Players from your county who should have played for England

[south beds mikey]

Just thought I'd start this to give a mention to one of our former stalwarts Paul Weekes.

A superb pro who never received international honours, even more surprising when you consider he was up against Robert Croft who was possibly the worst player selected for England in our history. I am not advocating a test place but surprised he never got an ODI cap. (Tempted at this stage to go into a tirade about Steve Perryman never getting a proper England football cap but I won't)

On another note someone told me Mark Butcher never played an ODI. Is that right? If so I'm astoniished as he scored at a good lick, was decent in the field and I always thought his bowling was seriously under used at test level. (He got 4 against oz once I believe)

So there you go, who has missed out from your team?

[Rachael]

The most outrageous omission from the England caps list has to be Keith Piper: as the greatest gloveman of his generation, he should have been the benchmark against which all others were measured. I can just about cope with Russell having been preferred, as Russell was no slouch with the gloves himself. That Stewart was (ever, let alone for an extended run) preferred to Piper is just plain disgraceful.

Mustard's natural glovework being overlooked in favour of Ambrose's batting sucks. Mustard's team-mate Liam Plunkett getting in ahead of the far superior Mark Davies has also been pretty sickening... though in an era that saw Mahmood get capped, just about ever county seamer who knew how bowl to a plan must have been feeling pretty hard done by.

Hildrith would be my other pick from current players...

ps. Gary Keedy was also ignored.... and David Sales has never had the recognition he might have had with a bigger club.

[Ernest]

In "All Out" Cricket's October 2006 edition, Gary Keedy was voted the best county player never to have played for England.

He was unlucky that he was in the same era as Giles,so could not get in the side because of Giles better batting. He probably has been Englands best spinner since Edmunds and Embury.

[south beds mikey]

I don't know a lot about Keedy but you feel he is better than my boy Monty Ern? If so he should have played, my usual objections to bits and pieces players over specialists.

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by south beds mikey

I don't know a lot about Keedy but you feel he is better than my boy Monty Ern? If so he should have played, my usual objections to bits and pieces players over specialists.

He was before Monty mikey, but like Monty he was a true spinner - not an all rounder.
He was very different to Giles, he was an attacking bowler unlike Giles who's stock in trade was bowling over the wicket.
The reason Giles was always selected over Keedy IMO, was the shortcomings of the England batting - the selectors felt that Giles was needed to prop up the batting in the late order, rather than selecting proper batsmen.
"Better than Monty"?, we will never know - but one thing is sure, he should have been given a chance to play for England.

Going back some decades England missed a trick by never selecting Lancashire's "Flat Jack Simmonds". He was a very different off spinner who could and did dry up runs with flat deliveries, and batsmen got themselves out due to sheer frustration. And he could bat a bit also.

He would at least have fit into the England one day side, he could never have got carted.

Jack Simmons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[greg]

I don't know if Keedy is better than Monty but he is certainly a better spinner than some that we have picked over the last 10 years and he deserved a chance.Obviously his time has gone but i will throw another Lancashire player into the hat Glenn Chapple.If Alex Wharf was good enough for international cricket then why was Chapple ignored?

You could also throw in Kevin Dean of Derbyshire,he was as good a leftarmer as Sidebottom but was never considered and we all know how well Sidebottom has done since his call up.

[Notts Exile]

I could never understand why Paul Johnson didn't play any ODI cricket for England. Johnson regularly took attacks apart and was also a good fielder.

I'm not sure about Kevin Dean, every now and then he'd do something good but I don't think he was quite as good as Sidebottom. He didn't have the bounce that Sid benefits from. A good county pro nevertheless.

[greg]

Johnson was unlucky,the fact he looked a little unorthodox probably counted against him with the old duffers in charge at the time.

The reason i said Dean was that we used to pick a lot of bowlers who weren't any better than him and he would always get his share of wickets in a poor team at Derbyshire.Had he played for a more fashionable county i think he would have been picked at least once.

[engssmoothcriminal]

Well Roger Twose's small matter of 2,717 runs at an average of 38.81 with a healthy strike rate of 75.4 in ODI’s for New Zealand certainly validated your average Warwickshire fans opinion in the early/mid 90’s that this guy was at the very least worth a place on an England A tour. And the same people are still pondering the best part of a decade later exactly which boxes didn’t Trevor Penney tick as a one day player? If only they'd appointed Woolmer as coach and not Illy..... There also have been considerably less gifted batsmen than Mark Wagh (Ed Smith springs to mind) who’ve played test cricket for England in the past decade.

Though Ali Brown being pigeon holed as a one day slogger (and one deemed only worthy of the paltry 16 caps ) and never remotely coming close to test recognition for me was the most disgraceful selectoral decisions of the past 20 years.

Originally Posted by south beds mikey

On another note someone told me Mark Butcher never played an ODI. Is that right? If so I'm astoniished as he scored at a good lick, was decent in the field and I always thought his bowling was seriously under used at test level. (He got 4 against oz once I believe)

Yep that's correct. To be fair his one day record for Surrey is pretty mediocre (only the one hundred in around 200 games and an average floating around the 30 mark) and IMO you're being a tad charitable on his all round capability's particularly his fielding. Outside the slip cordon (where he was something of a liability) with his dodgy knee he was something of a carthorse.

[cantplaycantalk]

Neil Killeen the best one day bowler Durham have produced. Should have played for England at the one day level.