Charles Randall has a column on the England 'A' tour in today's Torygraph. It ends with a a brief note on Broad and Khan and passing mention of Onions, Bopara and Bresnan before noting Tom Smith is "potentially the best of the lot".

To think that we left him out of the WaT 'A' in favour of Sajid Mahmood

Not seen enough of him but if he is the best of the lot and is able to do it for England that is good for us.

In 5 years from now he could be Flintoff's replacement in the England team.

We'll need one sooner than that with Freddie's fitness record.

Tom Smiths F/C record is

16 2418 1119 36 4/57 31.08 2.77 67.16 2 0


He is also only a medium pacer at the moment so although he has potential he still has a long, long way to go before we can even think of him competing for a place in the england team.

Those stats are nothing special, although i will concede he is still very young and that he will put on a yard of pace over the next couple of years.

If England had wanted a medium pacer Durhams Mark Davies (when fit) had a far superior C/C record and he was as close to an England call up as me!

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Mark.

The three main seam bowlers in Lancashires' County Championship this year were as follows:Few pairings can rival the experience of Cork and Chapple.... but what's striking about the stats is how well the youngster measures up: he shouldered a similar workload per match to the other two (and was clearly not "protected"); his mid-60s strike rate was not far off Chapple's and his RPO of 2.8 was not far off Cork's - remarkable for one so young.

Control is essential to success at the highest level, and is the hardest part of bowling to master: any bowler can be taught to be more effective (better variations, better disguise, better strategy, a stronger mind and even greater pace)... but you can't even be trusted unless you offer control... and few talented bowlers ever seem to go from wayward to metronomic!

I, for one, am not surprised to find that it was Smith rather than Broad who emerged with respectable figures in today's 'A' side match:I'd have either of them in ahead of Sajid!

I'm not knocking Smith, his figures in a fairly weak CC were respectable, and in his defence i'm sure a lot of his wickets were top order players.

Its just he has a lot to learn and is realistically 3 years from an England side. How many of these players have we hailed as "the next big thing!" and then they slip into obscurity. I say leave the lad alone ,let him gain a yard of pace, improve his consistency and above all get some overs under his belt. If he's still doing the job after a couple of seasons then great!

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Mark.

Guess you would - however you have uncovered stats that confirms what i have said for ages.

Players should be picked on form, Sussex and Lanc's were number one and two in the County Championship, so I would have though for the one dayers - Chapple - James kirtley should have spearheaded England one day campaign, backed up by Mahmood/Plunkett - Panesar and Flintoff, England may well have won that Trophy with ease.

Tom Smith IMO is not for now, England expect to much from young unexperienced players, they should be brought in alongside in form experienced players.

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Ern

They (we) definately do, one reasonable season in county cricket and suddenly player X is a futre England player.

I would have picked Chapple for the WC he's an experienced player and but for injury when selected would probably have gone.

I'm not sure picking players like Kirtley is a forwards move, he's played ODI's before is his record was poor (and that was with the help of a suspect action). Domestic cricket has no bearing on a players class, if it did at least half of our team wouldnt be in the test team, we wouldnt be no 2 in the world ,we wouldnt have won the ashes and we would be a laughing stock.

Would :

Vaughan
Tres
Flintoff
Harmison
S Jones
Hoggard
Mahmood
Plunkett
Cook

(and i'm not sure about the records of Strauss, Bell or Colly.)

Have got a game based purely on thier county performances? Most would not, giving us a much weaker team and dessimating our pace attack. We would also have our batting weakened and lose our best captain. Pieterson wouldnt have got a game against the Aussies in 2005 as his CC form before the ashes was poor.

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Mark.