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Cricket Thread

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The Teaboy Dec 2013 4:15pm, 20 Dec 2013 10,492 posts	0 The Teaboy Alan Border, Mark Waugh are the two that stand out for me at Essex. Salim Malik did well, but his past is tainted by his off-field activities... Stuart Law was awesome until he fell out with the county. Danish Kaneria was great until his dubious stuff was exposed too...
Doctor K Dec 2013 5:46pm, 20 Dec 2013 3,072 posts	0 Doctor K I'd forgotten Law Teabers, he was at Lancs too partnering Mal Loye at the top of the order and was pretty effective too.
The Teaboy Dec 2013 7:23am, 21 Dec 2013 10,493 posts	0 The Teaboy All the genuine test class players have generally been pretty great for their counties ever since the foreign players rocked up in the 1970s. It is difficult to think of many that weren't. I think we'll look back on the 70s and 80s as the halcyon days when all the world's best played county cricket each summer and the schedule was such that all the England players did too.
Gobi Dec 2013 1:09pm, 21 Dec 2013 53,153 posts	0 Gobi How about this Central contracts are killing opportunity and stifling team changes
rf_fozzy Dec 2013 1:12pm, 21 Dec 2013 5,938 posts	0 rf_fozzy Hmm, not sure about that, Gobi. When central contracts were brought in, they made a big difference as part of the package that saw us rise from the shambles of the mid/late-90s teams to where we've got to. I do think that more of the England team should be playing much, much more county cricket though. They are mollycoddled a bit.
FreshStart Dec 2013 1:20pm, 21 Dec 2013 1,650 posts	0 FreshStart Introduce performance related pay.
Gobi Dec 2013 1:29pm, 21 Dec 2013 53,155 posts	0 Gobi Agree they worked for a while but now I am not so sure Too many internationals ?
rf_fozzy Dec 2013 1:48pm, 21 Dec 2013 5,939 posts	0 rf_fozzy Too many ODIs (and 20/20s...) - if they're going to do ODIs, they should do them as a block - one one day, one the next, etc. Maybe a rest day in a 5day series or something. Get them over and done with quicker. They don't need a rest day or two after every interminable ODI. I think the number of test matches is just about ok.
rf_fozzy Dec 2013 1:50pm, 21 Dec 2013 5,940 posts	0 rf_fozzy FS - the central contracts are a form of performance related pay. They have to play so many games for England to get a CC, and then there are incremental contracts and something else a bit further down. I think they are a good thing, but that the England players need to play more County cricket.
Sno-Bru Dec 2013 2:21pm, 21 Dec 2013 2,386 posts	0 Sno-Bru Intereesting point, Gobi. The idea originally, as I remember it, was that counties wanted to use their starts at every opportunity but players wanted to play fo r england and ended up getting injured and jaded because they were playing too much cricket. Central contracts were to give England first call, and allow the players to be rested. what seems to be happening now ifs that the counties hardly see the players at all, and they are playing just as much cricket as ECB has stuffed the schedule with so many tours and competions. Maybe the answer is to have a bigger squad and rotate?