Exactly. I don't think the ball he got was as bad as some are making out either. It certainly seemed to come in a bit as well.

And there aren't many great Opening Batsmen doing the rounds at the moment.

He averages about the same or better as both Windies openers, Gill, Will Young, better than Harris and Butt.

He’s not as bad as Workshop is maintaining.

He’s not as good as he should be as an England opener but nobody has been for five years.

That ball shouldn’t get a competent opening batsman out but as Mark Butcher said on Twitter it wasn’t his technique that let him down but pure nerves.

I’d have clipped it off my legs for four mate… and you’d have tried to sweep it.

Yes that is him. Posh lad good Al rounder but was with fairies at time, I think him and Roy were into Rugby to, Roy’s old man was a rugby bod if I remember

RH-B was the captain during the dark days of Tom Maynard’s death. I think he might have been Maynard’s housemate. Lots of booze & drugs. Dernbach got caught up in that for a while, wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t others. Very poor club culture at that time at Surrey.

Bring back Dernbach!

Oh yes I forgot that. Very true

And Boycott :)

Left handed opening batsman should not be missing what looked like a ball pitched in middle and leg, at least get bat on ball, I think it was just nerves. Mind you when I first saw it, I thought it was unplayable but having seen it now more than once it does look ordinary delivery bit like a loosener and got lucky

Not sure comparing him to the WI openers is quite the defence you may have been hoping for. ;)

England's main problem with developing Test match batsmen is the low importance given to the County Championship by the ECB. Games are played in April and in September, the best months for playing cricket in England are reserved for the Mickey Mouse versions of the game

The other problem is the number of pie throwers playing in the CC that do not test a batsman's technique. Two batsmen who accumulate a high number of runs in the CC each season are Dom Sibley and Keaton Jennings, both of them serial failures at Test Match level

Anyway, he’s shit. And I’ll be proved right on a good few more occasions over the next few weeks. If I’m not, I’ll happily apologise to him (via the BBS).

Yeah, but wasn't The Hundred great? Graphics, kids, Mums, shirts with Hula Hoops on them, all those giveaway tickets...:p

Apparently the ‘highlights’ are on the I Player

Workshop would have Dilshan’d it over the sight screen for six. :D

Do you think that the high number of county teams compared to say Australian states leads to a lot of journeyman and lack of classy opposition?

And been the captain.

Definitely

Top International players now usually only play in the Mickey Mouse stuff as they make a lot more money and are not often seen in the CC for an entire season

England's best players have central contracts and rarely play CC games unless they are returning from injury

Last season Surrey's CC team didn't have Roy, Burns, Pope, Foakes, the Curran brothers etc available on a regular basis. The best player was Hashim Amla, now retired from Test cricket, he could bat all day against the pie throwers and rarely looked in trouble

ECB don't care seem to care about the demise of the Test team and their focus is raking in money from broadcasters on the short format stuff

^^^

Yes, but I'm not sure that really answers NKE's question. When I was a young pup there were almost as many first class counties (I think only Durham were added), no two tier system, and two or three one-day trophies. Along with this, you had some of the world's best cricketers playing for counties as well as the Lancashire leagues whatever they were.

I may well have misunderstood everything but would like to blame all that is wrong with the game on the ACB, BCCI and ECB.

Quite, despite what Silverwood said back in February

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/i...6?platform=amp