WAT Selector Criteria

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by Rachael

Do you also dismiss those who watch Giles grab a sackful and then rant about the need for spinners who turn the ball square? Do you dismiss those who watch Hoggard dominate and then rant about the need for extreme pace? Where does such a route end?

Those who watch a fair bit of county cricket are just as prone to talking nonsense as anyone else!

At least the bother to watch the game!! Put there money where their mouths are and support Cricket when it's not easy.

Spinners need to havea number of tools in the tool bag, of which turn is a very important one. Turn alone is not good enough, you can turn the ball square and you will get average batters out, for top quality players you need more than just turn. Pace for me is the same.

But you have to have the Pace and Turn (or the ability to swing the ball) as a start, those are the hard bits. The canny changes of pace and line are the subtlies that some as you become a complete package. You cannot teacha young bolwer to bowl fast, but you can teach them to think about how and where they bowl.

Hoggard swings the ball and so compliments the other members of the attack, however if there were four Hoggards in any team we would struggle to take twenty wickets in most games.

Yes CMJ is good, but I would love for people to base their selections on their own insights, their own understanding rather than a third parties. If you are going to get the title "Selector" surely you need to actually talent spot for yourself.

If Graveney and the rest of the Selectors said "we selectected X because we read about him in an article by CMJ, then we looked at CricInfo and found he had some good stats, so we thought we would give him a go" they would be slaughtered.

All I am saying is if you want the Title "A Team Selector" then you should be prepared to do some real selecting. that means actually watching the player

[Statto]

Originally Posted by flanflinger

I do not believe though that there is anything better than forming your own opion based upon watching players yourself.

Maybe each selector should submit a brief match report highlighting good performances, potential players or players to watch? Then we could have a library of reports to back up our end of year selections?

I did use my opinions of players based on what I had seen, but most of this was just dismissed as "one off" or "wrong type of pitch" (Old Trafford - a test pitch which is what we are selecting for). It is a very obvious fact that we cannot travel the country watching one player, so we cannot build up a comprehensive picture of their abilities, just odd snippets.

Originally Posted by flanflinger

All I am saying is lets raise the bar. If we want our A Team selections to have some clout, to be an A team selector you need to get out there and watch players for yourself.

Which selectors are you saying dont do this? The majority of people watch plenty of cricket, just because they didnt all notice Plunkett doesnt mean they didnt watch. We did pick Cook and he went to Pakistan, but that never seems to be mentioned.

[flanflinger]

Not saying it is you matey.

There are some who are "selectors" who have not seen any of the players play. I agree it is difficult but if we are going to create an A team that we think is a credible then we need to take it seriously.

At the moment to be a slector all you need to do is send an email at the correct time, you can then make statments about players you have never seen!! It's barmy!!

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by flanflinger

All I am saying is if you want the Title "A Team Selector" then you should be prepared to do some real selecting. that means actually watching the player

ff I have read all your posts in this thread and you seem to be making the same comments.

I have watched a lot of cricket in my life, but am lucky if I see on county match a year theses days.
We have members who have to attend work, also to attend school some who would fine it difficult to get to a county match, and in the younger ones probably could not afford to watch that much cricket, should this group be excluded from being a WAT selector?.

A selector does not have to be a flanflinger to be a selector having watched a player or two, they need to read the thread and send in a PM with their team like you could have done.
I happened to agree with you I think Plunkett should have made the side, I did not want Davies he is just not my sort of player.
No matter how matches you have seen, does not mean you can't pick the entire team, their are other selectors, this was why Mike failed to get Prior into the team, and being I wanted a spinner, I found it hard to push for Plunkett also.
Also how many times could anyone have seen Panaser or Plunkett play for that matter?, not enough to make any difference, you can't tell a players true potential after one or two games.
I read match reports on the Sky web page, the BBC and watch cricket when I can.
I also listen to radion London on line they carry home matches for Surrey and Middlesex, I also read threads on WAT also.

I suggest ff that you join the WAT selectors next year (I will send you a PM at the time) then you can use your first hand experience to try to peruade selectors the see some selections your way.

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by Ernest

I have watched a lot of cricket in my life, but am lucky if I see on county match a year theses days.
We have members who have to attend work, also to attend school some who would fine it difficult to get to a county match, and in the younger ones probably could not afford to watch that much cricket, should this group be excluded from being a WAT selector?.

Exacly what I am saying.. if you cannot watch enough you should not be a "Selector".

If we were dicsusing last nights TV and I told you that I thought Space Cadets was rubbish, but it then turned out that I had not watched it but had read a review and that had made up my mind, I then got out some TV viewing fuigures to prove that Secret Smile was better as it got more viewers. You would not really respect my opion.

Or saying I told you that I thought Coldplay's Album (X&Y) was rubbish based upon the record sales and an article I read from a Music Journo (with a chip on his shoulder), but had never actually listened to the Album at all you would think the same

Yet it is perfectly acceptable to comment on players you have never seen play? It is ridiculos.

[Ernest]

ff you have got this wrong, cricket is different that one show in TV, and don't forget you can read about cricket cricket forums, so one would have more idea about cricket that a TV show.
Second I am speaking for myself now, when Flintoff had a higher bowling average than his batting average I still saw a future cricketer in him, dispite being rediculed for my support for him both at the BBC and on this forum.

It goes without saying that I would have picked him for our A Team, I think that alone gives me the right to be a selector, did you give him the level of support I did?, because if not you would have missed the biggest talant in more than a generation.

ff send in your PM with your team the next time the A Team selection time comes round, you can't change nothing by just critisising other peoples right to be a selector, we bothered to register to be selectors.

As a regular live cricket watcher you probably should be a selector, I will PM you the next time we are selecting in plenty of time, then you can tell us your team, and why it should be picked.

Strange I picked the same players that are missing you are moaning about, mainly Plunkett.

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by Ernest

It goes without saying that I would have picked him for our A Team, I think that alone gives me the right to be a selector, did you give him the level of support I did?,

Yes I did.

I am not saying that you shouldn't have an influentail vote, but I am saying if we want to create a serious discussion on the merits of one player over another then we need to base it on something more than just stats and what we happen to have read.

This is not just about me not being a selector, if the same criteria as this year is applied I don't think I will bother.

I don't see the point of putting foward my opions only to be over-ruled by someone who has not even seen the players being discussed!!

[Ernest]

Well not many people can get to County matches ff that's the problem.

I myself don't rely on stats in themselves I don't think they prove a lot until a player is tried.

I think more of the composition of the team, thet was why I was adament I wanted a spinner, I like yourself wanted Plunkett I did not care that Davies had better stats I wanted a pace bowler that does well in Test Cricket, the likes off Lee, Harmison, Flintoff and Shoaib.

Can you see wher I coming from ff, with not many to choose from it was easy for me to go for Plunkett Panesar.
I have watched lots of cricket in my lifetime, probably more than you to be honest, and I look what's on offer, and pick what I think's the best type of player, if I have seen him, then so much the better.

If you are paricipating, you voice is more likely to be heard.

[flanflinger]

Originally Posted by Ernest

Well not many people can get to County matches ff that's the problem.

In which case they should not put themsleves up to select the WAT A Team!! If you have not got the time to watch the players, then don't become a selector.

[Rachael]

You appear fixated on this notion that people should make up their own minds about everything... and always based on observation or first hand experience: a very fashionable view and one I abhor for the simple reason that it leaves out any real concern with the hard work involved in grasping what it is you're looking at, of making observations that are even remotely significant and of relating observations made to a broader picture.

Of course I'm in full agreement that when Troy Cooley goes and watches even a short spell from someone he can get something from it. I'd agree that few opinions would be more worthy than the one Troy C might pass after watching a player like Plunkett throughout a first class game having having talked at length with his coach and others to establish why he does things the way he does and what he's been working on in the previous 12-18 months.

Now.. I'm not Troy C.. and whilst I'm not likely to get that sort of first hand material... I'd not make anything like as much OF that material if I DID get that opportunity.

Now.. CMJ clearly ain't Troy C either. Nor even close. He might well get the sort of opportunity I mention.. but where he'd make a lot more of it than I might... he's unlikely to make anything like as much of it as Troy C... but even without anything more than interviews and conversations with Troy C and perhaps a handful of others who really can get a lot from first hand experience... CMJ can rapidly get an understanding of Plunkett's game that still way, way more than I could get if I sat in on every game in which he played.

Now which is going to be more use? Me having a lot of nice picnics at the Riverside... or me actually taking the time to read / listen to reports from assorted people with the sort of insight that top journalists convey as a matter of course? To my mind there's no contest: just as I'd learn more about football from following Alan Hansen's analysis in the studio than from watching Norwich week in, week out.. I'd learn more from commentary, analysis and match reports.

Can you come up with a meaningful opinion of your own that way? Of course you can: you need to take on board the input from a significant number of sources.. and you need to put in the work to see what prejudices and hobby horses might be distorting the picture you're getting from different sources... but that's no different to what an historian or a judge does on a day to day basis - it ain't easy... but it's eminently possible.

The key thing is that whatever approach you take to forming an opinion.. you put in the work and recognise both the strengths and limitations that come from the way that opinion has been formed (and propose arguments accordingy).

Finally.. quite aside from all the above.. there's the small matter that selection is a process... and that means even a selector with no knowledge of ANY candidate can contribute usefully: pointing out who's arguments stack up... criticising those which appear flawed... these are things that don't necessarily require you to have any great opinions on anything... they just need a commitment to the task.

I've seen scholars torn to shreds when presenting material they know intimately and by other scholars for whom the presentation in the first encounter with the material in question: any selector should be welcome if they want to participate even in that small way.