KP of the Overflow - Continued....

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And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him

In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,

And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,

And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.



The real question is - how many times can a thread get bumped to make the same point ad nauseam?

Tiger / Goose - I don't disagree with either of your last points. The point I was more trying to make is that it's difficult for a good or even top quality batsman to get out of Division 2 and prove himself against better bowlers if his fellow team mates are not good enough to achieve promotion.

Thus, someone shouldn't be automatically discounted for an international call up just because he's playing in Div 2. I appreciate you didn't say that but your posts (and earlier ones) were leaning too far in that direction for me.

Certainly if a Div 1 player is scoring the same amount of runs (or even slightly less) than a Div 2 player, then it's the Div 1 player I'm going to be initially most interested in. That's only fair as he's up against a better standard of opposition and I appreciate the selectors taking the same approach. I haven't seen anything of Vince this season but his scores suggest he has to re-find form, whatever division he is in. Some allowance can be made for him facing better bowlers but it shouldn't be assumed he would once more average 61.00 (his 2014 CC average) if he was immediately and magically reinstated in a Div 2 side against Div 2 bowlers.

One of the proposals from the ECB concerning a shake up that I heard about this week (from Richard Gould, CEO at Surrey - he's a suit but knows what he's talking about) is to bring in 3 extra counties and have three divisions of 7 county teams. Given that so many of the current counties are on skid row, that struck Gould and myself as ridiculous!

Not saying that at all, but I suspect that the selectors tend to lean that way.

Actually I am starting to feel that the selectors do not rate CC at all, and prefer to see players in the various training and development camps first and assess "character".

Lord alone knows what we can do with county cricket. currently it is not fit for purpose. It does not produce players ready to step up for England and most counties are close to bankruptcy.

I heard talk of Devon/Cornwall making a combined bid for county status.

Id assume the third teir would be semi pro, and actually it may make some sense. It also achieves the goal of reducing the number of games and freeing up space for a proper T20 competition ( Quite how the third tier sides would fit into that I not sure though. ) The second tier would in theory be of higher quality than the current one too.

LT its often noted by pundits that they dont pay a lot of attention to county stats (Vaughans first class record vs that of ramprakash for example) and quite a few at the top have a pretty low opinion of the county game.
The performance squads and central contacts system was all part of england wanting to take control of developing and assesing the top players away from the counties ( it also seems the ecb has a pretty low opinion of a lot of county coaching)
Its also notable that England often look for a type of player first to fill a role, Farbrace has already said hes picked any old left arm quick he can think of just because they need one in the odi side....rather than going for the 11 best players then picking a side.
The character thing came up a few years ago after another one of their "what do the aussies do that we dont" reviews. And tbf its something Lehamn did when he came in picking a side of "good blokes" like rogers rather than theoretically brilliant players like hughes and Kqklasjkdha. Engand on the other hand seem to pick good chaps who either know Gooch or who have had their action remodelled at Loughborough to slow them down to 80mph.

It would be a lot easier if they just posted a poll on here and let us pick the team.

Gooseberry wrote:...

It would be a lot easier if they just posted a poll on here and let us pick the team.

With presumably a long service award being given to anyone making two consecutive appearances.

Thanks for the other details.

Is that the end, then? So England have lost for good a batsman of a generation? Pietersen can be proud of what he did for Surrey among other things, and the clowns at the ECB including Andrew Strauss can learn a thing or 2 from the Surrey management team that has facilitated such an amazing performance from a special talent like Pietersen, his Surrey record is as good as that of anyone else who played for the club.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cricket-2015/content/story/884047.html

I touched on this being likely to be Pietersen's final first class match earlier this week on the "Surrey news/articles" thread. It was very much written for the Surrey boys here but I'm sure none of them will mind if other posters read it.

I will be kind of relieved if it is the end. You never know, it might stop a certain poster spamming every thread on the forum with rubbish about him (that's not you msp by the way!). Probably not though!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/kevinpietersen/11652998/Broken-county-system-is-damaging-our-national-side.html

In two weeks, KP has gone from thinking 355 absolutely proves he's ready for Test cricket to thinking he was facing throwdowns. Can't ever accuse him of being consistent.

Completely agree with him, of course, just find his view rather amusing.

Benkenstein was interviewed last night in the T20 and asked about the difference between D2, which Hants were in last year, and D1.

He basically said that there was no depth of quality in D2, whereas in D1 there is rarely any let up in the intensity from the players, and change bowlers keep the pressure on.

kingraf wrote:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/kevinpietersen/11652998/Broken-county-system-is-damaging-our-national-side.html

In two weeks, KP has gone from thinking 355 absolutely proves he's ready for Test cricket to thinking he was facing throwdowns. Can't ever accuse him of being consistent.

Completely agree with him, of course, just find his view rather amusing.

To be fair he was saying this stuff before ( in relation to T20 franchises) and you have to back him on it. Div1 isn't the greatest and has plenty of makeweights and less of the biggest name internationals than it used to... But the gap to div 2 has grown.
It's increasingly becoming an irrelevance and not producing players ready to step straight into international cricket

If we create an English big Bash then it would have to be franchises and played at a time when England's international players are available. This would mean re-arranging the entire domestic calendar including internationals. In fact it may well rerquire the entire international window to be played with.

If I were to have a free hand with the domestic calendar I would do something like:

May - August County Championship
Three divisions of 6 teams playing home and away. bottom team relegated/top promoted.
In May play weekly starting on a Saturday.
Through the Summer play every other week starting on a Tuesday
Teams allowed a second oversees player if they do not use Kolpak players.

June-August One Day Competitions
Two competitions, 20 over and 50 over.
3 regional conferences. Matches played home and away at the weekend.
August used for knock-out matches.
Same rule re oversees players.

September English Bash League
A three week competition with 9 franchises to be run by the ECB and all profits shared among the counties. Eight pool matches spread across the first two weeks, four home matches per team. Then on Wednesday/Thursday of 3rd week we have 1/4 finals day, two grounds used one each day hosting two 1/4 finals.
Then a finals day at the weekend at a 3rd ground.
Franchises would need to be based in large conurbations and large grounds. Rules over floodlight use probably preclude Lords - so teams in Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Nottingham, Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, London South (Oval) and London East (Olympic stadium with a drop in pitch).
Franchises have first call on local stars (so Joe Root made available to Leeds first etc)
Four oversees players allowed in a squad, but only 3 to play.


any way some ideas

Sign me up.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/923155.html