Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

I am not exactly sure what these plans use as justification. The wording on the BBC was "at least" 12 scouts will be recruited, as a minimum. FC Barcelona have currently 9 employees to their scouting team, and 3 are not actually scouts but youth development managers who help with final decisions. They find 10 year old talent in the pampas of Argentina and bring them to Catalunya, cover a whole globe, have successes that no one else can compare to. With only 6 bodies really on the road at any given time, covering multiple different seasons across continents. The ECB need 12 people as a minimum to cover the distance between Southampton and Durham, and to sort through the massive list of about 200 consistent players, of which a load arent England qualified, and about 80% are not worthy of even fringe international mention, with probably another 30 either already picked on merit or ignored on past failures?

For first class counties, its pretty bloody obvious to make a list of players who are performing. You probably have 2-3 candidates per year each as batsman and bowlers, who deserve merits of a scout keeping tabs and why not watch them?. These games are televised in some form too. So what stops one scout viewing all the overs a bowler has in a day, or all the balls a batsman faces? Id probably hesitate to guess one scout could do that in a day for the top talent, unless batsman are scoring treble hundreds, and if hes doing that not sure if much video is required.

The most successful academy of recent times, Yorkshire, has 4 senior members of its academy this year, so its hardly like the younger level needs army of scouts too. Id have thought that a simply phone call to each county to pick their best academy graduate in each discipline, and then sending them to the national academy for a quick look would be a simple but rather unbeatable system to judge, with further judgement made later. We do have Flower getting paid loads to do those judgements, why do we now need others as well?

It seems a simple watering down of quality and common sense. Scouts watching endless cricket, probably feeling they need to produce something of note watching a load of washed up fodder, send a few "yeah he averaged 17, but hes got really good head movement" emails around, and hey presto, we still have a dross team

The lack of accountability also seems disappointing. Whitaker has been part of pretty faulty selection ideals, and he gets a wonderful send off and a clear message he wasnt sacked or that he was leaving for his performance. Flower just keeps on crashing his car into a wall, and he has the audacity to come out and say he needs to review who works with the team, because its those at fault; or that its players not really wanting to work hard anymore, and damn that T20 cricket. Didnt they lose to a nation that is pretty famous for its dedication to T20 over tests?

Flower also had the audacity to suggest that Leach has worked really hard, and that hes proved now he maybe deserves a chance..... yes Andy, it was all you wasnt it. All that hard work with you paid off, it wasnt like you sent someone with double his first class average to the test team and started blabbering about how great he was only a week ago, or the fact you told us he was rubbish despite averaging 25 in FC and heads and above the best spinner out there.

And Strauss? What accountability is he showing?

Test selection

Graveney
2000 - Schofield, Hoggard, Trescothick
2001 - Sidebottom, Ward, Afzaal, Ormond, Dawson, Foster
2002 - SJones, Harmison, Key
2003 - Anderson, McGrath, Johnson, Smith, Kirtley, Ali, Batty, Clarke, Saggers, Collingwood
2004 - GJones, Strauss, Bell
2005 - Pietersen, Udal, Plunkett
2006 - Blackwell, Cook, Panesar, Shah, Mahmood, Lewis
2007 - Prior, Tremlett, Bopara, Broad

Miller
2008 - Ambrose, Pattinson, Swann
2009 - Khan, Bresnan, Onions, Trott
2010 - Carberry, Finn, Tredwell, Morgan, Shahzad
2011
2012 - Patel, Bairstow, Taylor, Compton, Root
2013 - Kerrigan, Woakes, Stokes

Whitaker
2014 - Ballance, Borthwick, Rankin, Ali, Jordan, Robson, Buttler
2015 - Lyth, Wood, Rashid, Hales
2016 - Vince, Ball, Duckett, Ansari, Hameed, Jennings, Dawson
2017 - Malan, Roland-Jones, Westley, Stoneman, Overton, Curran
2018 - Crane

Not a good success rate since 2014!

One player (so far) has had a run in the XI. Moeen.

It feels like an obsession with management processes, to the point where they become more heavily weighted towards than the talent that the process was put in place to serve.

It reminds me of the NHS management cult whereby half the hospital beds get slashed in twenty years because management consultants design a system whereby twice as many people can be processed through these beds in the same time using their methods. And we can see how that works. It may be a beautifully designed system, but there are sick people queueing down the street.

Atherton's view on the issue bearing in mind his views on Gus Fraser may be a bit favoured with his son being involved with the Middlesex academy.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shak ... c5f62edbbd

So the Chairman of the board can make multi-million pound decisions on the future of county cricket with a trust in Yorkshire, but Gus Fraser cant be a selector in case he favours his own team?

perhaps the dozen or more scouts will be able to spend more time outside night clubs to see which of the players being watched like to stagger out of them in the early hours. That could save a lot of time, trouble and embarrassment later

Here is my four selectors...

Someone with captaincy experience to oversee selection (Brearley?)
Good umpire presently still working
Top class batsman who can spot batting talent (Thorpe?)
Bowling coach working with young talent (Shine?)

Peter Moores?

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Peter Moores?

Better at selecting than Flower.
Jennings, capt of the one day side when he shouldn't be even in the team, batting at 4/5. Is there ANY chance he will make England's ODI team?
Flower probably friends with his dad.

Rob Key has made a good impression on Sky - shows more insight and thought than others, could be a good option.

Steve Harmison applied for the selector's role a few years ago, he could apply again.

Not fussed by the structure. The current one isn't bad - one full-time, two part-time - and they don't do it alone, they will always be speaking to coaches and umpires, i.e. informal scouts. It was the personnel that was the problem - Whitaker only kept his job when Strauss took over to avoid sacking too many people at one, and Newell and Fraser weren't independent and restricted by their day jobs.

Bess scored a ton for the MCC last night. Surely the best way known to secure a spinner's slot.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/43626276

yet more cobblers talked by the Aussie coach of an England team. This is Bayliss talking about selection for the summer tests

"There are chances available - if you're scoring a lot of runs and taking a lot of wickets, you're going to be very close.

"(But) I don't think there's anyone at home putting their hand up at the moment and saying come and pick me."

no-one putting their hands up atm, Trevor?

could that be because the season hasn't started yet?

numb nuts!

To be fair to him, who scored runs in the Lions tour to the West Indies? No one averaged 30 with the bat or managed an innings over 60.

There's quite a few players who I'd like to see picked, but they need to perform. The new head selector has a job on their hands!