bichel the doormat
chrisy
hasn't had a great series, he's hardly had a chance to get any form at
all, barely playing more than 2 matches in a row, and not being able
to play state games while he carried the drinks for the aussies. he
should have been the first bowler selected for the boxing day test,
but as usual, the selectors took his big heart for granted.
chrisy.
Cricketislife!
--
In brisbane not surprised at all. the sinney newspapers wrote a lot of
crap on Ponting's backing and selectors' backing and assurance to
teammates in trouble... er only if those teammates are from nsv, like
golden buttocks, they will stand behind them
else thank u sir, go to grade cricket and take bucketful of wickets,
while we try more 'exciting' youngsters from nsv.
wait and watch how they make kaspa carry the drinks and then drop him
for the tour to SL.
Moby
One complaint so far.
On my side it's exactly where Bichel should be - FC cricket. He's not
bowled well for a while and needs to show he's back in form. It's
just a damn pity that the same treatment isn't dished out to NSW
glamour boys who seem to be allowed to use test and odo matches to
work themselves back into "form."
Moby
Currently taking bets on how many NSV goons declare that "many" or
"all" Qld supporters had a problem with the dropping.
Cricket Lover
standards.
Brett Lee and Damien Martyn have been given the benefit of
the doubt and opportunities to rectify themselves, but Bichel
is just expected to come into a random game and shine. He got
them into a wonderful winning position at Adelaide, single
handedly reducing India to 4-85, and then the next day Steve
Waugh did not give him the ball till the second session
even though he was the bowler with the momentum and confidence.
He may not be as intimidating to project in the media as Brett
Lee, but he can be just as effective.
I don't think Lee is in the same class as McGrath or Gillespie.
Gillespie is a lion-hearted bowler, who if he had 10% of Lee's
luck would retire as an all-time great. He almost bowled
Australia to a series win in Chennai and his 100 odd run partnership
with Katich in Sydney (after Lee made a duck) was the single
reason why India could not enforce the follow on and could not
win. Unlike Lee, he can take wickets on flat lifeless pitches
like Kolkata, Chennai and SCG.
Lee needed the WACA bounce to finally come good {and if you
saw the way Ervine/Streak/Blignaut against Indians at WACA
maybe we should not read too much into it.)
Of course Lee gets all the media hype for hitting a last ball
six in a meaningless ODI.
Cricketislife! <cricke...@rediffmail.com> wrote in message news:<saju10l21fdpegjlj...@4ax.com>...
Cricketislife!
wrote:
>Lee needed the WACA bounce to finally come good {and if you
>saw the way Ervine/Streak/Blignaut against Indians at WACA
>maybe we should not read too much into it.)
>
Lee has been a good odo bowler for last couple of years as well, the
same period when his Test standards were slipping down.
It has to an extent to do with the white ball; it swings more than the
red one and batsmen are also trying to play more strokes and hence he
ends up with some wickets in this form of the game. So despite his
recent failures in the odo form (early in the series) I would always
try to play him at odos, he will swing the white ball a bit and at
good pace and hence will get some wickets. He rarely bowls a good
length at Tests but the same length at odos with a bit of swing due to
white ball fetches him some rewards, esp when the batters are looking
to attack more. (rmbr Bracken who swung the white ball but with red
went dud)
So lee at perth or some other pitch with a white ball in hand at ODOs
is not the same Lee with a red ball in his hand in TESTS.
Mike Holmans
> Currently taking bets on how many NSV goons declare that "many" or
> "all" Qld supporters had a problem with the dropping.
I note that the QCCC are still devoted to "NSV" as the problem. What I
don't understand is why Victoria gets implicated.
Matt Elliott has spent years moaning about not being picked, Shane Warne
is hardly evidence of particularly preferential treatment as national
icons go, Paul Reiffel was only marginally more secure in the side than
Kaspa and even then he was injured half the time. You might be able to
mount some sort of case based on Ian Harvey's odo career, but you'd have
to explain why the Aus selectors should have been immune to the
temptations to which selectors all over the world have succumbed when
confronted with a none-rounder who never does enough to convince you he
*ought* to be in the side but doesn't usually do badly enough to make it
obvious how rotten he is (cf CZ Harris, MA Ealham).
OK, so Brad Hodge has been picked once or twice, but so has Scott
Muller.
Clapped-out Italian priests have more chance of becoming cardinals in
the Roman church than distinguished bishops from the Third World. After
the beatification of the Blessed Tubs and the imminent canonisation of
St Steven the Magnificent, it just mildly surprising that Ponting's
appointment as captain wasn't accompanied by white smoke rising from the
SCG.
Cheers,
Mike
alvey
> Moby wrote:
>
>
>>Currently taking bets on how many NSV goons declare that "many" or
>>"all" Qld supporters had a problem with the dropping.
>
>
> I note that the QCCC are still devoted to "NSV" as the problem. What I
> don't understand is why Victoria gets implicated.
Because it's a cyclic thing Michael. For the last 10 years or so it's
been NSW's turn. When the Vic delegates at CA can outgun the NSW trio
in debate then it'll be their turn again. But they'll always vote
together. "Since time immemorial NSW, Vic & SA have voted together at
the ACB..." G. Halbish, former CEO of the ACB.
Interesting Aside: In the mid-1990's the self-proclaimed 'Big Two' of
the true NSV did the true NSV some damage by failing in a plot to
reduce SA's representation on the Board from 3 delegates to 2. SA
refused and since then have ocassionally voted with the Others,
thereby outvoting NSV by 8-6. One result of this power shift has been
the recent reallocation of the third odo final out of Sydbourne. And
I'm sure that it's just co-incidence that Adelaide lost it's tradional
Australia Day Test after they refused to submit to the NSW & Vics plan.
alvey
in brisbane, recalling Weiner, Moss, Thompson, Hibbert, Whatmore,
Stackpole, Bright, Higgs, Eastwood, Phillips and captains of the
calibre of Hassett, Johnson, Yallop & Lawry
Jimbo
"alvey" <alvey_digi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:bvp0p0$utj7e$1...@ID-155113.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Mike Holmans wrote:
> > Moby wrote:
> >
> >
> >>Currently taking bets on how many NSV goons declare that "many" or
> >>"all" Qld supporters had a problem with the dropping.
> >
> >
> > I note that the QCCC are still devoted to "NSV" as the problem. What I
> > don't understand is why Victoria gets implicated.
>
> Because it's a cyclic thing Michael. For the last 10 years or so it's
> been NSW's turn. When the Vic delegates at CA can outgun the NSW trio
> in debate then it'll be their turn again. But they'll always vote
> together. "Since time immemorial NSW, Vic & SA have voted together at
> the ACB..." G. Halbish, former CEO of the ACB.
>
> Interesting Aside: In the mid-1990's the self-proclaimed 'Big Two' of
> the true NSV did the true NSV some damage by failing in a plot to
> reduce SA's representation on the Board from 3 delegates to 2. SA
> refused and since then have ocassionally voted with the Others,
> thereby outvoting NSV by 8-6. One result of this power shift has been
> the recent reallocation of the third odo final out of Sydbourne. And
> I'm sure that it's just co-incidence that Adelaide lost it's tradional
> Australia Day Test after they refused to submit to the NSW & Vics plan.
*YAWN*
Mike Holmans
<alvey_digi...@yahoo.com> tapped the keyboard and brought
forth:
>Mike Holmans wrote:
>> Moby wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Currently taking bets on how many NSV goons declare that "many" or
>>>"all" Qld supporters had a problem with the dropping.
>>
>>
>> I note that the QCCC are still devoted to "NSV" as the problem. What I
>> don't understand is why Victoria gets implicated.
>
>Because it's a cyclic thing Michael. For the last 10 years or so it's
>been NSW's turn. When the Vic delegates at CA can outgun the NSW trio
>in debate then it'll be their turn again. But they'll always vote
>together. "Since time immemorial NSW, Vic & SA have voted together at
>the ACB..." G. Halbish, former CEO of the ACB.
Ah, well that's fair enough. But are you saying the high politics of
what the Board get up to is directly and specifically correlated with
the low politics of the selectors?
Cheers,
Mike
Rob Chapman
> Moby wrote:
>
> > Currently taking bets on how many NSV goons declare that "many" or
> > "all" Qld supporters had a problem with the dropping.
>
> I note that the QCCC are still devoted to "NSV" as the problem. What I
> don't understand is why Victoria gets implicated.
>
It doesn't.
Or at least shouldn't.
Way back in the days of Warwick Armstrong, it was Victoria versus
everyone else.
> Matt Elliott has spent years moaning about not being picked, Shane Warne
> is hardly evidence of particularly preferential treatment as national
> icons go, Paul Reiffel was only marginally more secure in the side than
> Kaspa and even then he was injured half the time. You might be able to
> mount some sort of case based on Ian Harvey's odo career, but you'd have
> to explain why the Aus selectors should have been immune to the
> temptations to which selectors all over the world have succumbed when
> confronted with a none-rounder who never does enough to convince you he
> *ought* to be in the side but doesn't usually do badly enough to make it
> obvious how rotten he is (cf CZ Harris, MA Ealham).
>
You can pretty much make any case you like.
Reiffel was, in the eyes of many, poorly treated.
You could look at Andrew pre-WC Symonds and ask why a guy who'd never
got to a hundred, and scored less than 800 runs in 60 odd outings at
@23 got picked to go to the WC.
Was it because, like St Steve, the selectors had faith that he'd come
good, as indeed he since has, repaying the faith shown?
Or was it because, also like St Stve, he was given a golden run and
allowed to find his form in 'live' matches, rather than having to go
away to ING to sort himself out?
> OK, so Brad Hodge has been picked once or twice, but so has Scott
> Muller.
>
> Clapped-out Italian priests have more chance of becoming cardinals in
> the Roman church than distinguished bishops from the Third World. After
> the beatification of the Blessed Tubs and the imminent canonisation of
> St Steven the Magnificent, it just mildly surprising that Ponting's
> appointment as captain wasn't accompanied by white smoke rising from the
> SCG.
>
Oh, I dunno, it's all part of the conspiracy, isn't it?
After all, Alan Border has infiltrated the citadel quite successfully.
Though some haven't actually worked out that he's from Mosman, NSW;
not Mossman, Qld.
Cheers
RC
Mango
"Moby" <Mo...@unimail.com.au> wrote in message
news:b4bbf26f.04020...@posting.google.com...
Personally I think Bichel was hard done by. If they wanted to give him a
spell in first clas cricket to regain his form then they should have let him
do so during the qualifying series instead of having him carry the drinks.
Now they've dropped him from the final squad. They should have at least let
him continue carrying the drinks in the finals. Its probably what his
replacement will be doing anyway.
Cheers
Mango
Ian Galbraith
[snip]
:You could look at Andrew pre-WC Symonds and ask why a guy who'd never
:got to a hundred, and scored less than 800 runs in 60 odd outings at
:@23 got picked to go to the WC.
:Was it because, like St Steve, the selectors had faith that he'd come
:good, as indeed he since has, repaying the faith shown?
:Or was it because, also like St Stve, he was given a golden run and
:allowed to find his form in 'live' matches, rather than having to go
:away to ING to sort himself out?
The answer to this is actually well known. Ponting specifically asked
the selectors to pick him, the implication being that he wouldn't have
been picked otherwise.
[snip]
------------ And now a word from our sponsor ----------------------
For a quality mail server, try SurgeMail, easy to install,
fast, efficient and reliable. Run a million users on a standard
PC running NT or Unix without running out of power, use the best!
---- See http://netwinsite.com/sponsor/sponsor_surgemail.htm ----
Colin Kynoch
He has averaged over 50 in the last ten games with an Econ rate over 5
and a SR over 60.
hardly a stellar performance.
People have been calling for Lee to be dropped and his figures over
the last ten matches are vastly superior to Buchel's
Colin Kynoch
Colin Kynoch
Correct me if I am wrong but haven't you called for Lee's removal from
the team Mobes/
Colin Kynoch
mudguts
news:dfd48fec.04020...@posting.google.com...
> Mike Holmans <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:<401F9BBF...@jackalope.demon.co.uk>...
> > Moby wrote:
> You could look at Andrew pre-WC Symonds and ask why a guy who'd never
> got to a hundred, and scored less than 800 runs in 60 odd outings at
> @23 got picked to go to the WC.
> Was it because, like St Steve, the selectors had faith that he'd come
> good, as indeed he since has, repaying the faith shown?
>
> Or was it because, also like St Stve, he was given a golden run and
> allowed to find his form in 'live' matches, rather than having to go
> away to ING to sort himself out?
>
Andrew Symonds got selected because at the time he was ahead of Harvey but
behind Watson in the allrounders stakes. Australia was always going to
select 2 allrounders for the WC. Watson got injured which allowed Harvey to
be selected as the 2nd allrounder. As it happened, Symonds did perform &
hasn't looked back. You must also admit that prior to the WC selection,
there was no doubt that Symonds' form wasn't the best but he was & is the
best ground fielder in Australia, if not the world.
Cheers
Muddy
alvey
> On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 06:36:30 +1000, alvey
> <alvey_digi...@yahoo.com> tapped the keyboard and brought
> forth:
>
snip
>
> Ah, well that's fair enough. But are you saying the high politics of
> what the Board get up to is directly and specifically correlated with
> the low politics of the selectors?
>
The weight of evidence would sink any debate on the question as soon
as it left the slip-rails.
Let's just have a quick recap of this season as a sample.
1. Love dropped after a 100* in previous Test for Katich ("His bowling
will be ...yada yada".
2. Fucken selected for Test side. 51st in the previous seasons PC
averages.
3. Bichel dropped from Test side after being the best *and* most
successful bowler in the previous Test.
4. MacGill retained throughout the Test series despite looking about
as threatening as a one-legged granny at a bikie brawl.
5. Lee recalled. Why? Done nuthin in Tests, didn't do much in his 2
comeback PC matches.
6. Fucken recalled. Why?
7. Martyn has been the victim of one of the most concerted and
disgraceful NSV media campaigns in living memory. And a special
gobbing here on Andrew Ramsey of The Awfulstralian who has been
totally appalling. He is the anti-Conn.
8. In contrast to 7., and as pointed out by Andy Bic yesterday,
there's certainly more than a whiff of double standards stinking the
house out. While the noise on Marto was only registering 100db+,
no-one was saying much about Bevan's early odo form until he bored a
few against the Zeds, and now no-one is mentioning EY's piss-poor
scores at all. Not a peep. Lee became the 1st Australian fast bowler
in Australian history to concede 200 in an innings, and then in his
first odo after this, conceded another record score, 83, off his 10
overs. GB was clearly in a major slump, but what happened after his
1st change record-breaking effort of 10/1/83? He got promoted to open
the bowling in the very next game!
9. And still on Lee's bad bowling. For his waywardness in general and
his no-balling excesses in particular, who was it that got shafted in
the media? John Buchanan of course. One of the real low points of the
season was listening to the NSW bowling coach on the teev pimping for
Lee. Especially when one checked the number of no-balls Lee had bowled
for NSW in his two pre-recall games for NSW.
10. Oh yeah. Some vastly over-rated and selfish scratcher was
undeservedly regaled and lauded to the skies throughout the whole Test
series. And then devalued some gong or other just to add maggots to
the cake.
So in retrospect, it looks like apart from being a pretty good season
for the NSV also one of Alvey's NSV Laws has been observed. That Law
being;
Other players very rarely, (if ever. I can't think of one at the
moment. Am a touch chardonnayed.) benefit at the expense of a NSV
boy.(1) Note the kaspa <-> Bic swap.
alvey
in brisbane, footnoting: (1) Williams is 2nd degree NSV so his
dropping for Fucken doesn't break this dictum.
alvey
Mike Holmans
>
> Mike Holmans wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 06:36:30 +1000, alvey
> > <alvey_digi...@yahoo.com> tapped the keyboard and brought
> > forth:
> >
> snip
> >
> > Ah, well that's fair enough. But are you saying the high politics of
> > what the Board get up to is directly and specifically correlated with
> > the low politics of the selectors?
> >
>
> The weight of evidence would sink any debate on the question as soon
> as it left the slip-rails.
>
> Let's just have a quick recap of this season as a sample.
>
> So in retrospect, it looks like apart from being a pretty good season
> for the NSV
Except that you have totally missed the point I was hinting at. None of
your examples show a Victorian player being the beneficiary of
selectorial shenanigans. All the beneficiaries have been (nominally)
from NSW.
See, we have a similar bunch of snakes in the grass, consisting of MCC,
Surrey, Yorks, Lancs, Warks and Notts who were, until last year, the
clubs which staged Test matches. As a member of two of the six clubs, I
naturally think it a good idea that the clubs with showcase grounds, who
therefore pull in the bulk of the gate-money revenue in English cricket,
should wield extra influence in the organisation of the game as a branch
of the entertainment business and cash cow (albeit a very scrawny cow) -
but I can see that some others might not agree.
But there is bugger all evidence that the politics of the game's
organisation in England has any significant bearing on who gets picked
to play for the national team: indeed, it's not been hard to find Warks
advocates droning on about how the selectors are hopelessly biased
against Warks players (Notts have been remarkably quiet on that front
because the Notts players who have managed to get picked have been
uniformly terrible). There have certainly been some, um, adventurous
picks as well as some, er, unexpected axings in the post-Illingworthless
era, but there is no discernible pattern related to which counties the
various individuals play for.
The trouble with mis-identifying conspiracies is that it allows the
conspirators off the hook. Conflating two into one is a case of
mis-identification.
Cheers,
Mike
Mad Hamish
wrote:
>
>You could look at Andrew pre-WC Symonds and ask why a guy who'd never
>got to a hundred, and scored less than 800 runs in 60 odd outings at
>@23 got picked to go to the WC.
>Was it because, like St Steve, the selectors had faith that he'd come
>good, as indeed he since has, repaying the faith shown?
It was because
a) You need an allrounder in one day cricket
b) The names in contention over the past few years were Symonds,
Harvey, Shane Lee and Watson was coming into contention.
Shane Lee had been forced to quit bowling and I believe now has
retired from first class cricket
Watson had just suffered a stress fracture in his back.
That left Harvey and Symonds as the options for the cup and Symonds is
clearly a better bat than Harvey and, at international level, Harvey
isn't that much ahead as a medium pacer and Symonds provides a spin
option and more in the field (Harvey averages 18 at a lower strike
rate than Symonds had)
Watson by the way has a strike rate of 67, not exactly what you want
in a lower order batsman in one dayers,
His high score in one dayers is 77* against _Kenya_, his highest score
against test opposition is 44* against Pakistan scored very slowly
when the team needed a damned high scoring rate when he came in.
>
>Or was it because, also like St Stve, he was given a golden run and
>allowed to find his form in 'live' matches, rather than having to go
>away to ING to sort himself out?
Well from the 1-1-2002 until the start of the World Cup he'd played in
10 matches having 7 innings. He batted 3 times in the one day series
before the World Cup.
Harvey had played 8 matches (hs 19)
Watson had played 23 one dayers (having started in March 2002)
Australia played 36 one dayers in that period.
So Symonds had played under 25% of Australia's matches in the past 12
months.
Doesn't look to me like a reasonable comparison to Waugh
--
"Hope is replaced by fear and dreams by survival, most of us get by."
Stuart Adamson 1958-2001
Mad Hamish
Hamish Laws
h_l...@aardvark.net.au
Mad Hamish
Colin, people have been calling for Lee to be dropped from the test
team.
People have asked why Lee was called up without having to show
anything after injury.
alvey
> alvey wrote:
>
snip point not missed, explained earlier. Don't be obtuse.
>
> But there is bugger all evidence that the politics of the game's
> organisation in England has any significant bearing on who gets picked
> to play for the national team:
Odd. I thought there'd been generations of hacks from Middlesex who'd
got The Nod (Ramps anyone?). Perhaps some punters from the CCUK would
care to comment on Micheal's assertion?
alvey
in brisbane, quoting an old Yorkshire classic. "If you're a good
player from t' South you will play for England. If you're a great
player from t' North then you *might* play for England."
David Lewis
> Mike Holmans wrote merrily in rsc:
> > alvey wrote:
> >
>
> snip point not missed, explained earlier. Don't be obtuse.
> >
> > But there is bugger all evidence that the politics of the game's
> > organisation in England has any significant bearing on who gets picked
> > to play for the national team:
>
> Odd. I thought there'd been generations of hacks from Middlesex who'd
> got The Nod (Ramps anyone?). Perhaps some punters from the CCUK would
> care to comment on Micheal's assertion?
>
>
in selection. Over the past 5 years or so, playing for Surrey rather than
Middlesex has not exactly been a disadvantage, but there are very good
Surrey players such as Bicknell & Brown who have played less often than they
might. Previously, when Keith Fletcher & Gooch were in charge, Essex were
over-represented at times, but thankfully that didn't last too long.
Cheers
David
Mike Holmans
>Mike Holmans wrote merrily in rsc:
>> alvey wrote:
>>
>
>snip point not missed, explained earlier. Don't be obtuse.
Just trying to fit in with your line of argumewnt, then, because I've
read little as obtuse as your other paragrap.
>>
>> But there is bugger all evidence that the politics of the game's
>> organisation in England has any significant bearing on who gets picked
>> to play for the national team:
>
>Odd. I thought there'd been generations of hacks from Middlesex who'd
>got The Nod (Ramps anyone?). Perhaps some punters from the CCUK would
>care to comment on Micheal's assertion?
So let me get this straight: I point out that there is a Group of Six
who are busily trying to organise English cricket for their own
maximum benefit, and go on to say that they seem to have little
influence over the picking of the England team, so you reply by
quoting an example of players picked from a club not in the Group of
Six as evidence in favour of a conspiracy theory?
You pick, moreover, someone whose Test career resembles more that of
Bichel than of BLee, in that nobody has been dropped more often by
England than Ramprakash. I understood your theory to be that BLee was
being unduly favoured because he was being retained in the side, not
because he was being dropped after every 3-4 disappointing matches and
being recalled only when the injury list and lack of other talent
makes it a virtual necessity.
Not only that, but you choose to ignore an absolutely crucial phrase
in my post - "the post-Illingworthless era", a period which has not
seen a large number of useless Middx hacks being picked. In that time,
England have picked Ramprakash, who debuted well before the
Ililngworthless era, Tufnell, ditto, and Owais Shah and most recently
Andrew Strauss for a few one-dayers. Shah has failed and been cast
into the outer darkness, and Strauss has just embarked on his trial
period. Several counties have provided quite a few more of England's
most recent drongoes than have Middx.
The choice of Illingworthless's reign as England Supremo as the
turning point is not without reason. It was *after* Illingworthless's
disastrous tenure was terminated that the ECB finally got its act
together, produced "Raising the Standard", moved to all-4-day cricket,
set about the task of persuading the counties into divisional cricket,
set up central contracts, established an Academy and started hiring
paople who knew how to run a whelk stall instead of retired majors
with handlebar moustaches.
Whether they are getting it right is a different question, but it's
hard to see how the ancient county biases come in - after all, with
Duncan Fletcher and Rod Marsh as the two most influential selectors,
it's not as though they have any county loyalties at all. They do have
biases, but they are towards types of player, not their geographical
allegiances.
As I said, there *is* a Group of Six who have been trying to conspire
to have the game run for their benefit, and there is no evidence
whatsoever that their machinations have had any effect on the
selection of the England side: the main thing it has affected is the
amount of money available to the counties not in the Group.
The existence of an NSV conspiracy in terms of carving up the
commercial loot and making sure that game is run for the greatest
convenience of the men from Jolimont and Moore Park is not a
suspicion, but documented historical fact.
If the selectors are operating in the same way, then frankly the V bit
of it is failing to pull its weight, because all the advantage has
accrued to NSW these last 15 years.
Cheers,
Mike
David North
> It was *after* Illingworthless's
> disastrous tenure was terminated that the ECB finally got its act
> together, produced "Raising the Standard", moved to all-4-day cricket,
The CC went fully 4-day in 1993.
--
David North
Email to this address will be deleted as spam
Use usenetATlaneHYPHENfarm.fsnet.co.uk
Mike Holmans
tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
>
I think any discussion of bias has to take into account how good the
county being "biased" in favour of are/were at the time. Surrey have
been winning the county championship or being very close for several
years consistently, and it's not too hard a step to thinking that it
might be because they have the best players. That's why I'm a bit
sceptical of proving a pro-Middx bias by reference to the 1977-83
period, when Middx and Essex were easily the dominant county teams.
It's rather like alleging a pro-Surrey'n'Yorks bias by reference to
the 50s, or thinking it odd that in the 1938 Test at The Oval, England
fielded five Yorkshire players. It was a version of this which saw a
number of really horrible people being picked for England 5-6 years
ago after Leics and Warks won the championship - there were plenty of
other players around who would have been equally horrible but didn't
play for the champion counties.
Proving a pro-Middx bias is easy if you go back to the 30s, when Plum
Warner (Middx) was chairman of selectors quite a lot of the time and
oodles of useless Middx spinners got picked instead of the superb ones
they had in unfashionable Glos, and Middx were pretty much crap
overall unless Gubby Allen could be bothered to turn up to help Patsy
Hendren out.
(I think you'd actually find it easier proving a bias in favour of
amateurs; and there was definitely a geographical bias in the way
amateurs existed, with the metropolitan ones being generally fairly
wealthy and of a certain social pretension (and therefore Good Chaps)
while the provincial amateur was an office worker with an indulgent
employer who would let them spend four months off playing cricket each
summer, or was a schoolteacher, which amounted to roughly the same
thing. So the sort of amateur liked by TPTB gravitated to the Home
Counties for economic and social reasons, thus giving rise to a
perceived pro-Home Counties bias even though it was less to do with
geography than genealogy.)
In the Australian context, where Queensland have been the best team in
the country for several years and New South Wales have been
struggling, persisting in picking NSW's latest forlorn attempts to
come up with a decent player rather than delve into the obviously
richer talent pool to the north could well seem unduly perverse even
to those not entirely convinced of a thorough-going conspiracy.
Cheers,
Mike
Jan Buxton
alvey <alvey_digi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Mike Holmans wrote merrily in rsc:
>> alvey wrote:
>>
>
> snip point not missed, explained earlier. Don't be obtuse.
>>
>> But there is bugger all evidence that the politics of the game's
>> organisation in England has any significant bearing on who gets
>> picked to play for the national team:
>
> Odd. I thought there'd been generations of hacks from Middlesex who'd
> got The Nod (Ramps anyone?).
Ramps was/is hardly a hack, talentwise few would match him or his record
in the county game. As such his selection was understandable, despite
his mental flaws.
In fact he was AFAICS the last Middlesex player to (Test) debut, in
1991. Of those before him Tufnell, Fraser, Emburey, Edmonds and Gatting
would brook little argument based on their FC record. Perhaps Gatting
was lucky to get the chance to enjoy his successful 2nd part of his
career.
Of the less notable, Cowans had a successful FC career. Williams
averaged under 30 in the CC season he was picked, which in 1990 I'd
imagine would be an achievement, and only got 1 game anyway. Slack got a
brief chance after a successful FC career in a period where almost every
opener in the land was tried. Downton was perhaps fortunate to play 30
tests, and of course there is Brearley who was picked for his captaincy.
--
Jan
Jan Buxton
Mike Holmans <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> wrote:
<snip>
> The choice of Illingworthless's reign as England Supremo as the
> turning point is not without reason. It was *after* Illingworthless's
> disastrous tenure was terminated that the ECB finally got its act
> together, produced "Raising the Standard", moved to all-4-day cricket,
<pedant>
Wasn't all-4-day cricket introduced in 1993? (Illingworthless 94-96)
</pedant>
--
Jan
Rob Chapman
> On 3 Feb 2004 20:48:07 -0800, robcha...@yahoo.com.au (Rob Chapman)
> wrote:
>
> >
> >You could look at Andrew pre-WC Symonds and ask why a guy who'd never
> >got to a hundred, and scored less than 800 runs in 60 odd outings at
> >@23 got picked to go to the WC.
> >Was it because, like St Steve, the selectors had faith that he'd come
> >good, as indeed he since has, repaying the faith shown?
>
> It was because
> a) You need an allrounder in one day cricket
So Symonds wasn't picked on form, or even potential, then?
He was picked simply because you say you need an allrounder in
cricket?
(snip)
>
> Well from the 1-1-2002 until the start of the World Cup he'd played in
> 10 matches having 7 innings. He batted 3 times in the one day series
> before the World Cup.
>
So he didn't even get to play many of the matches?
Do you recommend this as a way of forcing yourself back into the team?
> Harvey had played 8 matches (hs 19)
>
> Watson had played 23 one dayers (having started in March 2002)
>
> Australia played 36 one dayers in that period.
>
> So Symonds had played under 25% of Australia's matches in the past 12
> months.
> Doesn't look to me like a reasonable comparison to Waugh
The point I was making was that you can compare Waugh and Symonds,
either as coming good after being given the benefit despite a poor
run, or you can compare them as being given another chance, even after
a poor run.
The bottom line is that both, ultimately, came good.
Which allows their supporters to say that they were correct, and their
detractors to say that they got opportunities that were denied to
(insert your favourite scapegoat here)
RC
Mike Holmans
<jan...@OVEeidosnet.co.uk> tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
>In news:bvrjkr$vc3uq$1...@ID-155113.news.uni-berlin.de,
>alvey <alvey_digi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Odd. I thought there'd been generations of hacks from Middlesex who'd
>> got The Nod (Ramps anyone?).
>
>Ramps was/is hardly a hack, talentwise few would match him or his record
>in the county game. As such his selection was understandable, despite
>his mental flaws.
>
>In fact he was AFAICS the last Middlesex player to (Test) debut, in
>1991. Of those before him Tufnell, Fraser, Emburey, Edmonds and Gatting
>would brook little argument based on their FC record. Perhaps Gatting
>was lucky to get the chance to enjoy his successful 2nd part of his
>career.
>
>Of the less notable, Cowans had a successful FC career. Williams
>averaged under 30 in the CC season he was picked, which in 1990 I'd
>imagine would be an achievement, and only got 1 game anyway.
He was a very late pick, as various people dropped out through injury,
and was not only top of the averages at that point in the season but
had the sense to take a cheap 7-fer the week before the Test.
>Slack got a
>brief chance after a successful FC career in a period where almost every
>opener in the land was tried. Downton was perhaps fortunate to play 30
>tests, and of course there is Brearley who was picked for his captaincy.
You've forgotten Barlow, Radley and Roland Butcher, like most people
have. Butcher had genuine talent but lacked the temperament after a
very nasty injury, while Barlow and Radley were basically Packer-era
picks who might well not have been picked at all otherwise. Those who
like the Middx conspiracy theory would certainly point at them,
whereas I'd suggest that players who do well for the county champions
have an advantage in selection and remain sceptical.
Cheers,
Mike
Colin Kynoch
<h_l...@aardvark.net.au> wrote:
>On Wed, 04 Feb 2004 07:13:01 GMT, Colin Kynoch
><kynoch...@bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>>On 2 Feb 2004 22:47:33 -0800, chriss...@hotmail.com (chrisy) wrote:
>>
>>>once again the selctors have trodden all over andy bichel. granted he
>>>hasn't had a great series, he's hardly had a chance to get any form at
>>>all, barely playing more than 2 matches in a row, and not being able
>>>to play state games while he carried the drinks for the aussies. he
>>>should have been the first bowler selected for the boxing day test,
>>>but as usual, the selectors took his big heart for granted.
>>>
>>
>>He has averaged over 50 in the last ten games with an Econ rate over 5
>>and a SR over 60.
>>
>>hardly a stellar performance.
>>
>>People have been calling for Lee to be dropped and his figures over
>>the last ten matches are vastly superior to Buchel's
>>
>Colin, people have been calling for Lee to be dropped from the test
>team.
>People have asked why Lee was called up without having to show
>anything after injury.
And some people have called for him to be dropped from the ODI team.
Colin Kynoch
Moby
> Moby wrote:
>
> > Currently taking bets on how many NSV goons declare that "many" or
> > "all" Qld supporters had a problem with the dropping.
>
> I note that the QCCC are still devoted to "NSV" as the problem. What I
> don't understand is why Victoria gets implicated.
History.
I'm quite happy to accept that Victoria aren't really the in-crowd at
the moment. But it's only really a matter of time. And besides, they
still get overwhelmingly preferred to "Others." It's just that
they've been unfortunate enough to have their good players doing
essentially the same things as the NSW players.
Moby
Moby
torture and wrote:
<snip bollocks>
Look, Rob, I'm very happy for you, but the day you can avoid the
blindingly obvious crap that goes on many times each year in the form
of bias just because you can name one or two players every decade who
-don't- get shafted and not crack up is the day you gain life-time
membership to the Gilish Inquisition.
Moby
Moby
Yes, I did. Your point is?
Oh, yes. I see. Because I said BLeet shouldn't be in the team after
numerous games of bowling crap and/or before proving himself at FC
level, I must instantly say the same thing about Bichel the very
moment he looks like not bowling well.
Idiot.
Moby
Mad Hamish
wrote:
>Mad Hamish <h_l...@aardvark.net.au> wrote in message news:<n2l120psvspt614f6...@4ax.com>...
>> On 3 Feb 2004 20:48:07 -0800, robcha...@yahoo.com.au (Rob Chapman)
>> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >You could look at Andrew pre-WC Symonds and ask why a guy who'd never
>> >got to a hundred, and scored less than 800 runs in 60 odd outings at
>> >@23 got picked to go to the WC.
>> >Was it because, like St Steve, the selectors had faith that he'd come
>> >good, as indeed he since has, repaying the faith shown?
>>
>> It was because
>> a) You need an allrounder in one day cricket
>
>So Symonds wasn't picked on form, or even potential, then?
>
>He was picked simply because you say you need an allrounder in
>cricket?
_One_Day_Cricket_ yes, you need 5 or 6 bowlers who can together bowl
the full 50 overs virtually all of the time
Australia doesn't have top order batsman who you could bet on to get
through many overs in one dayers (Ponting, Martyn and Lehmann are all
change bowlers at best under most conditions)
You need an allrounder in one dayers.
Also note that Symonds normally batted a fair way down the order
before the World Cup and your chances of making 100s or even 50s down
there are not large.
Which is a large part of the reason why Steve played one dayers for 16
years and only has 3 100s from 288 innings at an average of 32.90
Symonds normally batted below Steve...
Now Symonds has opened twice (1 against Bangladesh after the World
Cup) averaging 33.50
at #3 in 4 innings averaging 48.66
at #4 in 10 innings averaging 47.37
at #5 in 19 innings averaging 33.00
at #6 in 9 innings averaging 45.83 (hs 143*, second 34*)
at #7 in 18 innings averaging 19.57
at #8 in 2 innings averaging 11.00
>
>(snip)
>
>>
>> Well from the 1-1-2002 until the start of the World Cup he'd played in
>> 10 matches having 7 innings. He batted 3 times in the one day series
>> before the World Cup.
>>
>
>So he didn't even get to play many of the matches?
That would be the logical conclusion of him playing in under 25% of
them.
>
>Do you recommend this as a way of forcing yourself back into the team?
No. I thought Symonds was being extremely crappily treated at the
time.
However I was actually addressing your particular comparison to Steve.
The two cases are completely different.
Steve hadn't missed a test match he was fit for in about the last 10
years of his career. He would have been rested for the odd one dayer
but not many of them.
Symonds was in or around the squad at most times but he was hardly
given an uniterrupted run at the job.
He'd had a few bad series in a row in terms of averages but between
the 2000/01 three way series in Australia where he averaged 33.75 from
5 innings his innings per series were
2
3
3
1
3
that's 2 years without a hell of a lot of chances with the bat. It's 1
match more than a full triangular series in Australia.
>
>> Harvey had played 8 matches (hs 19)
>>
>> Watson had played 23 one dayers (having started in March 2002)
>>
>> Australia played 36 one dayers in that period.
>>
>> So Symonds had played under 25% of Australia's matches in the past 12
>> months.
>> Doesn't look to me like a reasonable comparison to Waugh
>
>The point I was making was that you can compare Waugh and Symonds,
>either as coming good after being given the benefit despite a poor
>run, or you can compare them as being given another chance, even after
>a poor run.
Or you could consider Waugh to have been given a huge run despite not
performing for a while and Symonds to have been constantly stuffed
over by not being given a reasonable chance.
I mean can anybody tell me the point of picking somebody who strikes
at under 66 in domestic one dayers to bat in the late overs?
>
>The bottom line is that both, ultimately, came good.
>Which allows their supporters to say that they were correct, and their
>detractors to say that they got opportunities that were denied to
>(insert your favourite scapegoat here)
Or you could try and make a reasonable comparison.
Jim Brant
"Mike Holmans" <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> wrote in message > (I think
you'd actually find it easier proving a bias in favour of
> amateurs; and there was definitely a geographical bias in the way
> amateurs existed, with the metropolitan ones being generally fairly
> wealthy and of a certain social pretension (and therefore Good Chaps)
> while the provincial amateur was an office worker with an indulgent
> employer who would let them spend four months off playing cricket each
> summer, or was a schoolteacher, which amounted to roughly the same
> thing. So the sort of amateur liked by TPTB gravitated to the Home
> Counties for economic and social reasons, thus giving rise to a
> perceived pro-Home Counties bias even though it was less to do with
> geography than genealogy.)
>
Mike, I assume you have read Birley's 'Social History of English Cricket'? -
you seem to have read everything else, so a reasonable assumption. He is
interesting(and scathing) about the 'amateurs' (mainly from the southern
counties)so beloved by the MCC. That is not to deny that his own account
displays a fairly general southern tilt.
Jim
Mike Holmans
<j...@brantj.freeserve.co.uk> tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
I regard Birley's book as the most essential book on cricket ever
written, and that includes "Beyond A Boundary" and any number of books
called "The Art of Captaincy".
That his own account "displays a fairly general southern tilt" to you
is mildly surprising, since it was pretty obvious to me from his
books, later confirmed by further investigation, that Birley is a
Yorkshire supporter. (It may be that this was more obvious in the
predecessor book "The Willow Wand", which is really a draft of "A
Social History".)
However, your reference to Birley made me go and look up his
references to amateurism in "ASHoEC". And it seems to me that his
account of amateurism is distinctly unbalanced, in that you would get
the impression from reading his work alone that basically all amateurs
were shameless snobs who delighted in being given vast amounts more in
"expenses" than the professionals and positively relished having
separate dressing rooms and gates and so on.
There were no doubt a number of such people, and particularly after
WW2 it became ridiculous that there were many "amateurs" who subsisted
entirely on what we now know as sponsorships.
Birley implies that the genuine amateurs who got to play because their
employers gave them time off did little to improve the standard of
cricket. If that's what he really thinks, then he has a pretty odd
view of PBH May, not to mention people like RES Wyatt and DJ Insole.
Doug Insole in particular makes fascinating reading in a little book
called "Cricket From the Middle" in which he shows that it cost him a
great deal of money to play for England and took a lot of negotiation
with the oil company which employed him for him to go on tour, given
that they were prettty generous with allowing him time off in the
summer. One of the factors which Birley doesn't note is that the
expense allowances for amateurs going on tour barely changed between
1895 and 1960 - and what might have been a princely sum in the late
19th century was basically all used up by the time they had
disembarked after several weeks on the ship over to Australia in the
50s, so their further expenses on tour came from their own pockets.
It's also not true that separate dressing rooms and separate gates for
amateurs and professionals were widespread certainly after WW2 and in
fact mostly after WW1. Lord Hawke had done away with them at Yorkshire
before 1900, and Lancashire went the same way under Archie Maclaren a
few years later. By the time RES Wyatt started with Warks in the
1920s, there were no separate facilities at Edgbaston either. The
ancient divisions were still religiously preserved at The Oval and
Lord's, but to depict the whole of English cricket, even limiting the
scope to first-class county cricket, as being saddled with those
snobberies is simply unjust.
Birley is entirely right that the maintenance of the distinction was
largely about what TPTB in the MCC (and other spiritual descendants of
Lord Harris) liked to think of as the ideal state of grace but wrong
in his apparent implication that all amateurs were basically a
parasitical cancer. For a number of the provincial counties, having
players who were available to play at least some of the time but only
cost them the price of hotel rooms (for away matches) and travel and
food, rather than having to pay them a weekly wage whether or not they
played, was the difference between staying in existence and going
bust. The major difference today is that enough money gets into the
clubs' hands via sponsorship and the ECB's national level revenue that
such expedients are no longer quite as necessary.
And sponsorships and the abolition of birth and/or residence
qualifications also mean that the great advantage of amateurism as was
is rendered unnecessary. Most English professionals left school at 14,
essentially unqualified for anything bar manual labour, and because
they couldn't easily switch counties, they were wholly dependent on
keeping on the right side of the county committee. The amateurs were
better-educated, some even having been to one of the few universities,
and mostly able to get well-paid employment without playing cricket.
So they were able to walk away if they didn't like what was going on
and were therefore able to tell committee men to go jump in the lake,
and many amateur captains were adored by their professionals because
they did what all good managers should, which is to shield the workers
from the idiocies and nonsenses perpetrated by the clowns on the
board. Nowadays any good player can hold a committee over a barrel if
he thinks he can find something else to do, and many can.
Thinking about it, I see that Birley isn't trying to give a
comprehensive assessment of the role of the amateur in English cricket
- his real purpose is to chart the decline of deference in cricket's
portion of society, which could be compared then with the decline of
deference in other aspects of English society. I have no idea at all
whether cricket would be found to have been ahead or behind the
general trends.
Cheers,
Mike
David Lewis
disagree with your basic point. I always thought Roland Butcher's test
career was a strange one. IIRC he was lucky to be picked for a winter tour
largely off the back of an entertaining knock in the cup final when the game
was pretty much won anyway but unlucky that the winter tour in question was
to the WI in 1980/81. From memory, he didn't disgrace himself in his
couple of tests against Roberts, Holding, Garner & Croft, but never got
picked again. For my money, the strangest Middlesex picks were the recalls
of Emburey in 1993 and 1995, whatever the standard of spinners in the CC at
the time.
Cheers
David
alvey
> On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 06:10:46 +1000, alvey
> <alvey_digi...@yahoo.com> tapped the keyboard and brought
> forth:
>
>
>>Mike Holmans wrote merrily in rsc:
>>
>>>alvey wrote:
>>>
>>
>>snip point not missed, explained earlier. Don't be obtuse.
>
>
> Just trying to fit in with your line of argumewnt, then, because I've
> read little as obtuse as your other paragrap.
>
Hmmm. "paragrap"...paracrap? No, I think 'paracraph' is the best variant.
Anyway, length snip. (You know I have limited powers of concentration
and don't handle lengthy, rambling posts well.)
>
> The existence of an NSV conspiracy in terms of carving up the
> commercial loot and making sure that game is run for the greatest
> convenience of the men from Jolimont and Moore Park is not a
> suspicion, but documented historical fact.
>
> If the selectors are operating in the same way, then frankly the V bit
> of it is failing to pull its weight, because all the advantage has
> accrued to NSW these last 15 years.
>
Full circle.
Turn & turn about. It's NSW's turn now but just bide your time and
you'll get to see gangs of scrubbers from Victoria filling the Aust
team again.
alvey
David Lewis
Jan Buxton <jan...@OVEeidosnet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bvs1jk$ovu$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
> In news:bvrjkr$vc3uq$1...@ID-155113.news.uni-berlin.de,
> alvey <alvey_digi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Mike Holmans wrote merrily in rsc:
> >> alvey wrote:
> >>
> >
> > snip point not missed, explained earlier. Don't be obtuse.
> >>
> >> But there is bugger all evidence that the politics of the game's
> >> organisation in England has any significant bearing on who gets
> >> picked to play for the national team:
> >
> > Odd. I thought there'd been generations of hacks from Middlesex who'd
> > got The Nod (Ramps anyone?).
>
> Ramps was/is hardly a hack, talentwise few would match him or his record
> in the county game. As such his selection was understandable, despite
> his mental flaws.
>
in
> 1991. ......> --
> Jan
That's an amazing statistic, and I didn't believe it when I first read it,
but you're probably right. I suppose the nearest they've come since then
is when Johnson was picked to tour in the mid-90's but had to drop out
through injury. How the mighty are fallen. Some of us remember when their
attack featured Daniel, Van-de-Bijl, Selvey, Edmonds & Emburey, pretty much
all at the peak of their powers.
Cheers
David
John Hall
Mike Holmans <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> writes:
>You've forgotten Barlow, Radley and Roland Butcher, like most people
>have. Butcher had genuine talent but lacked the temperament after a
>very nasty injury, while Barlow and Radley were basically Packer-era
>picks who might well not have been picked at all otherwise. Those who
>like the Middx conspiracy theory would certainly point at them,
>whereas I'd suggest that players who do well for the county champions
>have an advantage in selection and remain sceptical.
Me too. And IIRC, Radley actually did pretty well for England.
--
John Hall
"Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes."
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Mike Holmans
tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
>
>Mike Holmans <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:rj3320h6gqs7ma9sd...@4ax.com...
>> You've forgotten Barlow, Radley and Roland Butcher, like most people
>> have. Butcher had genuine talent but lacked the temperament after a
>> very nasty injury, while Barlow and Radley were basically Packer-era
>> picks who might well not have been picked at all otherwise. Those who
>> like the Middx conspiracy theory would certainly point at them,
>> whereas I'd suggest that players who do well for the county champions
>> have an advantage in selection and remain sceptical.
>>
>FWIW Barlow played his tests just before the Packer era, but I wouldn't
>disagree with your basic point. I always thought Roland Butcher's test
>career was a strange one. IIRC he was lucky to be picked for a winter tour
>largely off the back of an entertaining knock in the cup final when the game
>was pretty much won anyway but unlucky that the winter tour in question was
>to the WI in 1980/81.
He'd actually had a much greater purple patch than that during the
1980 season - he'd certainly done enough to be about the leading
candidate for a try-out when next a vacancy occurred, much as Ed Smith
did last season.
> From memory, he didn't disgrace himself in his
>couple of tests against Roberts, Holding, Garner & Croft, but never got
>picked again.
There were some other contenders around, so he was going to have to do
some more impressing domestically to get another go. He spent the next
two seasons for Middx barely able to get a run, which did his chances
no good. He recovered his form in 1983 and was doing pretty well until
he got his face smashed in. And afterwards he was too scared of fast
bowling to be worthwhile as an international, although he played some
truly gorgeous innings against mediocre attacks in county cricket.
> For my money, the strangest Middlesex picks were the recalls
>of Emburey in 1993 and 1995, whatever the standard of spinners in the CC at
>the time.
In 1993, Emburey took 71 f-c wickets at 19.73. The other English
spinner in the top 20 was Tufnell, with 64 at 23.89 (Mushtaq Ahmed and
Shane Warne were the other two in the season's top 20). The next down
the list was Eddie Hemmings, 44-y-o, and finally we get to Richard
Illingworth whose 55 wickets cost 25.5 followed by Childs (42) with 62
at 27.88 and Such (who had already had a bit of the treatment as well
as a promising debut) who got 76 at 28.26.
In 1995, Richard Illingworth was the number 1 spinner but was injured
for Old Trafford, the most likely pitch for two spinners in what was a
pretty hot, dry summer. Tufnell was by now in such bad odour after his
exploits on the 94-5 tour that there was no way they were going to
pick him, but he and Emburey were far and away the most potent
spinners in England at the time. In 95, Tufnell's 74 wickets cost
22.08 while Emburey's 74 cost 22.98. The only other spinner who
averaged under 25 was the 22-y-o Ashley Giles, who only bowled 143
overs and took 16 wickets at 22.12. The nearest contender was the
44-y-o Childs.
You know, I started to reply to this post with the intention of
agreeing with you, but I just thought I ought to do a little checking
about the state of spin bowling in England at the time. I was amazed
to find that any passing statrat would regard the idea that Emburey
should not have been picked as utter lunacy. As I remember it at the
time, people were as horrified as you that he'd been picked until they
looked around and asked the question "Who else?" and could only really
suggest warhorses who were even older and not doing as well.
Cheers,
Mike
Mike Holmans
<nospam...@jhall.co.uk> tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
>In article <rj3320h6gqs7ma9sd...@4ax.com>,
> Mike Holmans <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> writes:
>>You've forgotten Barlow, Radley and Roland Butcher, like most people
>>have. Butcher had genuine talent but lacked the temperament after a
>>very nasty injury, while Barlow and Radley were basically Packer-era
>>picks who might well not have been picked at all otherwise. Those who
>>like the Middx conspiracy theory would certainly point at them,
>>whereas I'd suggest that players who do well for the county champions
>>have an advantage in selection and remain sceptical.
>
>Me too. And IIRC, Radley actually did pretty well for England.
Where I would agree with the conspiracy theorists is that there are
some counties which could win the championship and still not get
anyone to pick their players, mostly because everybody always
dismisses Glamorgan championships as some kind of freak of nature, and
were Derbyshire or Northants ever to win, it would be as a result of
Saddam letting his WMD off at The Oval.
Cheers,
Mike
Andrew Mc
>
>Steve hadn't missed a test match he was fit for in about the last 10
>years of his career. He would have been rested for the odd one dayer
>but not many of them.
>
I'd agree with most of the rest you said, but to be fair, Waugh played in a time
when players seemed to be rested less than they are these days (particulary
batsmen).
I think it great the way Symonds really seems to have come into his own in the
past year or so. For me he used to be a bit hit and miss (mind you, it's tough
coming in down the order), but now he seems to have the confidence in himself to
just go out there and get the job done (with both the bat and the ball). It's
fantastic to see. Perhaps it has something to do with the hair ;).
David Lewis
John Hall <nospam...@jhall.co.uk> wrote in message
news:prU3KFMA...@jhall.demon.co.uk...
> In article <rj3320h6gqs7ma9sd...@4ax.com>,
> Mike Holmans <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> writes:
> >You've forgotten Barlow, Radley and Roland Butcher, like most people
> >have. Butcher had genuine talent but lacked the temperament after a
> >very nasty injury, while Barlow and Radley were basically Packer-era
> >picks who might well not have been picked at all otherwise. Those who
> >like the Middx conspiracy theory would certainly point at them,
> >whereas I'd suggest that players who do well for the county champions
> >have an advantage in selection and remain sceptical.
>
> Me too. And IIRC, Radley actually did pretty well for England.
> --
> John Hall
>
mediocre Packer-era attacks, got injured at the start of the 1978 Ashes tour
and was never seen again. Still, he can tell his kids he averaged 40+ in
tests, I think.
Cheers
David
David Lewis
I actually looked up the WI tests after my last post, and I was being a bit
generous to him, even against that lot. Thanks for the info though.
Cheers
David
John Hall
Mike Holmans <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> writes:
>Where I would agree with the conspiracy theorists is that there are
>some counties which could win the championship and still not get
>anyone to pick their players, mostly because everybody always
>dismisses Glamorgan championships as some kind of freak of nature, and
>were Derbyshire or Northants ever to win, it would be as a result of
>Saddam letting his WMD off at The Oval.
Without believing in a conspiracy, I agree that some counties are
unfashionable. But if a county does well enough over a period (not just
one fluke season), then I'd expect the fashion to change. One example
might be Worcestershire, who did well enough in the 1960s to become
fashionable.
David Lewis
> On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 19:52:11 -0000, "David Lewis" <le...@rmplc.co.uk>
> tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
>
> >
Trouble is, he took for 3 for 150 in 1993 and no wickets at all in 1995, and
he was outbowled by Such & Watkinson respectively. OK, so I'm being wise
after the event, but even by 1993 it had been about 6 or 7 years since he'd
done a thing in test cricket, however successful he was in the CC. Being
honest though, Emburey is something of a bete noir for me, what with twice
pissing off to SA, and I know I should let it go, but there you are. But
his test record from 1987 onwards was not good.
Cheers
David
David Lewis
time - Radford, Curtis & Illingworth spring to mind, unfortunately.
Cheers
David
Mike Holmans
tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
>
>Mike Holmans <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:mg9520pojbs5t4lmp...@4ax.com...
>> You know, I started to reply to this post with the intention of
>> agreeing with you, but I just thought I ought to do a little checking
>> about the state of spin bowling in England at the time. I was amazed
>> to find that any passing statrat would regard the idea that Emburey
>> should not have been picked as utter lunacy. As I remember it at the
>> time, people were as horrified as you that he'd been picked until they
>> looked around and asked the question "Who else?" and could only really
>> suggest warhorses who were even older and not doing as well.
>
>Trouble is, he took for 3 for 150 in 1993 and no wickets at all in 1995, and
>he was outbowled by Such & Watkinson respectively. OK, so I'm being wise
>after the event, but even by 1993 it had been about 6 or 7 years since he'd
>done a thing in test cricket, however successful he was in the CC.
He got recalls for single Tests, two years apart, so it's not as
though the selectors were busily picking him to the exclusion of
anyone else.
Looking at the domestic figures, the alternatives were the ancient
Childs and Tufnell, who was a Middlesex player himself but persona non
grata (rather inconveniently for the conspiracy theorists), or bowlers
who got carted by domestic batsmen. His recalls were, as far as I can
see, out of desperation rather than pro-Middlesex bias.
>Being
>honest though, Emburey is something of a bete noir for me, what with twice
>pissing off to SA, and I know I should let it go, but there you are. But
>his test record from 1987 onwards was not good.
Neatly tying together several of the characters in this thread, a mate
of mine and I went to the Middx v Sussex Nat West game at Lord's in
1989. It was Roland Butcher's benefit season, so his helpers were out
and about flogging the ties and benefit brochures.
The day before has seen the announcement of the Gatting tour to South
Africa. Simon and I were outraged, and couldn't believe that Butcher
had signed up for it. And we gave the tie-seller a good piece of our
minds, and were apparently not the only ones, as Butcher announced he
was pulling out of the venture the following day.
Simon (a Sussex member) and I (a Middx member) were sitting in the
front row of the Pavilion concourse, when a drive came towards us at a
pretty straight long off. Emburey cantered round to field it and, as
he was about to throw it back, Simon murmured, "Blood money's good,
innit?" Emburey froze for a second before throwing the ball in and
running back to his position. At the end of the over, he marched over
to us.
"You're a disgrace to the MCC!" he shouted. Simon politely indicated
that he was of the opinion that Emburey was a disgrace to Middlesex,
cricket and, above all, humanity. Expostulating that we should be
ashamed of ourselves, he stomped off.
I'm not a great fan of Mr Emburey either.
Cheers,
Mike
Colin Kynoch
>Colin Kynoch <kynoch...@bigpond.com> wrote in message news:<5t6120h1hbm0ehv13...@4ax.com>...
>> On 3 Feb 2004 02:07:15 -0800, Mo...@unimail.com.au (Moby) wrote:
>>
>> ><Snip>
>> >
>> >One complaint so far.
>> >
>> >On my side it's exactly where Bichel should be - FC cricket. He's not
>> >bowled well for a while and needs to show he's back in form. It's
>> >just a damn pity that the same treatment isn't dished out to NSW
>> >glamour boys who seem to be allowed to use test and odo matches to
>> >work themselves back into "form."
>> >
>> >Moby
>> >Currently taking bets on how many NSV goons declare that "many" or
>> >"all" Qld supporters had a problem with the dropping.
>>
>> Correct me if I am wrong but haven't you called for Lee's removal from
>> the team Mobes/
>
>Yes, I did. Your point is?
>
>Oh, yes. I see. Because I said BLeet shouldn't be in the team after
>numerous games of bowling crap
In ODI's care to name these numerous games Mobes?
Because surely a QCC member like yourself wouldn't be mixing the two
forms of the game.
> and/or before proving himself at FC
>level, I must instantly say the same thing about Bichel the very
>moment he looks like not bowling well.
Well you took a while on Bichel.
>Idiot.
>
>Moby
Interesting that you type your name on separate lines.
Colin Kynoch
Jan Buxton
David Lewis <le...@rmplc.co.uk> wrote:
> Jan Buxton <jan...@OVEeidosnet.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:bvs1jk$ovu$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
>> debut, in 1991. ......> --
>> Jan
>
> That's an amazing statistic, and I didn't believe it when I first
> read it, but you're probably right. I suppose the nearest they've
> come since then is when Johnson was picked to tour in the mid-90's
> but had to drop out through injury.
Indeed, I was surprised myself. If we list the counties by the year of
their last Test debutant we get,
Durham 2003 Collingwood
Kent 2003 Saggers
Surrey 2003 Clarke
Worcestershire 2003 Batty
Sussex 2003 Kirtley
Somerset 2003 Johnson
Yorkshire 2003 McGrath
Lancashire 2003 Anderson
Glamorgan 2002 Jones
Essex 2001 Foster
Leicestershire 2001 Ormond
Nottinghamshire 2001 Afzaal
Warwickshire 1999 Giddins
Gloucestershire 1997 Smith
Derbyshire 1995 Cork
Northamptonshire 1993 Taylor
Middlesex 1991 Ramprakash
Hampshire 1988 Smith
If you'd asked me a week ago where Middlesex would be on that list I
wouldn't have said second last.
--
Jan
Rob Chapman
> robcha...@yahoo.com.au (Rob Chapman) submitted to the Inquisition's
> torture and wrote:
>
> <snip bollocks>
Do you mean bollocks that Waugh and Symonds can't be compared or
bollocks I don't agree with you so I'll simply delete it?
>
> Look, Rob, I'm very happy for you, but the day you can avoid the
> blindingly obvious crap that goes on many times each year in the form
> of bias just because you can name one or two players every decade who
> -don't- get shafted and not crack up is the day you gain life-time
> membership to the Gilish Inquisition.
>
> Moby
I'm not sure I follow your line of reasoning.
I'm saying that you can always make cases for or against a player,
depending on what you're trying to prove.
The fact remains that Symonds did not have an impressive record prior
to the World Cup. He had an impressive amount of hype. He was gunna be
this and he was gunna be that, but he hadn't actually gun and dun
anything at the time.
Now, his supporters can clearly say he simply needed more time (63
matches being simply too small a statistical sample), and once he got
this quality time, he would surely come good.
Which he did.
So they were all correct.
Or, as his detractors would say, he hadn't been delivering the goods
(after all, 63 matches is ample time to prove your worth) that we'd
been led to expect from him. His returns had, in fact, been rather
pedestrian. He certainly wasn't the stand out contender for a place in
the squad.
But he was persisted with and picked for the World Cup.
And he came good.
There'd be plenty of others who might wish for an equally gilded and
cushioned ride to selection.
Would they have come good? Well, who knows. They never got the chance.
No-one's ever suggested anything along these lines when talking about
Steve Waugh (alright, substitute 28 or so Tests for 63 odos)? I s that
what you're telling me?
Simply dismissing fairly obvious comparisons between players because
they come from different regions seems to me rather blinkered.
RC
Ian Galbraith
[snip]
:I'm quite happy to accept that Victoria aren't really the in-crowd at
:the moment. But it's only really a matter of time. And besides, they
:still get overwhelmingly preferred to "Others." It's just that
Overwhelmingly? Evidence?
[snip]
John Hall
David Lewis <le...@rmplc.co.uk> writes:
>
>John Hall <nospam...@jhall.co.uk> wrote in message
>news:rq4nK+Nw...@jhall.demon.co.uk...
>>
>> unfashionable. But if a county does well enough over a period (not just
>> one fluke season), then I'd expect the fashion to change. One example
>> might be Worcestershire, who did well enough in the 1960s to become
>> fashionable.
>>
>time - Radford, Curtis & Illingworth spring to mind, unfortunately.
No. I was thinking of Graveney, Coldwell, Flavell, Gifford, D'Oliveira
and co. In the mid-60s they were the best side in the Championship.
--
John Hall "He crams with cans of poisoned meat
The subjects of the King,
And when they die by thousands G.K.Chesterton:
Why, he laughs like anything." from "Song Against Grocers"
Mike Holmans
>
> In article <bvuer0$m2c$1...@newsfeed.th.ifl.net>,
> David Lewis <le...@rmplc.co.uk> writes:
> >
> >John Hall <nospam...@jhall.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:rq4nK+Nw...@jhall.demon.co.uk...
> >> might be Worcestershire, who did well enough in the 1960s to become
> >> fashionable.
> >>
> >Do you mean the 1980's? They did produce a few test players around that
> >time - Radford, Curtis & Illingworth spring to mind, unfortunately.
>
> No. I was thinking of Graveney, Coldwell, Flavell, Gifford, D'Oliveira
> and co. In the mid-60s they were the best side in the Championship.
Ho hum. I don't really follow this.
My hypothesis was that playing for an unfashionable county who won the
championship conferred fewer selection advantages than playing for
fashionable champion counties did.
Worcs won the championship in 1964 and 1965, so any selection advantages
accruing would have shown up in the period 1965-67. In that period, only
Graveney and d'Oliveira were actually picked by England, and Graveney
already had a substantial Test career behind him. Coldwell and Flavell
played their last Tests in 1964, ie before Worcs had won a championship
(and their return probably helped Worcs win), and while Gifford debuted
in 1964, his involvement with England ceased in July and was not resumed
until 1971.
I fail to see how this is evidence in favour of championship wins
bringing an unfashionable county in from the cold, since the only
apparent beneficiary was Basil d'Oliveira who was a fairly special case
anyway.
Cheers,
Mike
Tom Boltwood
> From: Mike Holmans <mi...@jackalope.demon.co.uk>
> Organization: Jackalope Hall
> Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket,uk.sport.cricket
> Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2004 21:16:39 +0000
> Subject: Re: bichel the doormat
>
> Where I would agree with the conspiracy theorists is that there are
> some counties which could win the championship and still not get
> anyone to pick their players,
With central contracts would counties want their players picked? A
struggling county finds and nurtures some talent, wins a championship and
gets their investment taken away from them on national duty for a large
number of games.
Jan Buxton
Jan Buxton <jan...@OVEeidosnet.co.uk> wrote:
> In news:bvu9fl$il3$1...@newsfeed.th.ifl.net,
> David Lewis <le...@rmplc.co.uk> wrote:
>> Jan Buxton <jan...@OVEeidosnet.co.uk> wrote in message
>> news:bvs1jk$ovu$1...@newsg2.svr.pol.co.uk...
>>> In fact he (Ramps) was AFAICS the last Middlesex player to (Test)
>>> debut, in 1991. ......> --
>>> Jan
>>
>> That's an amazing statistic, and I didn't believe it when I first
>> read it, but you're probably right. I suppose the nearest they've
>> come since then is when Johnson was picked to tour in the mid-90's
>> but had to drop out through injury.
>
> Indeed, I was surprised myself. If we list the counties by the year of
> their last Test debutant we get,
>
> Durham 2003 Collingwood
> Hampshire 1988 Smith
>
> If you'd asked me a week ago where Middlesex would be on that list I
> wouldn't have said second last.
Just to add to that, I thought it would be interesting to look at the
mumbers from each county debuting. Taking the 15 year period from the
start of 1989 to the end of 2003 we get,
10
Surrey (Stewart, Thorpe, Bicknell, Benjamin, Butcher, A Hollioake, B
Hollioake, Tudor, Ward, Clarke)
Yorkshire (Blakey, White, Gough, Silverwood, Hamilton, Vaughan, Hoggard,
Sidebottom, Dawson, McGrath)
9
Lancashire (Atherton, Crawley, Martin, Gallian, Watkinson, Flintoff,
Hegg, Schofield, Anderson)
8
Kent (Igglesden, McCague, Patel, Ealham, Headley, Key, Smith, Saggers)
6
Essex (Stephenson, Hussain, Such, Ilott, Irani, Foster)
5
Glamorgan (Watkin, Morris, Croft, James, Jones)
Leicestershire (Lewis, Mullally, Habib, Maddy, Ormond)
Somerset (Mallender, Caddick, Lathwell, Trescothick, Johnson)
Warwickshire (Reeve, Munton, Knight, Giles, Giddins)
Worcestershire (Hick, Illingworth, Rhodes, Kabir Ali, Batty)
4
Middlesex (Fraser, Williams, Tufnell, Ramprakash)
Sussex (Salisbury, Wells, Adams, Kirtley)
3
Derbyshire (Malcolm, Morris, Cork)
Durham (Brown, Harmison, Collingwood)
2
Nottinghamshire (Read, Afzaal)
1
Gloucestershire (Smith)
Northamptonshire (Taylor)
0
Hampshire
If we do the same for Australia in the same period we get,
10
NSW (M Waugh, Slater, McGrath, Bevan, Emery, Cook, MacGill, Robertson,
Lee, Bracken)
Western Australia (Moody, Martyn, Langer, Angel, Julian, Hogg,
Nicholson, Gilchrist, Katich, Williams)
7
Queensland (Hayden, Law, Kasprowicz, Bichel, Dale, Muller, Love)
5
South Australia (Blewett, McIntyre, Gillespie, Wilson, Lehmann)
Victoria (Warne, Phillips, Reiffel, Fleming, Elliott)
4
Tasmania (Campbell, Ponting, Young, Miller)
--
Jan
Jim Brant
> In article <bvuer0$m2c$1...@newsfeed.th.ifl.net>,
> David Lewis <le...@rmplc.co.uk> writes:
> >
> >John Hall <nospam...@jhall.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:rq4nK+Nw...@jhall.demon.co.uk...
> >>
> >> Without believing in a conspiracy, I agree that some counties are
> >> unfashionable. But if a county does well enough over a period (not just
> >> one fluke season), then I'd expect the fashion to change. One example
> >> might be Worcestershire, who did well enough in the 1960s to become
> >> fashionable.
> >>
> >Do you mean the 1980's? They did produce a few test players around that
> >time - Radford, Curtis & Illingworth spring to mind, unfortunately.
>
> No. I was thinking of Graveney, Coldwell, Flavell, Gifford, D'Oliveira
> and co. In the mid-60s they were the best side in the Championship.
> --
Second best surely? Unless you are being *very* literal about 'mid-60s'.
Jim
David Lewis
I'm not surprised, given his antics in the game you attended. I had heard
that JE wasn't exactly sypathetic to any criticisms of his African jaunts,
but really ... Arrogant tosser.
Cheers
David
Mike Holmans
tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
>
>
If that is the desired situation, then the whingeing gits who drivel
on about how the selectors are so terribly unfair to various counties
can stick their tedious blather up their own fundaments.
And central contracts don't make a blind bit of difference anyway,
because there is absolutely no chance that an England regular will
have any time at all to play for a county this year, no matter who
holds his contract.
Cheers,
Mike
John Hall
Well, I did say "might". I was too lazy to do the research that you have
done, which strongly suggests that, at least as far as Worcestershire in
the 1960s was concerned, my hypothesis was wrong.
--
John Hall Weep not for little Leonie
Abducted by a French Marquis!
Though loss of honour was a wrench
Just think how it's improved her French. Harry Graham (1874-1936)
John Hall
Jim Brant <j...@brantj.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
>
>"John Hall" <nospam...@jhall.co.uk> wrote in message
[Re Worcestershire]
>>
>> No. I was thinking of Graveney, Coldwell, Flavell, Gifford, D'Oliveira
>> and co. In the mid-60s they were the best side in the Championship.
>> --
>
>Second best surely? Unless you are being *very* literal about 'mid-60s'.
I was. The period 1964-5 was what I had in mind. Before and after this,
Yorkshire were the better side.
David North
>
> > On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 19:52:11 -0000, "David Lewis" <le...@rmplc.co.uk>
> > tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
> >
> > >
> > > For my money, the strangest Middlesex picks were the recalls
> > >of Emburey in 1993
Something to do with his 12-115 against Hampshire the previous week, I think.
> and 1995,
Yes - Illingworth had barely had the chance to disgrace himself in the previous two Tests, and
Tufnell had just taken 6-111 for Middlesex against the tourists.
--snip--
> Trouble is, he took for 3 for 150 in 1993
He did make 92 runs for once out in that match though (without which England might not have made 200
in either innings) ...
> his test record from 1987 onwards was not good.
... and his batting average in that period was 31.40. I can't say his bowling average was anything
but unmentionable, however.
--
David North
Email to this address will be deleted as spam
Use usenetATlaneHYPHENfarm.fsnet.co.uk
John Hall
Jan Buxton <jan...@OVEeidosnet.co.uk> writes:
>
>Just to add to that, I thought it would be interesting to look at the
>mumbers from each county debuting. Taking the 15 year period from the
>start of 1989 to the end of 2003 we get,
<snip>
I make a grand total of 86 debuts.
>
>If we do the same for Australia in the same period we get,
<snip>
And for Australia 41.
So twice as many players made their debuts for England as for Australia
in this period. Of course, you'd expect a greater turnover of players in
a less successful side, but one reason why Australia have been
successful may be that their selectors have had the confidence to stick
with players until they have come good rather than dropping them after a
handful of Tests.
David Lewis
David North <dno...@abbeymanor.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote in message
news:c00nam$11v7da$1...@ID-182826.news.uni-berlin.de...
> "David Lewis" <le...@rmplc.co.uk> wrote in message
news:bvue7t$lp3$1...@newsfeed.th.ifl.net...
> >
> > > On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 19:52:11 -0000, "David Lewis" <le...@rmplc.co.uk>
> > > tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > For my money, the strangest Middlesex picks were the recalls
> > > >of Emburey in 1993
>
> Something to do with his 12-115 against Hampshire the previous week, I
think.
>
Quite possibly, but not quite the new breed that was supposed to be
introduced under Atherton's captaincy. The Indian tour the previous winter
had confirmed that he was well past it as a test player, whatever he was
still capable of doing against the Hampshires of this world.
> > and 1995,
>
> Yes - Illingworth had barely had the chance to disgrace himself in the
previous two Tests, and
> Tufnell had just taken 6-111 for Middlesex against the tourists.
>
> --snip--
>
> > Trouble is, he took for 3 for 150 in 1993
>
> He did make 92 runs for once out in that match though (without which
England might not have made 200
> in either innings) ...
>
> > his test record from 1987 onwards was not good.
>
> ... and his batting average in that period was 31.40. I can't say his
bowling average was anything
> but unmentionable, however.
> --
Maybe he was trying to reinvent himself as a batsman who could bowl a bit.
Obviously this is all very ancient history nowadays, but it does illustrate
our tendancy to recycle formerly good players rather than stick with younger
guys. Emburey, Gatting & Gooch around the mid-1990's spring immediately to
mind, but we still do it occasionally.
Cheers
David
David Lewis
> In article <c009oo$jdu$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> Jim Brant <j...@brantj.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
> >
> >"John Hall" <nospam...@jhall.co.uk> wrote in message
> >news:DkwNJsAR...@jhall.demon.co.uk...
>
> [Re Worcestershire]
> >>
> >> No. I was thinking of Graveney, Coldwell, Flavell, Gifford, D'Oliveira
> >> and co. In the mid-60s they were the best side in the Championship.
> >> --
> >
> >Second best surely? Unless you are being *very* literal about 'mid-60s'.
>
> I was. The period 1964-5 was what I had in mind. Before and after this,
> Yorkshire were the better side.
> --
> John Hall Weep not for little Leonie
Well, it was all news to me. I don't know who I thought won the CC in the
1960's on the odd occasion when Yorks didn't, but Worcs weren't in my
thinking. I did remember them winning it in about 1974, but before that I
had no idea.
Cheers
David
David Lewis
> In article <c008bf$ei9$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> Jan Buxton <jan...@OVEeidosnet.co.uk> writes:
> >
> >Just to add to that, I thought it would be interesting to look at the
> >mumbers from each county debuting. Taking the 15 year period from the
> >start of 1989 to the end of 2003 we get,
>
> <snip>
>
> I make a grand total of 86 debuts.
> >
> >If we do the same for Australia in the same period we get,
>
> <snip>
>
> And for Australia 41.
>
> So twice as many players made their debuts for England as for Australia
> in this period. Of course, you'd expect a greater turnover of players in
> a less successful side, but one reason why Australia have been
> successful may be that their selectors have had the confidence to stick
> with players until they have come good rather than dropping them after a
> handful of Tests.
> --
> John Hall Weep not for little Leonie
Yup. And, possibly, they look for rather more substantial achievement at
State level before picking them in the first place.
Of course, the period when Aus really did stick with players despite losing
was the mid-1980's. Their 1986/87 side is regularly written off as dire,
but most of them were still around to run rings round us in 1989 & 1990/91.
Cheers
David
Mad Hamish
<nospam...@jhall.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <c008bf$ei9$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> Jan Buxton <jan...@OVEeidosnet.co.uk> writes:
>>
>>Just to add to that, I thought it would be interesting to look at the
>>mumbers from each county debuting. Taking the 15 year period from the
>>start of 1989 to the end of 2003 we get,
>
><snip>
>
>I make a grand total of 86 debuts.
>>
>>If we do the same for Australia in the same period we get,
>
><snip>
>
>And for Australia 41.
>
>So twice as many players made their debuts for England as for Australia
>in this period. Of course, you'd expect a greater turnover of players in
>a less successful side, but one reason why Australia have been
>successful may be that their selectors have had the confidence to stick
>with players until they have come good rather than dropping them after a
>handful of Tests.
You might actually want to look at how many of those players got stuck
with and played more than, say, 10 tests.
Or more than a couple in their first run
10
NSW (
M Waugh, yep
Slater, yep
McGrath, yep
Bevan, yep
Emery, no - injury fill in
Cook, no
MacGill, yes
Robertson, no
Lee, yes (and no further comments must be made)
Bracken not yet (and really shouldn't unless he can finally show
something in first class cricket)
Western Australia (
Moody, no - sacrificed as an opener and then tossed away for Marky
Mark
Martyn, yes, but it took him about 8 years to do so
Langer, yes, but again he was in and out over 6 or 7 years before
finally getting a decent run
Angel, no
Julian, might just have edged past 10
Hogg, no (and shouldn't)
Nicholson, no
Gilchrist, yes
Katich, not yet
Williams not yet, and may not with McGrath, Gillespie and PGB ahead
of him in the order
)
7
Queensland (
Hayden yes, about 7 years after his debut
Law, no, 1 test 1 innings no average 54 runs
Kasprowicz, yes
Bichel, yes
Dale, no, 2 tests
Muller, no, 2 tests ("You can't change a winning team")
Love no
)
5
South Australia (
Blewett, yes (why?????)
McIntyre, no
Gillespie, yes
Wilson, no (1 test where he broke down iirc)
Lehmann I think he's edged past 10 now
)
Victoria (
Warne, yes
Phillips, no, 1 test because they couldn't pick Hayden who
was breaking all sorts of records, instead they'd wait and pick Slater
who'd done less.
Reiffel, yes
Fleming, yes
Elliott yes
4
Tasmania (
Campbell, no, and shouldn't have
Ponting, yes
Young, 1 test as an injury fill in on tour
Miller yes
--
"Hope is replaced by fear and dreams by survival, most of us get by."
Stuart Adamson 1958-2001
Mad Hamish
Hamish Laws
h_l...@aardvark.net.au
Mad Hamish
wrote:
>In article <ueu3205amu1i8dp43...@4ax.com>, Mad Hamish says...
>>
>>Steve hadn't missed a test match he was fit for in about the last 10
>>years of his career. He would have been rested for the odd one dayer
>>but not many of them.
>>
>
>I'd agree with most of the rest you said, but to be fair, Waugh played in a time
>when players seemed to be rested less than they are these days (particulary
>batsmen).
Yeah, but remember that I'm looking at the claim that Symonds got
carried the same way that Waugh did.
>
>I think it great the way Symonds really seems to have come into his own in the
>past year or so. For me he used to be a bit hit and miss (mind you, it's tough
>coming in down the order), but now he seems to have the confidence in himself to
>just go out there and get the job done (with both the bat and the ball). It's
>fantastic to see. Perhaps it has something to do with the hair ;).
Before the World Cup he was largely coming in down the order and
having to hit straight away.
He'd had a couple of bad series
but his record after 36 one dayers was
36 26 6 612 68* 30.60 0 2 2 7 1
Carlton S v WI 2000/01, strike rate over 100
after that his average dropped below 30
and going into the World Cup he had
54 38 6 762 68* 23.81 0 2 4 8 1
VB Series v Eng 2002/03
which means that in the next couple of years he'd had 12 innings in
one dayers.
12 innings isn't all that many, especially spread over 2 years coming
in down the order where it's often hit out and get out.
Jim Brant
>
> John Hall <nospam...@jhall.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:cfI6HSDy...@jhall.demon.co.uk...
> > In article <c009oo$jdu$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> > Jim Brant <j...@brantj.freeserve.co.uk> writes:
> > >
> > >"John Hall" <nospam...@jhall.co.uk> wrote in message
> > >news:DkwNJsAR...@jhall.demon.co.uk...
> >
> > [Re Worcestershire]
> > >>
> > >> No. I was thinking of Graveney, Coldwell, Flavell, Gifford,
D'Oliveira
> > >> and co. In the mid-60s they were the best side in the Championship.
> > >> --
> > >
> > >Second best surely? Unless you are being *very* literal about
'mid-60s'.
> >
> > I was. The period 1964-5 was what I had in mind. Before and after this,
> > Yorkshire were the better side.
> > --
> 1960's on the odd occasion when Yorks didn't, but Worcs weren't in my
> thinking. I did remember them winning it in about 1974, but before that I
> had no idea.
>
sort of seaming wickets then commonly found, and Gifford could be a
devastating spinner on his day. Their batting was strong; in addition to
Graveney they had one of the best openers in the country in Kenyon, who was
one of those who could score centuries while others were struggling to get
into double figures. I remember that in those days, although Yorkshire lost
occasionally to other counties, Worcs were the side to be worried about.
Nevertheless, Yorkshire were the better side throughout the sixties; luck
(or lack of it) with the weather had an even greater influence on results
than it does now.
Jim
Mike Holmans
tapped the keyboard and brought forth:
>Obviously this is all very ancient history nowadays, but it does illustrate
>our tendancy to recycle formerly good players rather than stick with younger
>guys. Emburey, Gatting & Gooch around the mid-1990's spring immediately to
>mind, but we still do it occasionally.
What's your definition of "recycling", then?
Gooch didn't go on the 93-4 tour of WI, citing tiredness, but coming
back after missing one series is not what I would call "recycling".
And after 46 all out, recalling batsman who hadn't been dropped or
announced his retirement from Test cricket and could still play a bit
(he only got a double hundred in his first innings back, but some
might regard that as at least reasonable) would seem like a reasonable
idea.
By these standards, you currently regard Thorpe as recycled. I
respectfully disagree.
I'm sorry to go on about this, but I think it is fairly silly to
compare events under the post-1995 regimes with what went on
pre-Illingworthless (and comparing anything with what happened under
Ililngworthless is a fool's errand) and say they are symptoms of
exactly the same things. Picking Emburey and Gatting and various other
clapped-out warhorses in the past was at best hanging on to a safety
blanket. These days, it's desperation: Bicknell wasn't picked last
summer because they hadn't been trying out younger players - they'd
tried oodles of them, one or two turning out to be obvious crapola,
but by the time we got to Headingley last year, they were all also
mostly injured. And even Australia do it when things get seriously
desperate - otherwise what the hell was Kasprowicz doing in India
recently?
It is manifest that the present regime believes in giving players a
decent run where possible. Chris Adams and Robert Key were both given
very substantial chances to prove themselves which they didn't take.
Ed Smith got dropped, yes, but he's been added to the Academy party
for the A tour so he's still there just behind Collingwood and Clarke
who seem the obvious next cabs off the rank. And it's not as though
they haven't persisted with Hoggard and Harmison and Anderson (when
fit).
I mean, how many players can one say have actually been dropped by
England over the last few years? Some may not have made it back after
injury, but there is little evidence of chopping and changing for its
own sake as per the 80s and 90s.
Cheers,
Mike
David Lewis
but the 1994 Gooch re-call looked pretty silly by the Ashes in 1994/5, even
if he did help himself to a doubleton against a pretty anodyne NZ attack in
his first game back. Ditto Gatting and Emburey in their post-ban tests,
whatever they might have been doing in the CC.
I totally agree with your comments about recent times and I think selection
in the past 5 years has been more consistent and intelligent than at any
time since I have been watching the game. I would echo your comments about
the quick bowlers, and had no problem with Bicknell's selction for the same
reasons as you.
Is Thorpe recycled? I suppose the next 12 months will say whether it was
good decision to bring him back. He's certainly younger than the guys being
brought back in the mid-1990's, and FWIW, the selectors' approach to him
last summer would have been exactly the same as mine. When I wrote we still
occasionally do it, perhaps I was overstating our tendency to stick with
players too long. Stewart certainly wasn't worth a place in the top 6 in
2003, and it worried me how many commentators think we should bring back
Caddick if he's ever remotely fit again. Gough's recall to the test side
also didn't look too clever. But I am scratching around a bit, so maybe
nowadays it's more a comment on some English followers of the game rather
than those who actually select the side, to be fair.
Cheers
David
David Lewis
Jim Brant <j...@brantj.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:c019ck$1qk$1...@news6.svr.pol.co.uk...
your final conclusion. One of things I do remember about Worc's title win
in 1974 (or whenever it was in the mid1970's) was that Hampshire were
overtaken because the weather prevented them playing their final game(s),
whereas Worc were able to win theirs. One of the downsides of the 3-day
game, maybe.
I must confess to never having heard of Coldwell & Flavell, so it's good to
learn a bit. After my previous post on this thread, I tried to work out who
I would have assumed might win the CC when Yorks didn't in those years. My
money would probably have been on Warwicks or Middlesex, but maybe I'm miles
out.
Cheers
David
David North
>
Looking at the tables, weather might conceivably have cost Yorkshire the CC in 1965, but not in
1964. Equally, it might have cost Kent or Leicestershire in 1967.
Jim Brant
> Looking at the tables, weather might conceivably have cost Yorkshire the
CC in 1965, but not in
> 1964. Equally, it might have cost Kent or Leicestershire in 1967.
> --
I think it's difficult to tell from just the final tables. In 1964,
Yorkshire beat Worcs at home and drew at New Road. In 1967, their home
matches against both Leics and Kent were washed out (though I admit that in
the second of these they only scored 40 in their first innings, because of
the conditions. Boycott got a pair, I notice.), but away they hammered Leics
by an innings and 123, and Kent by 7 wickets. Yorkshire in the 60's really
were a great side.
Jim
alvey
The near total lack of Victorians being dropped from the Oz teams is
overwhelmingly conclusive...
alvey
Ian Galbraith
:Ian Galbraith wrote:
:> On 5 Feb 2004 00:11:29 -0800, Moby wrote:
:> :I'm quite happy to accept that Victoria aren't really the in-crowd at
:> :the moment. But it's only really a matter of time. And besides, they
:> :still get overwhelmingly preferred to "Others." It's just that
:> Overwhelmingly? Evidence?
:The near total lack of Victorians being dropped from the Oz teams is
:overwhelmingly conclusive...
Can't drop someone who aint there.
------------ And now a word from our sponsor ------------------
Want to have instant messaging, and chat rooms, and discussion
groups for your local users or business, you need dbabble!
-- See http://netwinsite.com/sponsor/sponsor_dbabble.htm ----