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

sussexpob wrote:

The Professor wrote:Great stat on the stream: 7 of the 11 Essex players were all born in the same hospital. Makes their achievements even more special

Ironically this stat rather destroys the point you are making. By process of elimination, Cook is from Gloucestershire, Harmer and Ryan TD are both saffers and Westley is from Cambridge; so if the others were all born in Whipps Cross like Graham Gooch, then far from being a brilliant display of Essex born talent, the reality would be Essex dont have a single player in their squad born in the county.

Because Whipps Cross is not in Essex, but the Greater London Borough of Waltham Forest.

Tongue in cheek attempt at playing devil's advocate I suspect SP ? Fact is Sir A.C. and Westley made their 1st class debuts for Essex as did RtD who played his formative cricket in the Netherlands. Harmer is an asset to English cricket; who else offers emerging players experience against top class spin?

westoelad wrote:Tongue in cheek attempt at playing devil's advocate I suspect SP ? Fact is Sir A.C. and Westley made their 1st class debuts for Essex as did RtD who played his formative cricket in the Netherlands. Harmer is an asset to English cricket; who else offers emerging players experience against top class spin?

The point, repeated elsewhere online, is that Essex have a squad of local born players which is amazingly impressive and indicative of their brilliance. The truth is, if they were all really born in Whipps Cross as repeated all over the place, then by a simple process of elimination using the four players mentioned who also played (you dont need to defend migrant labour to me)you actually find no one was born in Essex. The point is therefore a total nulll one. To be a devils advocate you have to have an argument, there is no argument here unless the widely reported fact is actually nonsense, which I cant be bothered to check.

It was intended as a light-hearted repost SP. Essex have a very successful squad who have come through their own ranks, their birthplace is irrelevant imo. Harmison, Wood, Onions,Borthwick,Stokes and Stoneman weren't born in County Durham but they're DCCC products.
No desire to get involved in semantics. My apologies if you've interpreted it as a criticism.

The apology is unnecessary, I didnt take it badly.

Durham, like Essex in general, are the beneficiaries of the way historical counties are amalgamated into current child explotation labour laws. The ECB, I believe as part of EU legislation, have to draw county boundaries artificially to include areas that fall outside the county game. So somewhere like Newcastle/Northumberland would be a Durham catchment area.

The rules nowadays state that a player can only play for a county area they are born into, or live, but to stop parents moving to more successful counties and jeopardizing the welfare of a child based on almost zero financial guarantees, even if a player wants to move for legitimate reasons the original county can block their registration and retain it.

Durham is more natural because people in Newcastle are obviously local to DCCC, its their natural local side; but as London is now a county itself and has no cricket side per se, and as the county of Middlesex was always basically London before its expansion, Essex end up controlling the whole of London east of the City.

This gives them de facto control over arguably the biggest sporting conveyor belt of talent in the UK; just look at how many England football captains have come from there even in the last 15 years. The list of international caps and Olympic Gold medals is endless. And this tends to translate to other sports, just look at how Durham produce cricketers in towns or areas that have always produced mega loads of footballers too.

I find it more than little unfair in Essex regard, and the 7 players born in Leytonstone (Beckham, Harry Kane, you know.... England best single footballer since the mid 90s has been from there) is evidence of how it benefits them.

The rules are crazy. A person born in Leytonstone is what? 5 miles from the Oval, but cant play for Surrey. 5 miles from Lords, but cant play for Middlesex. Having exclusivity over England biggest sports producing area means they SHOULD have a team that is full of brilliant youth. Is it anything they do?

Lancs are another that in theory should benefit from this, but I dont think Liverpool produces much cricketers of note.

In theory guys like Alistair Cook would no longer be able to play for Essex nowadays. He was living in Bedford when he signed for Essex academy, he wouldnt have been able to do that now because there is no way Bedfords closest academy would be Essex

sussexpob wrote:In theory guys like Alistair Cook would no longer be able to play for Essex nowadays. He was living in Bedford when he signed for Essex academy, he wouldnt have been able to do that now because there is no way Bedfords closest academy would be Essex

Wasn't aware of that legislation or how strictly it's monitored but I think the key words are "in theory". Certainly Plunkett , born Middlesbrough,was originally with Yorkshire and Durham have certainly had other Yorkshire residents in their academy,notably Arshad and Weighell more recently.. No doubt Cooke came to prominence at Bedford school but chose to travel to Chelmsford rather than Northampton to progress his career.

westoelad wrote:Wasn't aware of that legislation or how strictly it's monitored but I think the key words are "in theory". Certainly Plunkett , born Middlesbrough,was originally with Yorkshire and Durham have certainly had other Yorkshire residents in their academy,notably Arshad and Weighell more recently.. No doubt Cooke came to prominence at Bedford school but chose to travel to Chelmsford rather than Northampton to progress his career.

This is all from memory, but I think each side is allowed 8 or 9 full-time academy prospects who have to be named before each season and are not allowed to be changed once set. These all have to be over 16 years of age and have to be given a proper pathway to a career, including guarantees of coaching, second XI matches and targeted learning that the club has to honour, so not to just sign players on false promises.

Underneath this level, for every year group up till either 9 or 10 years of age, you have something (I cant remember the exact wording) like 'Interesting prospect status' which is essentially very young prospects that are going to be coached and play for the youth sides. These players are then subject to those location laws, so have to have been born in your county or be educated there, and cannot choose to move academies. Once joined, the county itself decides if they want to retain them (subject to the ECB deciding if its unreasonable). If memory serves a county can have loads of these, like 30 per year group. Hence the protection is needed, because you wouldnt want the 30th guy just about getting his chance to make up the numbers moving 600 miles and his parents quitting jobs and selling houses if two months later the punt turns out to be a bad one. So the idea is that the kids at this level are replaceable and are only driving a few miles to get the coaching and chance. No one is risking anything drastic other than the odd Tuesday night and some petrol money. Got to remember Westo that Arshard and Weighell could have joined Durham Academy as one of those junior prospects when they were 9, so this is near 20 years ago. The rules have changed now, so I dont know if they could now.

The only loophole I think can be exploited is through school. If a county really wanted to get a youngster they could in theory offer to pay for his boarding school, which would then mean the child would live in the county as per the rules. But then again in football the CAS have pounded teams for trying this. And the examples in football of parents moving to get kids past the rules have been swift.

I cant remember the lads name, but there was a very promising American kid who Barcelona signed as a teenager a few years back. If memory serves they were a hispanic family, his father was very well off and walked into a job in Barcelona, his mother found work...essentially they had risked nothing and made a very comfortable decision to give the kid a chance at La Mesia academy. FIFA slapped a worldwide ban on his registration and he spent 2 years unsuccessfully losing in court before moving back to the USA with his career pretty much over, having been barred from training legally at the most essential part of his development.

Not aware of a single case in cricket though. Maybe its of less importance and status, so people wouldnt bother. And the rules are ridiculously strict and well over what they are in football, the fact an East Londoner wouldnt be able to play for a North London county for instance is a bit mad. But I guess moving London suburbs is easy to get around and justify should a problem arise.

Needless to say the rules are a little stupid at times. There have been instances of kids being barred from moving to clubs that have offered them a 20k a term education, a free house and living costs with professionals looking after them, and a decent wage, on the grounds it was putting the kid at risk.... who more often than not lives in a sink estate, goes to a terrible school, and has terrible parents.

Imagine deciding a kid cant have a shot at Chelsea because the fact he might not make it and merely be guaranteed 5 years of schooling at Eton for free and his food paid for, is too much of a risk to take.

Some of the examples are mind boggling.

I fully empathise with those rules,uprooting a kid when there's no guarantee that he'll progress to a 1st class career either though lack of development or loss of interest. Very few are certs in their early teens-Bell, Root, Stokes probably.

Mitch Claydon suspended for ball tampering- after the fc season is over.

9 match ban with 6 of them already served

hand sanitiser I believe. Imagine if he'd used a pocketful of grit..... he could have a career as a highly regarded pundit to look forward to

Durhamfootman wrote:9 match ban with 6 of them already served

hand sanitiser I believe. Imagine if he'd used a pocketful of grit..... he could have a career as a highly regarded pundit to look forward to

Could have been sandpaper for a 12 month ban