WAT Future England Test Cricketer award 2005

[Collyisamackem]

I'm hearing you Rachael, and my vote is sticking with Davies. Fact is he is more deserving than Cook and has produced the goods for longer, but I can see that people find other players are more appealing.

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by Rachael

Cook obviously appeals as a player in ways that have bugger-all to do with cricket.

Scoring 200 versus the Aussies, Captained England U19 to the World Cup Finals, scoring two hundreds...has a first-class average of 43... what more Cricketing Reasons do you need

The title of the Future England Test Cricketer could not be better suited to a guy now in the Test squad!!

If the Title was "Outstanding county player of 2005", I would say that the other candidates are in the mix, that is not the Title.

This year (unlike last year) lets give the award to a guy who may actually become an England Cricketer, and not base it on personal county bias...

[Rachael]

It's not that Cook is entirely underserving of the award.. it's more that (of the batsmen) Shah and Joyce are perhaps more deserving. Shah appears to have been ahead of Cook in the pecking order for a call-up but then missed out through injury: that doesn't count him out of the running for this award.....

Cook has the appeal of youth... where Shah and Joyce appear to be rather taken-for-granted as good: the fact that the latter two have been doing more seems to be getting overwhelmed by the mere hope that the youngster might turn out to be brilliant.

[greg]

With Strauss coming home apparently and Vaughan being injured,Cook was always a more logical choice than Shah because Cook can open the batting Shah can't.If there is a gap at number 4 after this series then Shah or Joyce will be fighting for that spot.We are lucky that we have quite a lot of depth at the minute so we don't have to pick a substandard opener or play a batsman in a totally alien position in the batting order.The likes of Shah and Joyce will have to wait for a gap to appear in their 3-6 position.
All of that has nothing to do with the fact that Shah and Joyce scored more runs last season but with Cook being only 20 and the potential to improve far more than Shah or Joyce i feel that Cook deserves the award.

[Vrock]

The thing with having the strength and depth is that the choices are all young and relatively inexperienced(Cook) although I'm sure if he got a good start in international cricket he could go on to make a lot of runs.

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by Vrock7

the choices are all young and relatively inexperienced(Cook) although I'm sure if he got a good start in international cricket he could go on to make a lot of runs.

Salman Butt is 21 - just a year older than Cook, and showed more maturity than some supposidly experinced memebers of the team, and out-scored all of them!!

De Villers for SA is also 21 and has alreasy got 3 Test Hundreds. For me if you are good enough you are old enough.

Let's get Cook in there!! For me he is a Future England Player - that is the title of the award so lets stop pontificating!!

[Rachael]

Originally Posted by flanflinger

Let's get Cook in there!! For me he is a Future England Player - that is the title of the award so lets stop pontificating!!

The same was said of Ed Smith....

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by Rachael

The same was said of Ed Smith....

Not too sure what you are getting at here...

[cantplaycantalk]

I have been watching Durham for several years, I am a big fan of Mark Davies BUT, Cook is the future England star. Davies may play for England at some point, but Cook will definately.

[Vrock]

Originally Posted by flanflinger

Not too sure what you are getting at here...

Ed Smith came in to the England side playing well at first class and failed at test level. Possibility Cook could do the same.