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England’s 25 man development squad

By Will 4 years ago, at the start of May Leave a comment on this post

Encouraging news today as England announced a 25-man development squad. This is an increase of 13, and, basically, gives Duncan Fletcher the power to reduce the amount of cricket played by any of these 25 if he deems it necessary (and it is, very, necessary). Ironic (and potentially confusing), isn’t it, that the top 25 players in the country are grouped together to play less cricket in order to play for their country. But such is the round-robin, hectic nature of county cricket that these measures have to be taken.

Since central contracts came in a few years ago, injuries have decreased and performance has improved - England have had (and now have 13 more) centrally contracted players, all of whom have had been very carefully managed. Increasing this pool to 25 is an excellent and encouraging move, and also shows how respect Duncan Fletcher has become. It is he, along with David Graveney, who pushed for central contracts in the first place.

Here are the players:

England development squad: Michael Vaughan, Kabir Ali, James Anderson, Gareth Batty, Ian Bell, Mark Butcher, Paul Collingwood, Andrew Flintoff, Ashley Giles, Darren Gough, Stephen Harmison, Matthew Hoggard, Geraint Jones, Simon Jones, Robert Key, Jon Lewis, Kevin Pietersen, Chris Read, Vikram Solanki, Andrew Strauss, Graeme Swann, Chris Tremlett, Graham Thorpe, Marcus Trescothick, Alex Wharf.

I was pleased to see Chris Tremlett included, along with Pietersen, Bell and Key who all three are fighting for just 2 places. Tremlett looks useful, but I do have concerns about his pace or lack thereof…

More at the Beeb and Cricinfo of course

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7 Responses to “England’s 25 man development squad”

  • Nick Mallory wrote:
    May 6th, 2005 at 9.13 pm

    Has playing virtually no cricket for two years, despite being fit and raring to go, actually helped James Anderson’s career?

    How many young players go on a modern, all international, tour, play virtually no cricket in three or four months, get into bad habits and come back ruined as players for the future?

    If playing cricket is so bad for players, why do we let them play at all. We should rest our test players from all test matches and find ourselves world beaters.

    The serious point is this. Where is the incentive for counties to produce good young english players when the ECB can come up with a ‘development’ squad and forbid them from playing for their county, even when they’re not in the test team? Kolpak players may not be brilliant, but at least they’re willing and able to play when you need them.

    Paying counties to produce english players, as is the current idea, merely highlights the existence of the problem, rather than offering a real solution. County cricket is not just a glorified practise arena for the test elite, though Radio FiveLive, in its rare moments of cricket coverage between the horrific avalanche of moronic football, seems to think otherwise. For county cricket to produce good test players it has to be competitive, and taking all the best English players out of it only weakens it more.

  • Will wrote:
    May 7th, 2005 at 8.40 pm

    Nick, thanks for the thoughts. You’re right in the sense the development squad does take away all our best players (assuming the selectorial process is correct/fair). But the argument against yours is: if these “best players” are left to their own devices, and left to the coaching of county staff, they’ll start to rot. It’s widely documented that county players play too much cricket - I for one beleive that, and far better judges such as Angus Fraser also acknowledge how central contracts have improved the quality of English cricket.

    So, it’s 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. Either they stay with their counties, as in the pre-central-contract era, which a) allows aspiring players to learn from these better players at first hand or b) these better players play too much cricket, get fatigued/complacent/injured.

    Or

    A small, select group of the best English players are grouped together forming a select squad. This a) gives the national coach the confidence to choose quality players to play for their country..players who he knows and has worked with, and b) the players - due to working and playing closely together - get a better idea of exactly the requirements of Test cricket. In other words, it’s bridging the gap between county cricket and Test cricket, and that’s why it gets my vote.

    It’s not perfect - and I do agree with a lot of what you say. Thoughts welcome…

  • artegall wrote:
    June 10th, 2005 at 10.40 am

    I played against Chris (T) for quite a while in my teens - our clubs always seemed to come up against each other - and I have to say I’ve been surprised by his success. He really isn’t that fast at all - or at least wasn’t last time we played, when we were both about 18. Whenever I played him he struck me as a v.g. batsman, in fact, and I always presumed if he was going to make it, it’d be as that.

  • Will wrote:
    June 12th, 2005 at 11.48 am

    THanks for the comments, artegall - interesting. Tremlett is regarded as a “useful” bat now, probably hence why Fletcher’s keen on him as he has more than one dimension to his cricket.

  • artegall wrote:
    June 12th, 2005 at 10.45 pm

    It’s a very strange world, professional sport. I played with or against another 2 players in the Hants squad for many years (Prettipaul and Kenway), and I’d never have guessed at the time that they’d be the ones who’d make it.

    While Shane Warne etc. were always going to be successful, it seems for many that luck plays a huge part - injuries, coming into form at the right time, taking your chances etc.

    I was lucky, in that I realised I was never going to be good enough quite early on, and so my school + uni career was fine - but I know a fair few who believed, with some justification, that they’d make it, didn’t, and have had their lives ruined to some extent. All very sad - so I hope CT goes all the way.

  • Will wrote:
    June 12th, 2005 at 10.55 pm

    You’re right - it’s very strange (in this country, anyway). I went to school with the late Nick Duncombe who died a couple of years ago - he made his debut for England’s Rugby Union team shortly before tragically dying “out of the blue.” At school, it was pretty obvious he was going to be a sportsman - he broke nearly every record going, in every sport, and was by far the best sportsman at the school. But there were others, too, that really should have made it (in football and rugby) and clearly haven’t - so, luck, fortune and money do play a big part. Nick just had raw ability, right from when I first met him aged 10(!) - ability and desire, culminating in playing for your country…and then dying, just like that. Tragic.

    As an aside…when I was 11 or 12, we played this school who were a right bunch of snobs. They rolled up in their pristine school-van (ours was blue/grey, no seat-belts, rusting, and never started), and we realised they all had brand new Newbury bats. Why? we asked. One of the Dads owned the company, and *everyone’s* gear was all brand new. We had 3 bats between the entire team, and only 2 pairs of batting gloves! We had great fun though…

  • artegall wrote:
    June 13th, 2005 at 12.59 pm

    I have an extraordinary record when it comes to playing people who are far better than me and looking very silly…apart from the aforementioned, I also played league cricket in Devon for one year, which shouldn’t be that terrifying, except that for some reason best known to himself Stuart MacGill decided to play for Tiverton that season.

    I faced 6 balls and got a bat on one of them. Nevertheless the over yielded 16 runs, because their keeper had less of a clue as to what was going on than I did. He took 88 wickets in 18 games, and would have had a league record had he not been banned for showing dissent.

    Before that, our school went on a tour to Barbados, where a young fast bowler made me look very silly indeed. After three overs of grit, determination, edges and bruises, he was replaced by a donkey-dropping off spinner, who bowled me first ball. This was upsetting, but the next time I saw that bowler was when Tino Best turned out for the Windies.

    Oh, and the most scared I’ve ever been was when I went out to bat in a cap, only to realise that Jason Lewry had turned out for his club, and wanted to bowl first change.

    I don’t know why it happens to me. I now only play Sunday friendlies, but wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Shoaib turning out for the pub down my road…


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