Fashionable Counties

[flanflinger]

I often get bored hearing about how Counties like Surrey get players into the England team because of who they play and not how good they are...

But look at the Current England Squad - Two Yorkshire players, One Lancastrian and ZERO Surrey players

But one Durham, one Glamorgan, Two Hamphsire, One Kent, One Somerset, One Middlesex, One Kent and One Warwickshire...

So is it really just the myth I think it is, or is it just a cry let out by sad Gloucster/Leciester/Derby/Northants fans with nothing better to complain about...

PS - Leicster - you stand a better chance of having an England player, if you actually had any England qualified players in your team...

[Lemming]

I think it was probably back in the days when we had players like Stewart, Thorpe, Butcher, occassionally the Hollioakes and occassionally Salisbury in the England set-up coming were from Surrey. Then Ian Ward in 2001. On top of that we had Atherton, Flintoff and Crawley from Lancashire there or there-abouts sometimes also.

Then Yorkshire have provided a whole host of seamer, Gough, Hoggard, White, Silverwood, Sidebottom, Hamilton (have I missed any).

It's definitely good to see a wide variety of players coming from counties all around the country. It hasn't always been that way over the past 10 years or so. I'm not sure that it was anything to do with "face-fitting" but probably because the better players were just at some teams.

You can't really moan about 3 of the top 6 coming from Surrey, when they are Butcher, Thorpe and Stewart. All had good test careers.

[flanflinger]

And at the time Surrey were always there and there abouts in the Championship. Surrey has some seriously good players, that's why they got selacted. Now they don't have the same quality, what happens - no players in the England team.

Am I suprised no... beacuse the Fashionable county selection policy was just plain rubbish...

[Paoli]

Well the fashionable counties myth is probably true. 8 out of Australia's starting XI (Could well be 9 if Dizzy gets dropped) are from NSW, QLD or WA. Only Ponting, Warne and Gillespie ensure that all states are represented. I've always felt that being a New South Wales player is an advantage as your playing for a "glamour" team and you're more likely to get noticed; a bit like KP's move to Hants, it was probably in his best interests of starting his England career, playing alongside Warne and Katich.

[Mongoose]

There may have been a bias a while back, but I think English cricket has moved on a hell of a lot in the last few years, in the structure of the set-up and in the attitudes shown by the ECB. Players get selected if the selectors think they have what it takes to play top level cricket. After all, who loses out if a top Leicester player is snubbed in favourite of an inferior Surrey player? The team suffers and the selectors get pasted for doing a crap job. Bias may have been reality before, but it's now a myth.

[Nandos the Gooner Mark II]

Mongoose makes the right point. Under Fletcher you play for England if the selectors think you are good enough, not because you come from the right county. There have been instances where players like Ward, Salisbury, Bicknell etc have been called up to the England team, and most casual, and sometimes hacked off, observers would claim that it was solely to do with them being Surrey players, and would completely ignore the fact they were in great form at the time. Of course when they fail [ie Ward] the 'fashionable county' argument becomes more 'fashionable', for lack of a better term, but in reality, it is just a load of b*llocks.

[Pete]

These days you've just got to be the captains best friend. Eh?

[Nandos the Gooner Mark II]

That certainly was used by some to explain Giles' inclusion not so long ago.

[Lemming]

Originally Posted by Nandos the Gooner Mark II

That [Giles being Vaughan's best friend] certainly was used by some to explain Giles' inclusion not so long ago.

Hey, come on! Gilo's such a nice bloke that he's everyone's best friend! He's certainly mine and I haven't spoken to him since our one autograph encounter twelve years ago.

[Kirsty Harris]

Originally Posted by Lemming

Hey, come on! Gilo's such a nice bloke that he's everyone's best friend! He's certainly mine and I haven't spoken to him since our one autograph encounter twelve years ago.

I saw him in IKEA once, buying some flat pack furniture with a friend, but I was too in awe of him to talk to him!

But he saw that I was staring at him (and I was probably blushing) and gave me a little smile....

So he's my best friend too!!!