidently desperate to leave the place!
 

superkingdave

Hall of Fame Member
Surprised at how high Lancs numbers are, given we try our hardest not to play any Lancastrians, heck we even contribution a few French with Chilton, Chapple and Keedy
 

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