County Championship reform

[Goughy]

Sample Teams

Central
1 Wagh (Notts)
2 New (Leics)
3 Sales (North)
4 Usman Afzaal (North)
5 Samit Patel (Notts)
6 Ealham (Notts)
7 Read (Notts) wkt
8 Swann (Notts)
9 Broad (Leics)
10 Sidebottom (Notts)
11 Panesar (North)

Notts= 6, Derby= 0, Leics= 2, Northants= 3

North
1 Vaughan (Yorks)
2 Loye (Lancs)
3 McGrath (Yorks)
4 Chilton (Lancs)
5 Sayers (Yorks)
6 Flintoff (Lancs)
7 Sutton (Lancs) wkt
8 Rashid (Yorks)
9 Anderson (Lancs)
10 Hoggard (Yorks)
11 Harmison (Dur)

Yorks= 5, Lancs= 5, Durham= 1

Now even if the contracted England players were not to take part there are still enough decent English qualifed players to make it a good step up in standard.

The above North team does not include players that have been recent England internationals such as Saj, Plunkett, Chapple, Mustard, Bresnan and older campaigners such as Gough and Chappell.

If the Counties got 10 000 pounds per player selected (not per game) then 50-60 000 is nothing to sneeze at. The ECB, already gives massive contributions to the counties to keep them afloat. This type of incentive wouldnt cost anything as just move the money around to reward those with English talent.

 

[Jamee999]

I hate to say it, but SCJB isn't Leics any more...

 

[NZTailender]

North
1 Vaughan (Yorks)
2 Loye (Lancs)
3 McGrath (Yorks)
4 Chilton (Lancs)
5 Collingwood (Dur)
6 Flintoff (Lancs)
7 Sutton (Lancs) wkt
8 Rashid (Yorks)
9 Anderson (Lancs)
10 Hoggard (Yorks)
11 Harmison (Dur)

Yorks= 4, Lancs= 5, Durham= 2

Fixed

 

[Richard]

Sayers > Collingwood TBF.

 

[NZTailender]

It was either him or Chilton. I flipped a coin in my mind and replaced Sayers.

 

[Richard]

Chilton > Sayers too TBH.

 

[Pup Clarke]

Very debateable.

 

[NZTailender]

Chilton > Sayers too TBH.

Have never really seen or heard anything about Chilton. Sayers I only know about from the ICC games.

 

[Richard]

Chilton < only Atherton and Crawley of recent Lancashire opening-batsmen TBH.

 

[Anna]

That's one of problems with it. Players that are on the fringe of selection but are playing in the second division like Broad and Bopara get to sharpen their skills against the likes of Glamorgan (sorry to any Glamorgan supporters, but I just picked on the bottom team). Players who get dropped or left out for whatever reason or are trying to fight their way back into the team (Tresco, Strauss, Simon Jones) but are stuck in the second division might have a bit of a shock if they do get recalled to the test team after playing in the lower tier of an uncompetitive first-class championship.

Erm, Tresco will be playing 1st Division cricket next season

Anyway, I'm not listening to any of this...SOMERSET, LA LA LA, SOMERSET, LA LA LA

 

[social]

Graham Thorpe's view on the world is pretty relevant because he's a recently retired Eng player now coaching in Oz

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/Display...mber217.xml&section=sports&subsection=cricket

BTW, IMO this view that OZ spends a disproportionately high amount on junior player development is a complete myth.

Unless, things have radically changed, it's still down to the parents, schools (who are playing less every year) and clubs (most of whom are on the bread-line and survive on the goodwill of interested parties) until such time as youngsters are somehow identified as having talent in their mid- to late teens

 

[Frobishero]

I'm not sure about whether Australia does or doesn't spend more per capita on sport than England, but I would be surprised to find out that Australia doesn't spend more per capita on cricket.
A lot of schools in England don't play cricket at all, or didn't when I was at school ten years ago. We didn't have any contact with cricket in my primary school (up to 11 years old). My secondary school had a single bag of cricket gear. About 4 or 5 sets of pads and about three bats. We probably spent about three hours a YEAR bowling in the nets and most of the kids never got a chance to bat. One of my brothers went to a secondary school where they didn't play cricket at all, and we grew up one of the traditional cricket strongholds of England (West Yorks). Schools focused their effort and time on either football or rugby. I probably spent 15-20 hours a year playing basketball in school games and about 3-4 hours on cricket, and not from choice. As one of our games teachers just happened to like basketball, that's what we had to play. The boys who were interested in cricket played for various local clubs. At my (village) club, there was no coaching. We got together one evening a week for a net session, and played a local league game once a week. I'm sure that there must be schools in England where cricket is taken more seriously. Unfortunately I didn't go to one.
Any Aussies care to let me know what their school cricket experience was like?

 

[Frobishero]

Or anyone for that matter!

 

[Goughy]

I'm not sure about whether Australia does or doesn't spend more per capita on sport than England,

The last numbers I saw were twice the expenditure for 1/3rd the population size.

So roughly Aus spends x6 more per capita on sports than the UK