The facilities that private schools have make me green with envy. I did my coaching course at Bede's and it was an eye-opener to see the facilities they had (and the staff too).
On the other hand, I also coach girls rugby and state school cricketers have it easy compared to state school girl...
I'm not sure that means that the coaching is poor, it's just that there are not enough of us. The team I coach has 18 players and I'm the only dedicated coach for them, it does mean that a lot of the time is spent making sure they're safe rather than working on individual faults. When I can get...
Love the references to James Kirtley. He was a fellow student when I did my Level 2 coaching certificate and I was paired with him to comment on our bowling action. What do you say to someone who's played test cricket? (he was a really nice bloke, BTW, no Billy Big Bollocks from him)
Maurice Tate 39 tests batting av of 25, bowling av of 26 did pretty well.
One notable record for Sussex-born test players is that we currently have the oldest living England player. Don Smith was 95 this summer.
He also went on and on about Sussex's "baffling" decision not to enforce the follow-on. This in a game where we won by 274 runs with a day and a bit to spare
I've been working out how many Sussex born players have played for England. In my lifetime, there have been eight Sussex-born test players (I think) - there are few more before I was born (although neither of the most celebrated players - Fry and Ranji - was born here).
Sad news: he was playing in the first Sussex game I saw. I don't think he and Greig played in the same team but if they had, we'd probably have been the tallest team on the circuit.
As for Sussex bowlers, I remember Ian Thomson playing for England in the 60s. He was the last Sussex bowler to...
Yet he hasn't played once in the CC (or even been in the squad). And that's with us missing our Kolpak batsman pretty much all season and Wright's recurrent injury problems. That suggests to me that Dizzy doesn't think that he's up for FC cricket.
I imagine Van Zyl has gone back home, can't see him playing now.
There's a possibility that we could play Rawlins AND Burgess in the next game. Do we need Briggs in mid-September? He's not going to take many wickets in autumn and we could then play another batter (Wells, Haines and Rawlins...
Evans has scored just five FC centuries in his career ( a double ton on an Edgbaston road, a ton for uni against a second string attack and three in one season where he had a decent run in the side). In the last couple of years, I don't think he's got much beyond 20 in the red ball game. He's...