Quotehanger

  • "In his case, I think we got him like free for something we bought."
    TC Mathew, the Indian team manager for the tour of Sri Lanka, isn't impressed by Paddy Upton, India's mental conditioning coach

    Sep 7, 2008

    • Recent Posts

    Try DVD rental for £3.99 per month!

    The headlines

    The news

    TWC



    Moores welcomes in The Clinic

    By Will last year, mid-May Leave a comment on this post

    The modern sportsman is not the sharp-tongued wordsmith he once was. The vast majority of players in most sports are given nicknames ending in “y”, more often than not preceded only by their surname. On Thursday, Straussy will captain; he will open with Cooky. Harmy will hopefully have woken up from his nightmare and, together with Hoggy, Freddie and Plunky, will form the basis of England’s attack for the summer. An attack whose every move will be monitored by, and every delivery collected by, Priory. Ah. That doesn’t quite work.

    Matt Prior. The England management have plenty to ponder in the next 48 hours, not least a suitable nickname for their new wicketkeeper. Give it another 48 hours, and we too will probably have one for him, because right now there’s no way he will sustain an England career by sharing a nickname with celebrities’ rehab clinic of choice. In fact, that will be his nickname: The Clinic.

    So is he the man for the job? Does his selection smack of Sussex favourism by Peter Moores, the new England coach who turned around the county’s fortunes? I was a little surprised, though not totally shocked; Prior had a decent A tour and is a firm favourite of many (if not Shane Warne who “humiliated” him a couple of years ago). Rumours are that Prior is bit of an aggressive so-and-so, not one to back down.

    All this is meaningless of course. He will be judged on each Test by the runs he scores and catches he spills. If he has a poor two or three, it will force an early and fascinating test of Moores’s leadership and loyalty.

    Tags: , , , , |

    8 Responses to “Moores welcomes in The Clinic”

  • thekeeper wrote:
    May 15th, 2007 at 1.18 am

    i Agree, so much, Why is matt Prior coming in, because he’s moores favorite, i have no problem with favorites, If we dropped every player who had a bad game/games in australia, then, Bye Bye Ian Bell, Andrew Strauss, Harmison, hoggard, Giles, Jones, AND ANDREW FLINTOFF. But There all diffrent, cause they have played well before….WELL SO HAS JONES. the only two mistakes Duncan fletcher made, was dropping jones, replacing him with Chris Read, who is clearly not liked by anyone, Jones is Loved by All except people who are perfectionists, if they stuck with jones he’d start to get scores, if they Stuck with Read, HE WOULDNT. For ONE Day Games NIXON SHOULD BE keeper, Hes impressed me, However Jones should be Top of the pecking order for tests, behind only mayb Paul nixon.

    THE PECKING ORDER AS SHOULD BE…
    Nixon
    Jones
    Sutton (Lancs)
    Prior
    Read
    Foster

  • KnightsinWhites wrote:
    May 15th, 2007 at 11.15 am

    How can anyone be forgetting John Batty from Surrey or David Nash of Middlesex? The reality is there are loads of decent wicket keepers in the county game and as i see it, we have 2 years to go through and trial as many as we can until one sticks out as a real performer. It seems a bit harsh, but we can use this time before the next ashes in 2009 to leave no stone unturned. We should try them all and make no effort to hide that is what we are doing. We need to find someone who can match Adam Gilchrist for Australia if we are to stand any chance of beating them, and that wont happen if we give them an easy ride. Even if we used 10 keepers between now and then, the cream will rise to the top!
    [sorry mod. for double post - accidently submitted in mid post]

  • wriggershen wrote:
    May 15th, 2007 at 11.51 am

    why does Batty not make it onto anyone’s lists?
    Surrey’s most successful wicket keeper batsman… and younger (by 4 years) than Nixon.

  • thekeeper wrote:
    May 15th, 2007 at 3.17 pm

    iv seen batty play quite a few times now, i live just down the road from surry’s ground, and while he is good with the bat and ok with the gloves….thats all he is very average, he never Sparks exctiement like your nixon or jones, Jones is always exciting cause he tends to take stunning catches, and drop sitters. as for nixon, one sentance sums it up, REVERSE SWEEP 6. We Will Never See another adam gilchrist, he is the worlds best. I did read something that intrested me the other day tho, Apparently Trescothick is a part time wicket-keeper, It would sort out the run problem for that position, and mean, we can have an extra batsmen/bowler in that postion. so ur bopara, Or Joyce, Or lewis, Or giles gets a shot at test cricket….TRESCOTHICK FOR ENGLAND KEEPER….Who can argue against that.

  • Bear wrote:
    May 15th, 2007 at 6.54 pm

    Thanks thekeeper for that well reasoned argument. I’d counter by saying that Tresco isn’t very good at keeping, and that perhaps he’s got other things on his mind at the moment, which probably wouldn’t be helped by having the most intensive fielding position thrust upon him.

    I’m happy with Prior for the time being - he should be told he’s got all summer to make the gloves his own; he’ll know then that if he makes runs (I’d say an average of 35 would do, so long as there’s a few big scores in there) and holds his catches over 7 tests, then he’ll keep the job. If he doesn’t, then it’s time to give someone else a go.

    I’ve no idea why Batty never gets a mention in despatches - I once saw a superb headline about him in the Telegraph - the subs obviously snuck this one past the editor, as they got away with “Batty bouys Surrey” after he’d scored a few runs one day. Genius.

  • Bob Le Ray wrote:
    May 16th, 2007 at 8.26 am

    Comments from “THE STUMPER!!!”

    Following your article “Moores welcomes The Clinic” and the 5 responses todate, I feel ‘obliged’ to offer my observations/opinions!

    Having once been described as one of the best wicketkeeper/stumpers outside County Cricket (I ran a very successful sporting business at that time), ‘having been ‘asked’ to consider coaching wicketkeeping at National Level (but refusing!) and having stood up to both Bob Willis and Richard Johnson (amongst others), I believe I have sufficient knowledge to pass comment.

    In answer to “the keeper’s” response first.

    His list of:
    Nixon
    Jones
    Sutton
    Prior
    Read
    Foster

    I’ll start from the top and I must reiterate that these are only my personal opinions!

    Paul Nixon
    Great team player. Average “pair of hands”. Mediocre with the bat. Too gobby for my liking!

    Geraint Jones
    Great team player. Excellent keeper with a lovely “pair of hands”. Very good bat (who would have gone alot further had the British Media not pulled their usual stunt of “putting someone up on a pedastal, only to shoot them down in flames at the earliest opportunity!”. )Not “too gobby/loud”. Well liked!

    Sutton
    I can’t honestly comment on him as there has been very little footage to observe. However, his ‘reports’ augur well for the future.

    Matt Prior.
    Obviously his selection is “influenced” by Moorsey working with him for many years. Average keeper. Average bat. Has already had opportunities ‘to shine’ in the National set up but hasn’t come up to the mark! (Better the devil you know than…springs to mind in his selection!)

    Chris Read
    Good team player. ‘Fairly good’ “pair of hands”, but keeps “Aussi Style” courtesy of his stint in the Australian Cricket Academy a few years ago-not good, in English conditions! Very average, end of order bat. Loud. ‘Allegedly’ not that well liked. Age is not in his favour.

    James Foster
    Good, professional team man. Very good “pair of hands”. Reasonable bat. Not too loud. Well liked on the circuit! His “only mistake”-was to have his arm broken in a freak batting accident in the nets, as a result of which he has been virtually ignored by the selectors ever since!

    So who do we have left?

    Marcus Trescothick’s name was brought up-Marcus is a great, specialist opening batsmen who is capable of putting the gloves on if desperately required! I need say no more!

    John Batty.
    Good County team man. Average “pair of hands”. Average bat. Age is not in his favour and more importantly he, like many I have watched, might struggle in the transition from County Cricket to the International scene!

    Davies
    Again, I have seen little footage to pass a valid comment but by all accounts from the guys on the circuit, he is certainly one for the future!

    So who are we left with?

    Described by Freddie Flintoff, as “One of the great characters on the County Circuit!”

    Andrew Strauss: “Plays with a smile on his face, day in, day out-a ball of energy in the dressing room!”

    Phil Tufnell: “A top bloke! Through the good and not so good times we have always managed to have a laugh on the way!”

    Angus Fraser: “‘He’ is exactly the person that the benefit system was set up for. He has been working and been a valuable servant of Middlesex CCC for the past 13 years!”

    Only 1 person (KnightsinWhites) has even mentioned his name!

    If the wicketkeeping/batsmen position in the England set up is dictated by their ability to score runs, (all things being fairly equal with having a “nice pair of hands”, by all the other keepers mentioned), this young man has already scored 3 tons this season, plus several other very usefull contributions!!! At the moment he is seeing the ball like a football!!! (I personally believe that if he were allowed to open the innings in the 1 day games he would become an even greater success!)

    He has a beautiful “pair of hands”, very, very good, underestimated batsmen, great, extremely popular team man and has played, successfully, for England at U.19 level. Last but not least, he knows all the vaguries/nuances of the Lords wickets where he has kept for the last 13 years!!!!!

    I am talking of course about DAVID NASH!!!

    He is the only man, prolifically in form with the bat! He is not quite a Knotty, Bob Taylor or Jack Russell with the gloves but he is certainly up there with the very best!

    To me, it is a “no brainer!” To me, it is simply “common sense!” BUT!!! “Common sense is NOT very common in this day and age!!!”

  • Bob Le Ray wrote:
    May 16th, 2007 at 8.47 am

    Hi

    My name is Bob Le Ray aka “THE STUMPER”

    I have sent a lengthy e-mail in response to your article, but, not being that computer literate, I appear to be unable to retrieve it!

    Could you please confirm (one way or the other) if my comments arrived.

    Many thanks

    Regards

    Bob Le Ray

  • thekeeper wrote:
    August 12th, 2007 at 1.54 am

    HAHA, i love being right, Sky sports did a poll, this is how sky sports views the situation:
    Read
    Jones
    prior
    foster
    nixon

    PLEASE BRING BACK GERIANT, he’s had his telling off.
    Prior is a very good county wicket keeper, he just cant do it at top level, jones has, and can.
    All i see atm is Byes byes byes, ducks ducks ducks, jones cant do worse than that, he’s the best liked by the team, whichever team he plays in, seems to get a boost, bowler keeper realtionships are incredibly important, and the bowlers just seem to like jones the best, so why not pick someone who is liked, and can do the job rather than prior, who looks a bit “gobby” as u phrase it, and cant do the job.

    • Comments

    Receive email updates on new comments


    « Empty your pockets for charity | Main | A French XI »