England name central contracts for the next 12 months - Vaughan included?!?!?

[pskov]

Central Contract

James Anderson
Ian Bell
Stuart Broad
Paul Collingwood
Alastair Cook
Andrew Flintoff
Stephen Harmison
Monty Panesar
Kevin Pietersen
Ryan Sidebottom
Andrew Strauss
Michael Vaughan

Incremental contract

Tim Ambrose
Ravi Bopara
Samit Patel
Matt Prior
Owais Shah
Graeme Swann
Luke Wright

The incremental contracts are one-off payments to supplement the county contracts of fringe players. Basically seem to be a halfway house to placate the fringe players of the squad, especially players of only one form of the game.

For the life of me, I cannot fathom Vaughan getting a full 12 month central contract. Geoff Miller the head selector in the press conference seemed to basically guarantee him being taken on the winter tours too, saying his form for Yorks before the seasons end isn't that important in the decision on whether he tours or not! Seems crazy to me.

 

[Precambrian]

Subject for a good laugh for its ludicrousness. What has Vaughan done to merit his contract extension?

 

[NUFAN]

Where's Darren Pattinson?

 

[four_or_six]

Interesting that Vaughan's importance to the side is rated higher than Shah's.

If interesting means ludicrous.

 

[Precambrian]

Absence of a Centrally contracted keeper on that list shows the conundrum England has faced in that area over the last year.

Other than Vaughan's inclusion, no other surprises.

 

[NUFAN]

Kinda funny how no keeper gets a central contract, lol.

I wonder why they made it just 7 for the incremental? 19 just seems like an odd number..

 

[Richard]

Other than Vaughan's inclusion, no other surprises.

Vaughan's inclusion wasn't a surprise - apparently it was widely expected.

All I can say is he'd better justify it. I don't have the slightest doubt he is capable of doing so but it'll look damn bad on a lot of people if he doesn't.

And thank god the Test wicketkeeper position is still an Ambrose-or-Prior situation, not a Prior-only one. This hopefully means if Prior does poorly in the India ODIs he won't play in the Tests.

 

[GIMH]

The only change I can see on the central contracts is Broad for Hoggard. Good plan bring in the incrementals as well, about time

 

[GIMH]

Vaughan's inclusion wasn't a surprise - apparently it was widely expected.

All I can say is he'd better justify it. I don't have the slightest doubt he is capable of doing so but it'll look damn bad on a lot of people if he doesn't.

And thank god the Test wicketkeeper position is still an Ambrose-or-Prior situation, not a Prior-only one. This hopefully means if Prior does poorly in the India ODIs he won't play in the Tests.

Yeah, good that Ambrose still has a chance

 

[Perm]

I thought you weren't a fan of letting a players form in one form of the game impacting upon his selection for another?

 

[Richard]

I'd give it zero consideration if I was selecting, but I'm not sorry when it impacts (even if it shouldn't) and causes a right decision to be made where otherwise a wrong one might have.

And I still maintain that Ambrose > Prior.

 

[pskov]

I thought you weren't a fan of letting a players form in one form of the game impacting upon his selection for another?

I can't speak for Brumby, but I imagine that whilst batting or bowling form is not necessarily transferrable from one for to the other, wicketkeeping is pretty much the same in both formats so form can carry over.

 

[Richard]

Keeping wicket for 50 overs is infinitely easier than doing it for 130 overs. Did we ever see Prior make any serious errors in his ODIs in 2007?

 

[pskov]

Keeping wicket for 50 overs is infinitely easier than doing it for 130 overs. Did we ever see Prior make any serious errors in his ODIs in 2007?

Yes, but the ODIs come first against India. If Prior keeps poorly in those then he may lose his place for the tests. If you drop catches and concede byes in one dayers it doesn't inspire confidence in keeping during tests.

 

[Richard]

I wasn't thinking he was likely to keep wicket poorly - I was thinking if he averaged 17 with the bat without passing 30, he might not get a look-in for the Tests, and even though I'd give no note to such ODI matters myself, I wouldn't be sorry to see them resulting in Ambrose being picked over Prior for Tests.

 

[fredfertang]

Some folk have all the luck! - if my name was Simon Jones I'd change it to Luke Wright pdq

 

[SpaceMonkey]

And I still maintain that Ambrose > Prior.

Did you not see Ambrose bat this summer? totally clueless. Not even Prior reached that level at his worst.

 

[SpaceMonkey]

Some folk have all the luck! - if my name was Simon Jones I'd change it to Luke Wright pdq

England basically dont trust Jones as a long term bowler any more. It's upto him to prove them wrong next summer. Getting injured at the end of the season didnt exactly help matters.

 

[Richard]

Did you not see Ambrose bat this summer? totally clueless. Not even Prior reached that level at his worst.

I don't really think he looked totally clueless TBH - it wasn't like he was rabbit-in-the-headlights stuff, he just kept getting out. Sometimes it was straighy away, sometimes he stuck around a while. There was no consistency about it, he just played a bad shot too often. Yet there've been times when he's not done that, and when he doesn't, he's a damn good player because he's not very easy to get out.

And yes, Prior against India last summer was EVERY BIT as bad. And I'm fairly confident Ambrose would've bashed West Indies pretty effectively too.

 

[Richard]

Some folk have all the luck! - if my name was Simon Jones I'd change it to Luke Wright pdq

Well, let's remember Jones was indeed given a central contract for a year in which he represented England a whole 0 times, and not so long ago.