County Championship discussion thread 2015

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yorks, 11 points behind early season pacesetters Durham, with a game in hand. Well placed given the difficulty of operating without established stars.

[captaincolly]

Yorks, 11 points behind early season pacesetters Durham, with a game in hand. Well placed given the difficulty of operating without established stars.

Yorkshire have such strength in depth, very impressive to keep playing so well with players away on England duty.

[Making_Splinters]

Yorks, 11 points behind early season pacesetters Durham, with a game in hand. Well placed given the difficulty of operating without established stars.

Yorkshire have such strength in depth, very impressive to keep playing so well with players away on England duty.

Really good article on the Yorkshire Academy system

http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cricket-2015/content/story/885915.html

[Arthur Crabtree]

Not just with players being taken, but with different players being taken.

[hopeforthebest]

Yorks, 11 points behind early season pacesetters Durham, with a game in hand. Well placed given the difficulty of operating without established stars.

Yorkshire have such strength in depth, very impressive to keep playing so well with players away on England duty.

Warwickshire were doing it for years with Bell, Trott and then Woaks unavailable. I's the price of success.

[captaincolly]

Yorks, 11 points behind early season pacesetters Durham, with a game in hand. Well placed given the difficulty of operating without established stars.

Yorkshire have such strength in depth, very impressive to keep playing so well with players away on England duty.

Warwickshire were doing it for years with Bell, Trott and then Woaks unavailable. I's the price of success.

True, It is a great achievement when teams both produce international players and also manage to succeed consistently in domestic cricket.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Yorks have released seven players for full squads this season, which is unusually high.

[captaincolly]

I think the game at the end of the month between Yorkshire and Durham is in the gap between the end of the ODI series and start of the Ashes so it will be interesting to see if the England players are available.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I doubt Root will play. But all the others Yorks players could well. Stokes and Wood may miss out, as all format players.

[captaincolly]

I read in a newspaper that England are likely to play a Wood in only a couple of ODI games to manage his workload ahead of the Ashes, I suppose there's a chance they might feel a 4 day game would be useful. If neither Stokes or Wood play I will have my excuses ready for the defeat

[Arthur Crabtree]

Wood hardly has any first team experience, you'd think he could do with playing quite a lot. He's not a kid who'd get shin splints and back problems.

[captaincolly]

He supposedly had a minor niggle after the Headingley test so he's being treated carefully, has had a terrible injury record so probably wise to look after him. Important though to get the right balance between play and rest.

[sussexpob]

Yorks, 11 points behind early season pacesetters Durham, with a game in hand. Well placed given the difficulty of operating without established stars.

Yorkshire have such strength in depth, very impressive to keep playing so well with players away on England duty.

Really good article on the Yorkshire Academy system

http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cricket-2015/content/story/885915.html

Participation figures for each county and relative populations heavily favour Yorkshire having by far the biggest pool of players. I think the whole South East has slightly less players than Yorkshire, and that is several historical cricket counties included in the figures.

Is this anything to do with what Yorkshire are doing, or is it simply the fact that cricket is popular in this section of the country compared to other places? If anything, numbers suggest that by county, they should be producing quite a big proportion of international players.

As for the academy system at Yorkshire, I dont think that Plunkett can be included as a Yorkshire find, I would guess he was capped as a Durham player? And Ballance had played for Zimbabwe representative sides before he came to England, and I think Derbyshire signed him and gave him second grade cricket but then lost him to a Yorkshire team willing to pay him more.

[Durhamfootman]

Plunkett was born in Middlesbrough, which any Yorky would tell you means that he's a Yorkshireman born and bred (the old boundary line between Yorkshire and Co Durham being the river Tees).

I've always interpreted the saying that 'when Yorkshire is strong, England is strong' as a reflection on the strength of the Yorkshire leagues, which must be by far the biggest pool of young players anywhere in the country, from which talent can emerge

[westoelad]

A strong league structure is essential now that there is no organised cricket in schools as it is in clubs that kids are introduced to cricket nowadays. It's no coincidence that the 2 NE counties have the most productive academy systems because of the strong league structure here. The only downside of the pyrami structure imo is the increasing trend towards paying player's to play in the premier league. If you're going to pay them make coaching part of their contract.