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Australian Domestic Offseason 2011

benchmark00

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When I was a kid, players like Barry Richards used to play in the Aussie state comp and some of the great West Indies players did too. I don't think it did our bowlers any harm to bowl at superstars at home.

Michael Holding played in Tasmania if I remember rightly. You might get a few more punters through the gate as well.
Shield cricket has changed alot since then. International players in general are now not available for it, whereas back then the schedule wasn't so jam packed with international fixtures.

We didn't have a problem with the system when it brought us the wonder years a few years back did we?

Seems counter intuitive to me to minimise the amount of spots for young Australian players when we're trying to identify the next decent player.
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
i don't know why i wrote nathan lyon where i did, i meant chris lynn

but the point stands, everyone is (rightly) complaining about the standard of state cricket, and yet no team is game to do something a bit radical and bring in an overseas guy to improve it and help win some silverware. at the end of the day, do you want all those good young bowlers bowling to chris gayle or whoever the new dud opening for QLD is
Meh, we only have six sides. That's a really small number of First Class team by any standard around the world. There are many upsides to this but the biggest downside is the fact that you simply don't give many players opportunities to develop their games playing high-level cricket - you rely a lot on the states to correctly identify the cream of the crop and give the right players opportunities. This is especially true with spinners and wicket keepers as there are typically only one of those per side.

We have a situation in Australian cricket at the moment where we have several spinners of a pretty similar standard, none of whom are completely proven but all of whom could conceivably go up to the top of the pile with a season or two's good performances. If we had more First Class teams five years ago then the likes of O'Keefe and Beer might've been playing regularly in the Shield all this time instead of averaging 15 with the ball in grade cricket. The last thing we need to do is start making it even harder for them to get a game just so Monty can play all year round.

There are many positives to having a six-team FC comp too obviously and I'm not exactly advocating changing that, but it does mean we don't have a lot of room for overseas players and I really don't think an overseas spinner specifically is a good idea at all. A batsman would possibly be a different story though.
 
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Spikey

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Seems counter intuitive to me to minimise the amount of spots for young Australian players when we're trying to identify the next decent player.
Likewise it seems counter intuitive to contiune to pump kids into the system and give them games they don't deserve when we're trying to identify the next decent player. Sometimes an overseas player is for the good of the game - increase the quality. Sure Mark Cameron's 12 wickets or w/ever against QLD were great fun to watch unfold....but how ****ing terrible was that batting order?!

Now...you don't want a mix of a heap of 35yos and overseas players, but we ain't got many 35yo players running around in the Shield do we? And we've talked about that problem...

Obviously you're looking more towards to batsmen most of the time rather than bowlers so Monty is perhaps the wrong guy to draw a line in the sand about, but it's kinda annoying a bunch of guys who'll never get anywhere near test cricket are gonna be exposed to a test class spinner and the state batsmen are gonna be facing the spin twins Doherty and Krejza....

anyway we should praise monty for coming here in his off-season......probably trying to sneak a T20 contract though :p
 
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Spikey

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no cliffs on my post benchy...and btw PEWS...I ain't against the prospect of reforming the domestic comp ;)

But obviously that would be years and years anyway - maybe never. Would need one hell of a brave guy to approve that...and it's probably not that important. ACT team might be handy though - NSW 2nd XI pretty much. which we all know would kick arse
 

SamSawnoff

U19 Vice-Captain
We have a situation in Australian cricket at the moment where we have several spinners of a pretty similar standard, none of whom are completely proven but all of whom could conceivably go up to the top of the pile with a season or two's good performances. If we had more First Class teams five years ago then the likes of O'Keefe and Beer might've been playing regularly in the Shield all this time instead of averaging 15 with the ball in grade cricket. The last thing we need to do is start making it even harder for them to get a game just so Monty can play all year round.

There are many positives to having a six-team FC comp too obviously and I'm not exactly advocating changing that, but it does mean we don't have a lot of room for overseas players and I really don't think an overseas spinner specifically is a good idea at all. A batsman would possibly be a different story though.
Yes, it would be terrible for our Shield batsmen to have to face a decent spin bowler twice a season.... hang on.
 

adub

International Captain
Oh well I do get a trip out to Blacktown this summer at least.

Australia A should be interesting too. Quite a few rounds into the shield by then so hopefully we have plenty of guys in form pushing for a spot. Do we know what warm up games the Indians are playing?

On Monty, 1 I reckon he'd struggle to make the NSW side unless SOK and Haurie are both unavailable. But he could have been a good pick up for another state. Saying that though I agree it would be better to have local guys developing rather than rotting in grade. I'd much rather see Lyon going around for SA than Monty. Back in the 70s/early 80s when we used to get absolute top shelf guys like Sobers, Richards, Richards, Botham, Holding, Garner and Imran in the Shield that was brilliant because you got the chance to play with and against the very best. But those guys aren't available these days.

With my dreamer's hat on I'd love to see say an ACT and NT side brought in that could be filled with imports like Monty and maybe some good Zimbo, Bangla, or associate players, to compliment the locals and fringe guys from other states, and align them with the Academy (in Canberra) and maybe an indigenous academy. It would be great for depth and development as well as doing a bit for developing the game outside our own borders. But the obvious problem is cost (massive) and adding another 4 rounds to the Shield so it won't happen. Strengthening the 2nd XI comp is more feasible and can achieve a lot of the same results.
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
Corey Richards has been added to the coaching staff of the Sydney (SCG) Sixers, so in a late move they'll be the team I support.
 

vic_orthdox

Global Moderator
When I was a kid, players like Barry Richards used to play in the Aussie state comp and some of the great West Indies players did too. I don't think it did our bowlers any harm to bowl at superstars at home.

Michael Holding played in Tasmania if I remember rightly. You might get a few more punters through the gate as well.
You also had international quality players coming over to play Grade Cricket, too, around that time. Even in the mid-90s when Melbourne saw Carl Hooper and Abdul Qadir, and Paul Collingwood in the early 2000s.

Whatever makes Grade Cricket stronger is fine by me, reducing the gap between Grade and FC cricket (which has only been widened with the introduction of the Futures League) needs to be a priority.
 

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