**Official** County Cricket 2017

[S.Kennedy]

I too miss the days when cricket was done entirely for sunshine and rainbows

You can laugh at me if you want but you have the warning of (top flight) football and boxing to see how a sport can be completely ruined by this amount of money swilling around. Heck, as we speak, there is a rather embarrassing civil war being fought-out between the various 'Boards', all ridiculous crooked old men, for global cricket's cash!!

 

[theegyptian]

Hales has had a lol bad winter.

Chooses not to go to Bangladesh in the process losing his test spot (which may or may have happened anyway), gets injured in India ODIs after failing a couple of times and misses t20s, not picked up at IPL auction. Sounds like he might be fit for the Windies ODIs although he isn't in the original squad. Will probably go and sit on the bench. Then has to go back and play div 2 with Notts.



I think Jmay may be right now that Warwickshire struggle. Woakes getting picked up for the IPL is bad news. Some talk somewhere of Jeetan Patel potentially playing the champions trophy for NZ. Big fan of Olly Stone but coming back from a long term injury so I wouldn't expect masses this first seaosn. Lack of investment otherwise. Only good news is I'd expect Bell and Trott to score more runs. It normally takes a year or two to get over the end of your england career. Hain should be looking for improvement too.

I'm coming round to the fact that Lancs might be ok. Anderson and Hameed will play more than half the games. Villas and Chanderpaul aren't top signings but they won't be awful. Good young players. Also I thought Tom Bailey was kinda average but whilst rewatching some highlights from last season he looked a lot better than I remembered (or maybe he improved). Rob Jones scoring a lot of runs in grade cricket in Perth, and Livingstone doing well for the lions.

 

[theegyptian]

Rob Jones with one of the great celebrations last year. Normally not a great fan of big celebrations but the fact that his first first class hundred meant so much was kinda brilliant to see.

Brits doing well in grade cricket in WA. Lawrence, Abell and Rob Jones all doing well 1st,3rd and 5th top runscorers respectively. Callum Taylor and Ed Barnard doing well with bat/ball.



Crane top of the sydney wickets and bowling lots of overs. Recent cricinfo article on crane - Will Macpherson on why young Hampshire legspinner Mason Crane is turning heads | Cricket | ESPN Cricinfo

Obviously this is no great standard. Still nice to see some of our guys doing well. Plenty of guys have gone to Aus and struggled.

 

[superkingdave]

Apparently we are announcing a T20 signing tomorrow which presumably means Faulkner is unavailable.

 

[Tom Flint]

I watched crane play out there in december against penrith. The standard is still very good.
Chanderpaul is just about my favorite player since iv been watching so im fascinated to see how he gets on over here at his age. His been doing pretty well in WI domestic lgs recently.

 

[theegyptian]

U19s doing a better job at batting time than the senior team in India. So far Holden 170 off 355, Bartlett 179 off 249 and Rawlins 124* off 254. Only Moeen 146 off 262 batted that amount of time on the senior tour.

As for the lions the performances have been fairly spread out amongst the group. Hard to predict who will be next to break through from that group. TRJ if anyone has probably had the best winter but don't particularly see him playing in the same team as Broad and Anderson.

Predict the next 5 guys to debut in test cricket for England? Not very easy given Jennings and Hameed have both just debuted. Should be a fairly settled side for a while. Likely to be bowlers.

 

[brockley]

No Junaid Khan has a British passport due to his wife.
This switching sides is driving me nuts.

 

[S.Kennedy]

I'm hoping Jack Burnham and Josh Coughlin finally make good for Durham. If that happens they are future prospects.

 

[Tom Flint]

Gubbins
Trj
Leach
Roy
Billings
(In no particular order)

 

[theegyptian]

Yes can't see Roy personally even with the aggression memo from Bayliss. Or at least I hope not.

The other 4 I could believe although Billings is going to struggle to play much 4 day stuff and no asian tours for a little while now.

Now or never you'd think for TRJ

 

[Tom Flint]

I dont see roy even in the next 2 years tbh , but then again i dont think there will actually be 5 debutants in the next 2 years.
There's plenty of others who have played before who will probably get another crack i.e duckett vince buttler ball wood ect. There's plenty of fringe players who i would expect to get called up before u got to these 5

 

[Tom Flint]

Not that i agree as i would have leach gubbins in the xi now

 

[JRC67]

U19s doing a better job at batting time than the senior team in India. So far Holden 170 off 355, Bartlett 179 off 249 and Rawlins 124* off 254. Only Moeen 146 off 262 batted that amount of time on the senior tour.

As for the lions the performances have been fairly spread out amongst the group. Hard to predict who will be next to break through from that group. TRJ if anyone has probably had the best winter but don't particularly see him playing in the same team as Broad and Anderson.

Predict the next 5 guys to debut in test cricket for England? Not very easy given Jennings and Hameed have both just debuted. Should be a fairly settled side for a while. Likely to be bowlers.

Rayner, Borthwick, Leach, TRJ, Westley

 

[Pothas]

TRJ probably only needs an injury or two during the summer to get a game so he is most likely. Then after that it gets really hard:

Westley
Rayner
S. Curran
Lawrence

Most likely spot to open up is probably in the middle order and Westley may well be top of that list right now, the bottom two just because you feel they are bound to play for England one day and it could be sooner than we think. There will probably be some bowler that is not really in discussion at the moment though.

 

[Pothas]

I dont see roy even in the next 2 years tbh , but then again i dont think there will actually be 5 debutants in the next 2 years.
There's plenty of others who have played before who will probably get another crack i.e duckett vince buttler ball wood ect. There's plenty of fringe players who i would expect to get called up before u got to these 5

We can hope, if so we have probably had a decent year or two. Nothing like the end of a disastrous tour to lead to some random caps (Rankin, Borthwick, Dawson)

 

[S.Kennedy]

Averaging 82, Borthwick might have got into England last season, as solely a bat this time, but when it was being discussed by the media and whatnot, his form went **** up and he averaged 27 for the remainder of the championship. I think James Vince got the position who was completely useless!

 

[S.Kennedy]

Sidebottom is retiring, famed for his '70s barnet and amusing name. Great servant of the county scene and, for what he played, a pretty fine bowler for England - should have definitely played a lot more. He actually won five county championships; he was in the Yorkshire side that won that lone 2001 season, then the two for Notts and more recently twice for Yorkshire.

 

[FBU]

Next 5 debutants

The Currans in white ball cricket re Ireland
Gubbins when Jennings fails against Rabada, Steyn, Philander
Westley replacing Buttler after SA
Borthwick for the Ashes
Archer and Rawlins to the Lions

 

[S.Kennedy]

Nitpicking I know but Borthwick already has an England cap, Ashes dead rubber Sydney 2014 - brought in solely as a leggy in those days (3/33).

These days, certainly in first-class, I'd struggle to make the case that he is a batting/all-rounder, part-timer being the preferred option. He went to Wellington 2015-16 to learn something from Jeetan Patel and averaged 48 odd with the bat and bowled filth. That about sums it up.

 

[theegyptian]

lol derbyshire have offered Marlon Samuels a Kolpak deal according to Samuels. I know they lost Broom, but Samuels feels like about the worst fit possible for the county grind.