England need to select another Essex

Currently in the England test squad there is just Alastair Cook as the sole Essex county player. So with the news that Kevin Pietersen is out of the NZ test series, should England's selectors use this opportunity of blooding another Essex player. One such candidate is the current Essex skipper Tom Westley who has made a very impressive start to this county season with a highest score of 163 and an overall batting average at around 96.

Struggling to follow the logic why there is a particular need to up the Essex representation in the England side. Other options could include (yet) another recall for Bopara. Or Napier as the rightful heir to Botham (cf his exploits with bat and ball yesterday)

Corporalhumblebucket wrote:Struggling to follow the logic why there is a particular need to up the Essex representation in the England side. Other options could include (yet) another recall for Bopara. Or Napier as the rightful heir to Botham (cf his exploits with bat and ball yesterday)

Simply because I believe in the adage that in today's modern county cricket a strong Essex means a strong England, as was the case back in the 1950's when a strong Surrey meant a strong England and in the 1960's when a strong Yorkshire meant a strong England.

A bit like NSW and Australia.

The good news for you guys is Qld and Tasmania have been dominating all forms, especially Shield cricket.

NSW came third this year but many players coming and going - also an argument could be made that because we provide more players in the national side; the State team is often handicapped.

Since 1982, of the total 104 `players who have made their debut in the Australian side 27 of them were from NSW(9 in each decade). But unfortunately only 9 of them were able to put a remark globally. But still this list is topped by the NSW players.
Players Percentage
NSW 28 27%
WA 20 19%
Qld 18 17%
Vic 16 15%
Tas 10 10%
SA 12 12%
Here truly stated by LB that NSW give more players to the national side.

What about India, kumar?

Mumbai has dominated the Ranji Trophy - so are players from there most represented... or is it spread around the other states?

No doubt Mumbai has given some of the best players to the Indian Side Since the evolution of Indian Cricket. But the days have changed now, though I don't
have the stats now but After sachin Mumbai has failed to provide players to the nation side. You can see only Agarkar and Jaffer and Zaheer have played Test for the team. I am really glad to see that test cricket has taken all of India. Presently we have players from all round the country. You can see Indian side have players from south, West, East, north. Though With Sehwag, Gambhir, Kohli, Ishant, Dhawan in the team it looked like Delhi's domination, but still I will say that cricket has now shifted from big cities to small town. Players like Dhoni, Dinda, RP singh, Umesh Yadav, Munaf Patel, Jadeja, and many other have came from different small towns or villages in India. So I feel the domination of Mumbai in Indian Cricket has ended.

Going back to the eminently sensible point made by the Corporal, albeit perhaps a tad too understated for the opening poster, if we are to cram our national team with players from one county shouldn't it be a county doing better than Essex?

There was reasons also of Mumbai domination earlier because after British brought this game to India, It was mostly imitated by the people of Bombay. I was reading a book of RC GUHA. He has written that cricket in India first started in Bombay and it would be interesting to know that the British and Indians have continuous fight over playground issues for playing cricket and polo. British want the ground allocated to Gymkhana because they want to play POLO, a sub-continent game, and Indians want to play Cricket, a game from Britain.

After Sachin Tendulkar, Mumbai hasn't produced a test cricketer who could hold on to his place for long. Even Zaheer for that matter emerged through Beroda, and shifted to Mumbai latter in his career, after he had made it into the Indian team. Sanjay Manjrekar was Sachin's contemporary. Ajit Agarkar was one of India's leading ODI bowlers but failed to transform that to the test level, wasim Jaffer hasn't been quite consistent, Salil Ankola, Paras Mambrey, Nilesh Kulkarni, Sairaj Bahutule....... didn't really take their chances. Amol Muzumdar never got to play for India.
Ajinkya Rahane is the big hope for India from Mumbai, and many people think Rohit Sharma also has the potential to become a quality test player.

They need to select Chris Woakes, that's who.

Fists of Fury wrote:They need to select Chris Woakes, that's who.

Chris Woakes isn't the answer, unless the question is who should carry James Taylor's drinks.

JDizzle wrote:

Fists of Fury wrote:They need to select Chris Woakes, that's who.

Chris Woakes isn't the answer, unless the question is who should carry James Taylor's drinks.

Well Tom Westley certainly can be if he can keep up his impressive start to this season's county championship where he averages 96 with the bat.

The Only Way Is Essex, then boycs?







(sorry cf) ... had to slip that one in somehow.

gboycottnut wrote: Well Tom Westley certainly can be if he can keep up his impressive start to this season's county championship where he averages 96 with the bat.

Last three innings all under 40 so his average will be heading southwards.