quote:

Originally posted by holcs:

quote:

Originally posted by Toga:
There'll never be enough homegrown talent to support a high or even just adequate level of competition between 18 first class teams in this country without a serious influx of foreign talent.

In the case of the mighty 'rey, they have on absolute filthmonger of a bogus overseas player, though not technically a Kolpaker(?), in the form of Mohammed Akram. At the same time the Academy of Dreams hasn't churned out a bowler worth five fingers of love for many a year. I'm very sceptical if the talent's out there to be usurped by the evil immigrant cricketing workers in the first place.

Tom, alot of the lack of seamers is to do with the pitches in Surrey being in the majority slow, low turners. No wonder no bugger wants to bowl fast!

True of the Oval, I'd be surprised if that was true of every surface in Surrey. Besides they're not producing many spinners or batsmen either.

I'm sure it was RTD.

Whoever it was is missing the point. They were in form at the time - meanwhile he had just come back from injury.

Some of his performances for the 2nds were shocking and unprofessional, there's no way he should have walked straight back in the team.

quote:

Originally posted by MoC:
Interesting everyone is putting the boot into the journeyman players- what about the likes of Peter Such and Alex Wharf who moved countys before getting international recognition? Such cases go to show that players can improve and peak later- whereas by picking a Kolpak buffoon, you are both depriving a youngster of a potential place, as well as removing the possibility that one of the players you are decrying will improve sufficently to be worth a place.

Incidently- why isn't Wharf playing in the OD stuff now? Could hardly be worse than the current lot......

Wharf was struggling to make the utterly moribund Glamorgan team last season.

At CC or OD level?

quote:

Originally posted by Toga:

quote:

Originally posted by holcs:

quote:

Originally posted by Toga:
There'll never be enough homegrown talent to support a high or even just adequate level of competition between 18 first class teams in this country without a serious influx of foreign talent.

In the case of the mighty 'rey, they have on absolute filthmonger of a bogus overseas player, though not technically a Kolpaker(?), in the form of Mohammed Akram. At the same time the Academy of Dreams hasn't churned out a bowler worth five fingers of love for many a year. I'm very sceptical if the talent's out there to be usurped by the evil immigrant cricketing workers in the first place.

Tom, alot of the lack of seamers is to do with the pitches in Surrey being in the majority slow, low turners. No wonder no bugger wants to bowl fast!

True of the Oval, I'd be surprised if that was true of every surface in Surrey. Besides they're not producing many spinners or batsmen either.

In the premier league:

Sutton - Slow normal turner
Reigate Priory - seamers deck. pace and bounce
Guildford - seamers graveyard
Wimbledon - dull cricket
Farnham - green top, or slow spinner
Weybridge - good cricket wicket
Dulwich - good cricket wicket
Normandy - slow low
Sunbury - seamers graveyard, slow low
Avorians - good deck.

Most of those decks are not ones I would want to bowl seam up on.

I reckon that Kolpak players help to raise the standard of county cricket - the stats show that clearly enough. Counties wouldn't be paying them good money if they weren't scoring runs / taking wickets.

I think the 'taking the place of a home-grown youngster' argument is a lazy one. In reality they tend to remove the weaker players from the system, replacing the worst players in the XI - the ones who would never play for England. The cream generally rises to the top.

The standard of the football Premier League has risen dramatically over the past 10 years now that there is about 50-60% foreign players and now you see the likes of Liverpool, Man United and Arsenal in the Champions League final whereas after re-introduction in the early 90s English teams were generally clueless in Europe.

So in theory I have nothing against seeing a reasonable proportion of foreign players in England. I think the county system suffers more from a lack of interest and intensity in the matches. The talent is spread too wide and can't sustain 18 teams. I would prefer to see less counties and pooling of resources to improve the standard, but I know this view is contraversial.