English Cricket Thread

[sussexpob]

Well, at least he has found peace.....

[Slipstream]

England Lions 12-man squad

Farhan Ahmed (Nottinghamshire)
Zaman Akhter (Gloucestershire)
Kasey Aldridge (Somerset)
Josh Hull (Leicestershire)
Eddie Jack (Hampshire)
Lyndon James (Nottinghamshire)
Ben McKinney (Durham)
Ollie Price (Gloucestershire)
James Rew (Somerset)
Hamza Shaikh (Warwickshire)
Ajeet Singh Dale (Gloucestershire)
Rob Yates (Warwickshire)

Very different to Lions who went on tour. Thought Cook and Lawes would be in it...

[sussexpob]

England Lions 12-man squad

This squad is basically a list of the quickest bowlers available under 25 in the county game, irrespective of quality or experience, and in some cases absolutely embarrassing form or returns. No surprise there really, this is Rob Key's wet dream team. I guess Key will be saying that this is an attack that can buy a wicket at anytime, and everyone seems to love the Gloucestershire pace battery from Dale and Akhtar.... The fact they have won 1 in about 30 CC matches in Division 2 with this vaunted pace barrage, and that win was the result of Tom Price's 8-20 bowling at about 60mph military medium pace, is absolutely meaningless.

Averaging 50 against Division 2 batters ....pah. Who cares.... give these boys a less helpful pitch with no lateral movement, a dead Kookaburra ball, 7 world class bats as opposed some 29 year old journeyman at his 7th county in as many years, and watch these boys fly.

This is the worst Lions team ever. Its not even a team, its a concept.

Since when was the Lions an Academy team too? The Lions should be the second best 11 players in the country proving they can step up against a better quality A team.... having barely 16 year olds or other teenagers who cant get games in their county sides is a waste of time. The Lions is not a nursery team, its the step before International cricket.

I really do not like where Rob Key is taking English cricket.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Used to be an experienced county pro who never quite made it with England as captain of these sides. I bet Key played that role a few times. Rew is the older player here, but not captain of his county.

[Slipstream]

England Lions 12-man squad

This squad is basically a list of the quickest bowlers available under 25 in the county game, irrespective of quality or experience, and in some cases absolutely embarrassing form or returns. No surprise there really, this is Rob Key's wet dream team. I guess Key will be saying that this is an attack that can buy a wicket at anytime, and everyone seems to love the Gloucestershire pace battery from Dale and Akhtar.... The fact they have won 1 in about 30 CC matches in Division 2 with this vaunted pace barrage, and that win was the result of Tom Price's 8-20 bowling at about 60mph military medium pace, is absolutely meaningless.

Averaging 50 against Division 2 batters ....pah. Who cares.... give these boys a less helpful pitch with no lateral movement, a dead Kookaburra ball, 7 world class bats as opposed some 29 year old journeyman at his 7th county in as many years, and watch these boys fly.

This is the worst Lions team ever. Its not even a team, its a concept.

Since when was the Lions an Academy team too? The Lions should be the second best 11 players in the country proving they can step up against a better quality A team.... having barely 16 year olds or other teenagers who cant get games in their county sides is a waste of time. The Lions is not a nursery team, its the step before International cricket.

I really do not like where Rob Key is taking English cricket.

Agree

[sussexpob]

Very different to Lions who went on tour. Thought Cook and Lawes would be in it...

Well, Mo Bobat has gone in the meantime, so changes were likely. I did laugh that he was proclaimed as the second coming when he landed at RCB, and then half way into the season the RCB fans wanted him buried alive. I am not sure if he was sacked in the end..... he is now working as a scout for Derby County in football.

In the meantime, the ECB hired Ed Barney. Ed has spent the last 11 years in British Field Hockey, taking over as performance director after 2016. It made me giggle when the ECB claimed he improved hockey in the UK when his oversaw a bronze medal in the 2020 games...... England did win a Gold medal in the Olympics before, so I am struggling to see how going first to 3rd was "improving".... and then this Olympics, the teams he created were both terrible. Seems like a inspired choice.

Barney did work under Flower for a couple of years.... remember that period after the India away victory where the team slowly declined from the best in the world to getting annihilated, and unable to pick a single player who came into the team and wasn't dropped? And then that lasted for years after.... Well, that was Barney. The ECB sold that as qualification for a promotion.

The thing I really dont get is, England Youth Lions played a series recently v Sri Lanka. There are several players in the full Lions who could have played in that team, but were overlooked and hung around their academy teams instead. So its pretty weird they werent good enough to play SL under-19s, but are good enough to play Sri Lanka A.

The only players out of both Youth/Full Lions to make this squad are Price, who is going on 24 and has a poor record in the CC... and Ahmed, who is 16 and didn't exactly blow everyone away in the Youth Lions series. In one of the two 4 days games he returned 1 for 100 plus. Kasey Alridge also played in India in the warm up game when England did their classic substitute everyone into the game and make it no long FC match trick.

[Durhamfootman]

Ben Stokes had to be carried off the field with an apparent hamstring injury playing in the Bollox tonight

The ECB make him play, even though it falls between 2 test series, to try and boost the profile of their very silly idea, so that hasn't backfired at all.... take a *modded* boo, Einstein

Guardians of the game?

my @rse!

Stokes to miss the rest of the summer with a hamstring tear

What's the betting the ECB will let him have a Supercharger free year next year with an ashes tour around the corner

[Durhamfootman]

Warks have agreed to release Liam Norwell from his contract. I have no idea what he plans to do, but he hasn't bowled a ball in senior cricket for almost 2 years

[Slipstream]

Very different to Lions who went on tour. Thought Cook and Lawes would be in it...

Well, Mo Bobat has gone in the meantime, so changes were likely. I did laugh that he was proclaimed as the second coming when he landed at RCB, and then half way into the season the RCB fans wanted him buried alive. I am not sure if he was sacked in the end..... he is now working as a scout for Derby County in football.

In the meantime, the ECB hired Ed Barney. Ed has spent the last 11 years in British Field Hockey, taking over as performance director after 2016. It made me giggle when the ECB claimed he improved hockey in the UK when his oversaw a bronze medal in the 2020 games...... England did win a Gold medal in the Olympics before, so I am struggling to see how going first to 3rd was "improving".... and then this Olympics, the teams he created were both terrible. Seems like a inspired choice.

Barney did work under Flower for a couple of years.... remember that period after the India away victory where the team slowly declined from the best in the world to getting annihilated, and unable to pick a single player who came into the team and wasn't dropped? And then that lasted for years after.... Well, that was Barney. The ECB sold that as qualification for a promotion.

The thing I really dont get is, England Youth Lions played a series recently v Sri Lanka. There are several players in the full Lions who could have played in that team, but were overlooked and hung around their academy teams instead. So its pretty weird they werent good enough to play SL under-19s, but are good enough to play Sri Lanka A.

The only players out of both Youth/Full Lions to make this squad are Price, who is going on 24 and has a poor record in the CC... and Ahmed, who is 16 and didn't exactly blow everyone away in the Youth Lions series. In one of the two 4 days games he returned 1 for 100 plus. Kasey Alridge also played in India in the warm up game when England did their classic substitute everyone into the game and make it no long FC match trick.

Mo Bobat now working as a scout for Derby County in football. He's come down in the world. Probably thought he would be big in the RCB by now. So is Ed Barney stilll in the same job?

Wonder how the Lions will get on tomorrow.

[sussexpob]

Mo Bobat now working as a scout for Derby County in football. He's come down in the world. Probably thought he would be big in the RCB by now. So is Ed Barney stilll in the same job? Wonder how the Lions will get on tomorrow.

I am not sure if RCB sacked him or if he even works there anymore, but when Bobat joined RCB there was a lot of fanfare about him coming in as some supremo who would find the best Indians to supplement the squad, then they had a horror show start and I seen a lot of criticism of what he was doing in India. Then he appeared in English football....

I don't think he is officially a scout, they gave him some Cyberpunk film title for his job.... "head of the football intelligence unit" or something like that. Makes him feel more special, I guess.

Ed Barney as far as I am aware is his direct replacement. He was a talent scout in CC under Flower, but now he is responsible for all the pathways. Key cites his work in hockey as leaving a legacy of vast improvement....

The result show he took the Gold Medal winners and reduced them to a poor side, but I dont know anything about hockey

[Slipstream]

Well I am shocked at the bowling figures

Hull 10-1-30-3 ( f/c average 79.70 econ 4.95)
Akhtar 11.5-3-32-5 (f/c 47.00 econ 4.05)

Karunaratne is 9th in the ICC rankings

[sussexpob]

Caught a bit of it in the last couple of days. The pitch seems incredibly weird..... had a bit of everything early on day 1, but yesterday all the pace disappeared from it. By the end of the day it looked unbelieveably slow, so I dont know if there was a lot of live grass left on it that has died and took all the bounce and pace out.

England's bowlers should find it much, much harder to nip out SL in the second innings. If they can make inroads on Day 3, it will be pretty impressive, because late yesterday it looked like conditions youd back yourself to make a score in.

Kumara is an out and out fast bowler, so its not like SL didn't have some sheer pace either. Even he had the ball coming off the pitch at slow mo.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Isn't that Lions squad just intended to avoid taking recognisable names out of the current franchise competition?

[Durhamfootman]

Oi.... that's commie talk mister

[Durhamfootman]

ECB have pulled Atkinson from the Nonsense final, because they don't want to take any risks

Once again the ECB shut the stable door after the horses have bolted

guardians of the game?

my @rse!