JRod: Why English Administrcrats should apologise to me
August 1st, 2008 by JRod in County cricket, England and tagged Jrod, the wisden cricketerHaving just arrived in England I was pleased to see this delightful form of cricket called Pro40.
Originally I misunderstood the terminology as Paul Nixon and Ian Salisbury were playing, but soon after I realised it wasn’t really a senior’s tour event.
Pro40 is a 40-overs a side tournament, which will be well received by those three or four people who think Twenty20 is just too much, and 50-overs is a long day.
Being that they show it on telly, and it’s better than Sky poker, I watched it, albeit with the sound down.
In one match I saw a bloke called Neil Carter play.
This chap opened for some team that ends in shire, and smacked 70-odd off 50-odd.
Later on in the day he bowled low to mid-80’s (I write in miles now as to not confuse myself) with his left arm and took a couple of wickets.
Without the benefit of commentary, I assumed this was a real “player type player” that someone should have their eye on.
I decided to be that eye on him, and perhaps take him under my wing, so I Cricinfo-ed him.
There I found out two startling facts.
He is South African.
And two he is 33 years old.
So you have a 33-year-old non-English cricketer playing a 40-over tournament.
Meatloaf wouldn’t sing about that strike rate.
I don’t know Giles Clarke personally, we don’t smoke cigars on the balcony and discuss our day, but if we did, I think it would be remiss of me not to question the point of a 40-over competition where 33-year-olds from other countries can play.
Clarke should either end this 40-over thingy, or he, and anyone else involved, should apologise for tricking me into searching the world wide net for a middle-aged South African.
Post haste.
It’s the only proper thing to do.
Jrod is an Australian cricket blogger, his site Cricketwithballs.com won July’s Best of Blogs in TWC, and he’ll be writing as dangerously as he’s allowed for the next four weeks.
Posted in County cricket, England |
August 1st, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Well it is ending in 2010, with the last tournament next year.
Carter is playing because he is good enough for his employers. Not all cricket in this country is played purely for the advancement of the national side and many of us like it that way. Just as the game is bigger than the winning, the game is also bigger than internatonal cricket. If that means that England don’t always produce the world’s best cricketers, we are producing a Test match to rememebr right now and that’ll do for me.
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Its not really balmy or new since 40 over cricket came in in way back in 1969. realising that people did not like to spend all day at the cricket this was started to last just an afternoon from 2-7PM mostly on Sundays. Now there is 20/20 it has become obsolete but its still better than 50 over cricket to watch as a spectator.
August 3rd, 2008 at 9:52 am
Of course Pro40 is barmy – a format that nobody else in the world plays. But then the whole of English second tier cricket is barmy – and getting barmier. Why is our national side so dire? Look no further than the absurdities of our county system. Here are the facts. We have 18 counties (cf Australia’s six States; South Africa’s six Provinces; The West Indies six national teams; New Zealand’s six States and India’s five Zones). These 18 counties employ around 20 players in first team cricket over the course of a season. 18×20 = 360. Of these maybe a third are actually not qualified to play for England, like Neil Carter and countless other Saffers. From the 240 who could be chosen for England maybe a third aren’t good enough, a third are aging jobsworths reaching the end of their careers or hanging on for their benefits and perhaps a third might be just about good enough if given a chance. But lots of them won’t get their chance because they are kept out of county sides by the expensive foreign imports. And the economics? Thanks for asking. The salaries of the 360 are substantially funded by grants from the England and Wales Cricket Board. That’s right, our cricket governing body pays for the otherwise out-of-work South Africans, the foreign international stars looking for a bit of extra income in their off season (and the chance to improve their game in English conditions) and the rest - most of whom will never put on an England shirt – of any colour.
It’s good to start with a look at Pro40 – because that pointless, unloved, unwatched competition is symbolic of the whole sorry state of English domestic cricket. That’s why we are the laughing stocks of the cricketing world and easy pickings for decent sides, like Australia or South Africa, who manage to find decent players from a domestic structure a quarter the size of our ridiculous, overblown, unsustainable and archaic edifice.