Sport needs investment, which requires money... so sure, money matters... but no one should lose sight of the fact that it's a means to (of financing) an end (cricket in schools, on the village green, in small clubs and at first class and national level)... and whilst the ECB should be very commercially oriented in the way it schedules and promotes international cricket... the organisation exists for (and raises funds for) cricket and cricketers!

If a player who has earnt (and deserves) a call up based on sustained performances is overlooked in favour of the "promise" or "potential" of a favoured one... at any level, from school or club through county and on to national level... something stinks. Players need to be in sides on merit, not on the basis of so-and-so's "hunch": everyone needs to know that performances are what count.I've no objection to central contracts... or to a "national" academy... but Fletcher WAS too divorced from county cricket, did overlook far too many folk who did enough to earn a chance and did stick rather too loyally to pet favourites - and the result was corrosive.How about really, REALLY talented players who are so good they do not NEED to be bullies.... like (historically) Gower and (today) Jayawardene: players whose placement and touch is so good that they never NEED to slog.

The limitation of Vaughan was not power... it was the very thing that made him so good in Test cricket: a game based around playing straight and offering the full face of the bat. Flintoff did overcome the same limitations through power.. but the classier way to do it (see Lara) has always been (and remains) the instinctive, wristy inventiveness that gets the ball away square of the wicket, behind square or wherever else the fielders are unable to prevent a scurried single.

Please: no bullies!

bullies- i meant more metaphorically speaking rather than on whether someone has a good on drive and that sort of thing.
i still maintain the view that the reason why hunches are not employed is because the chairman of selectors wants to keep his job. the same with money. weve seen what can happen in the cricket world when rather dim witted cricketers like gibbs gets involved in match fixing. this rosy view of the investment from the bottom up and it going back to the clubs and all that is not at the heart of the cricket boards anymore. money talks...for instance it can give us more answers to the anying questions such as why was the world cup such a pathetic excuse and a shambles and why on earth do the players have to play so much cricket? quality not quantity and all these other pure concepts have been eroded by money and the bastard organisers who fall into the traps of commerce and the sponsors.
one more thing. the modern game is big and fast. thats why the big players who bastardise attacks are the most successful. mark waugh was the most talented batsman ever no doubt but he didn't do as well as the thugs such as symonds and hayden and now pieterson. its a fact that its not the conformists nowadays with the classy cover drives that do well its the extroverts like jayasuria and pieterson, afridi, chanderpaul that get the most out of cricket at the higher level. guess what? they do it because of pure talent! this should never be compromised for the old schoolboy adage of reversing the batting order and that sort of thing. who ever said cricket was fair?

Not very fair on Fletcher being that he got a team together to win the Ashes in 2005, and the winning run from 2004.

What's so good about central contracts?, that's one of the main reasons so mant players are breaking down injured, it is also bad for the counties, who have no say in how their players are treated - and can't play them as often as they should.

No wonder the need for so many overseas players.
With an exception or two - the selectors could have picked your side, needs a bigger shake up than that IMO, and please Rashid is not nearly ready, remember what happened to Schofield?, he was just as bright a prospect - but was brought into the England side to early.

__________________
Ern

whats IMO?

I'd go along with the argment that the ECB (and doubtless other boards) have struggled, at times, to hold their nerve in the face of exceptional pressure to dumb down the game, but I'm not sure this is a case of "money talking": that's more of a confidence issue. That's just failure of nerve given the obvious bottom-end (populist, supposedly "youth" oriented) market for dumbed down cricket based on fast and furious bowlers like Lee charging in at unsophsticated, big hitting bullies like Symonds.

The various boards could show more faith in the more sophisticated package: they could require more sporting pitches, bigger boundaries, smaller, denser bats (with tiny sweetspots), and so on and trust in subtlety, craft and artistry - they could back what is distinctive about the game (as embodied by the likes of the under-marketed Hoggard and Vaas with the ball and the equally under-sold Chanderpaul and Jayawardene with the bat).

Similarly, more faith could be shown in domestic cricket: in rugby, the club level is now (at its best) better than much international competition... and that HAS to be the way to go in cricket. The top of the county championship game SHOULD be better than most international cricket... as should the best Pura Cup cricket... and international club competitions SHOULD eclipse Test cricket in terms of quality and marketability - not least because clubs could be freed up to pick the best players, irrespective of nationality!

The money isn't talking at the moment... or else Surrey would be signing an attack of world beating proportions and playing cricket at a level that surpasses anything seen in the recent Eng-WI series.. and at a level higher that the Aussies managed in Engand in 2005 and than the England side managed in Australia in 2007.

Or rather... to the extent that money talks.. fear (to my mind excessive) of spiralling costs limits aspiration to an international club game.

or get people into cricket with twenty twenty and then culture them as to how the game actually works.