Samuel_Vimes said:
Interestingly, this is just the point I was making. Do you honestly think the selectors, who are actually paid and have a full-time job watching cricket up and down the country, are less qualified to find the eleven best players in England than yourself?
Yes, I do. I wouldn't disagree with decisions if I didn't think they were wrong. I think the selectors don't take any notice of some of the important stuff and have the wrong attitudes and values. They place too much emphasis on some things and not enough on others. However this is not really a personal fault against David Graveney and Geoff Millar - most selection is influenced by what is the most in-demand in the press, and of course what is happening on the field.
England have a population of 60,000,000, yes. Of which, I may add, most sports addicts follow football, then rugby union or league, then possibly cricket as a fourth sport. Same with playing the sport. Australia are the world's best team at the moment, no arguing with that, and they have a population of 12,000,000 while India, who could be runners-up if they performed consistently, have a population of 1 billion, most of whom are crazy about the sport. The law of numbers is defied in cricket.
And there are reasons, including problems with scouting and coaching, for this defiance.
The basic ability cannot be defied. It simply isn't possible.
Actually, if batsmen have only been bowling balls that moves off the seam, they learn to recognise that after a while. That's why I think that an alternative, even though it's only Ashley Giles, is good. He might not take wickets, but his seaming partner might, because the batsman have to adjust to differently bowled balls all the time.
Even if you see the ball moving off the seam all the time, you can't recognise or adapt and play for it. No-one knows which way the ball is going to move off the seam, so you can't predict it. Some balls move, some don't. Throw in uneven bounce and it's even harder. You get a good set of seam bowlers bowling at the top of their game and no batsmen have a chance. Witness the 61AO in 2000, with Gough, Caddick and Cork bowling as well as you can bowl. Very little poor batting. The only real runs in that game were made against the hopelessly wayward King and McLean. A spinner is a waste of a place at Headingley, unless you've got unusual conditions.
As for wrist-spinners, I guess "recently" means this season? Or have you forgotten Chris Schofield's FC bowling average of 31, which is pretty impressive for a wrist-spinner in England? I'll admit that this season hasn't been too good, but IMO he's one of England's best spinners at the moment (not that it's saying a lot)
"Recently" means in the last 4 or 5 years. 31 is not an especially impressive average for a wristspinner, because the essence of a wristspinner is you pose a threat anywhere. Hence a bowling-average under 30 is a neccesity to even come close to the step-up to the higher level; one under 27 suggests you might be able to and one under 25 says you really should be able to, just the same as a seamer.
Schofield's perennial problem is that he is hopelessly inconsistent; 2003 was very poor for the most part, 2002 excellent though limited, and in 2001 and 2000 he was good only in the occasional spell. He struggles to get a bowl for Lancs regularly. Without doubt in my mind he could be the second-best spinner in England (after Salisbury) - but he's not at the moment.
Sorry, I've been reading too many of raju's posts here to actually believe it's sarcasm...unless all of his posts here have been that.
I beg to differ on Ramprakash's failures though. I'd say he failed splendidly against WI in England too, hitting 20 off 4 innings...that's tailend batting - and none of them was due to dodgy umpiring either. OK, so he was dropped after that, but he was clearly out of form. Averaging 25 against Zimbabwe in the series just before wasn't exactly good either.
I did mention that his success excluded the 7 innings you name, because he was being forced to open. He is not an opener. Hence I don't consider it fair to count these innings as proving anything other than that he is not an opening-batsman.
Let me rephrase the "meaningless"-ness of county cricket - "Meaningless with relevance to selecting a Test XI". Batting averages are inflated, as you can see from overseas players who have much higher batting averages in England than in their home countries (Hussey for Northants for example) there is no real pressure on the players to do well, and when there is pressure many of the good players in county cricket fail quite remarkably (Crawley, Afzaal, possibly even Ramprakash and Hick). As a result, new talent these days is often uncovered through the Academy and scourging of the clubs rather than through county cricket (Anderson).
Are you really trying to say that club-cricket is more meaningful than county-cricket, first or second XI? If so I find that a baffling idea. There are four clear stages of the cricketing hierachy in England, each a higher level of standard than the one before: Club (and there are generally three levels of Club; First, Second and Third XIs. I am a Third XI player, and not an especially good one); Minor County or First-Class County Second-XI; and First-Class County First-XI. The Academy is designed to help-out county-cricket, because there is little time for practice during the season.
To cite Anderson as proving anything is also rather strange, as it's not as if Anderson has failed in county-cricket; all right, he's been rather expensive, but he's taken wickets far more cheaply than he has in Tests. All right, he hasn't played much county cricket, but if he'd failed in 2002 for Lancs, mark my words, he wouldn't have played international cricket yet. He might have gone to the Academy, but he wouldn't have been rushed as he has been.
The best thing for Anderson right now would be for him to be dropped and left-out of the side for at least a year, to allow him to play some county cricket and hopefully improve. Because ATM he's clearly not Test class.
There is no disputing the fact that The Pura Cup is a higher level competition than The County Championship - Australia are a better team than England. But how this means the Championship is doing something wrong I don't know.
You list Afzaal; what for? Afzaal does not have an impressive First-Class record and he failed in Tests; no surprise. Ramprakash, as I have stated, has not failed in Tests recently except against New Zealand. Crawley certainly has not, that's not really up for dispute. Hick and Knight have; they have flaws in their game that county cricket has not exposed. These have always existed and it's not as if there aren't similar players Worldwide, for instance Bevan in Australia.
Also, the number of matches in county cricket tires out the fast bowlers. Ever wondered why Gough, Fraser and the other fast bowlers England have fostered in the last years have always been ridden by injury? Well, surely, you must have reached the same conclusion - they bowl too much.
No, not at all. This is a conclusion that totally ignores historic fact. In the 1950s seamers regularly bowled in at the very least 20 First-Class matches. There were far fewer injuries then. If the reason for all the plethora of injuries in recent years could be identified then it would probably be stopped, so we can only speculate. However, one thing we can very safely rule-out is too much cricket.
