***Official*** English Domestic Season 2008

[Goughy]

Andy Caddick

 

[Uppercut]

Darren Pattinson

 

[zaremba]

Martin McCague

(what a name for my 1,000th post!)

 

[BoyBrumby]

Andy Caddick

Think he'd almost definitely have got a game for NZ if he'd been so minded.

Could probably chuck in Neil Johnson & Murray Goodwin tho; both born in Rhodesia (as was) but were effectively overseas pros when they played for the Zimbas.

 

[fredfertang]

Gordon Greenidge

 

[zaremba]

Gordon Greenidge

Couldn't get a game for England, had to settle for playing for the Windies before, IIRC, finally hitting the big time with Scotland

 

[Richard]

Of those mentioned so far, not that many fit the description I was meaning (which was skipping between two full-blown full-time Test teams with teams in competition at the time they made the switch, with the deliberate intention of getting in the Test team, despite having a guaranteed spot in a domestic team in your home country), though Twose would. I'm not 100% familiar with the full stories of McCague, Patel, Grimmett and Greenidge.

 

[zaremba]

Of those mentioned so far, not that many fit the description I was meaning (which was skipping between two full-blown full-time Test teams with teams in competition at the time they made the switch, with the deliberate intention of getting in the Test team, despite having a guaranteed spot in a domestic team in your home country), though Twose would. I'm not 100% familiar with the full stories of McCague, Patel, Grimmett and Greenidge.

Let me guess your other unspoken criteria:
(1) Names which begin with the letter M, N or O
(2) Ginger hair
(3) Saggitarian

 

[Richard]

Nah. Simply players who had a guaranteed spot in a domestic team in their home country but decided they wanted more and, being unable to get into their own Test team and knowing this was unlikely to change, moved to a country they had no prior connection to with the specific intention of playing Test cricket.

Pattinson, for instance, wouldn't fit that at all. I said it at the time he got named in the probables Champions Trophy list, but I'd be willing to bet one hell of a lot that if you'd said to him "you'll be playing for England in July" in May, he'd have refused to believe you. Nor was I talking about anyone who made a switch at a time their own country had no Test team, whether because (Ranji, Hick) it hadn't been admitted yet, because they were barred from it (D'Oliveira), or because (Greig, Lamb, the Smiths) it was barred from international competition.

 

[Uppercut]

Just throwing it out there. Strongly disagree with what you say on players moving between counties. Ridiculous concept.

 

[fredfertang]

Couldn't get a game for England, had to settle for playing for the Windies before, IIRC, finally hitting the big time with Scotland

According to his father (the drafting of whose will was one of my first ever tasks as an articled clerk) he never wanted to play for England

 

[Richard]

Just throwing it out there. Strongly disagree with what you say on players moving between counties. Ridiculous concept.

IMO, the only viable bar on it is that counties are employers as well as cricket teams. If they were the same as countries (ie, invitational) then I'd see no reason not to say once you'd played for one First-Class county, that's the only one you're allowed to play for.

However, given that someone's livelihood may well depend on being able to get contracts with second or third teams, you can't really justify stopping this happening.

 

[Richard]

According to his father (the drafting of whose will was one of my first ever tasks as an articled clerk) he never wanted to play for England

I did wonder if this was the case. If so, he'd not fit the category either.

 

[Uppercut]

IMO, the only viable bar on it is that counties are employers as well as cricket teams. If they were the same as countries (ie, invitational) then I'd see no reason not to say once you'd played for one First-Class county, that's the only one you're allowed to play for.

However, given that someone's livelihood may well depend on being able to get contracts with second or third teams, you can't really justify stopping this happening.

Were the whole thing amateur, though, it would damage the prospects of the England international side too. You could conceivably have the country's two most promising spinners happening to be from the same county and subsequently neither developing to become test-class, to over-simplify. Best left alone on the whole, as nice it might seem to have players sticking to a county for life.

 

[zaremba]

Were the whole thing amateur, though, it would damage the prospects of the England international side too. You could conceivably have the country's two most promising spinners happening to be from the same county and subsequently neither developing to become test-class, to over-simplify. Best left alone on the whole, as nice it might seem to have players sticking to a county for life.

likewise Ambrose and Prior (and now Prior, Hodd and Brown) playing as keeper for Sussex

 

[Uppercut]

likewise Ambrose and Prior (and now Prior, Hodd and Brown) playing as keeper for Sussex

That was the example that i couldn't quite reach from the back of my mind

 

[Richard]

Were the whole thing amateur, though, it would damage the prospects of the England international side too. You could conceivably have the country's two most promising spinners happening to be from the same county and subsequently neither developing to become test-class, to over-simplify. Best left alone on the whole, as nice it might seem to have players sticking to a county for life.

This supposes that England > a county. And if the game was entirely amateur, there would be no case whatsoever for this to hold true.

 

[zaremba]

That was the example that i couldn't quite reach from the back of my mind

Not that I'm obsessed with just one county of course.

 

[Uppercut]

Not that I'm obsessed with just one county of course.

On a totally unrelated note, Dimi Mascarenhas not being in the Stanford squad is a disgrace.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Where exactly have I blamed Shantry's exclusion on there being too many crap players? I've blamed it on county coaches and selectors being unable to realise that Shantry is better than any of the large number of rubbish bowlers who've played regularly in recent years.

Oh, and don't start Samiullah Khan Niazi-ing Shantry. It was vaguely funny the once, I admit; it'll get tired without a second's notice if you try it with someone else.

Not neccessarily. Some benefit more than others from overseas imports. It might turn the champions from top-of-the-pile to bottom-of-the-pile but it won't neccessarily impact anywhere near as much on others. It depends on how much they've relied on said imports.

He was always damn good with the gloves, and it's criminal he never scored more runs as I always thought watching him in the nets he had more ability than anyone else at our club.

(a) I'd clean forgotten about Samiullah - until yesterday, in fact, when a kid in Oxford turned up at a County trial with that name and a bowling action rather reminiscent of Makhaya Ntini.

(b) Durham would not be Champions if their English players were crap.

Incidentally, am I alone in reading these last points as suggesting that the Dickinson/Ceaucescu masterplan for English cricket involves
* No Kolpaks
* All Amateur Status
* England to be secondary importance to Counties
* No one to play outside their County of Birth
* No one born in Lincolnshire, Cheshire, Oxfordshire, Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Suffolk, Norfolk, Herts, Hereford, Bucks, Beds, Berks, Cumbria, Northumberland, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Staffs, Shropshire, Wiltshire, Huntingdonshire, the Isles of Wight, Man, or Channel to play top level cricket
* All players to pass the Dickinson Independent Rating Examination before being permitted to play

Anyone spot owt else?