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The Australians must be puzzled that the county cricket club that won the double in England is unrepresented at Test level. Imagine a football team, containing eight Englishmen it its regular starting eleven, that wins the Premiership and the FA Cup in the same season, but sees not one of its players selected for the national team.
Which Sussex players, then, should be in the England team? Well, for a start, Chris Adams should have been a regular many years ago. Can you imagine our gutsy, pugnacious skipper taking any shite from the Australian sledgers in the field? As Steve Waugh has said, the aim of sledging is to cause mental disintegration in those being sledged. Would Chris Adams have disintegrated mentally in the face of Australian sledging like too many England players have in recent years? Chris Adams is not a man to be intimidated by boorish tossers wearing a baggy green cap.
The same goes for Michael Yardy, who like Paul Collingwood before him, seems to have been written off by the England establishment as nothing more than a promising one-day player. Have the Test selecters not noticed how many runs Michael Yardy has scored in four-day cricket, not to mention the number of wickets he has taken?
The most inexplicable omission has to be Matt Prior. The record shows that he is a better batsman than either Chris Reed or Geraint Jones, and is as good a keeper as the former. Moreover, as he proved in the county championship match at Hove, against Hampshire, during the early part of the 2005 season, he does not shrink before sledging from the likes of Shane Warne.
Don't get me wrong, I am grateful that our county's best cricketers have not been lost to the national cause. However, I still think that someone should tell Duncan Fletcher that Sussex CCC are not the county champions for nothing.
Which Sussex players, then, should be in the England team? Well, for a start, Chris Adams should have been a regular many years ago. Can you imagine our gutsy, pugnacious skipper taking any shite from the Australian sledgers in the field? As Steve Waugh has said, the aim of sledging is to cause mental disintegration in those being sledged. Would Chris Adams have disintegrated mentally in the face of Australian sledging like too many England players have in recent years? Chris Adams is not a man to be intimidated by boorish tossers wearing a baggy green cap.
The same goes for Michael Yardy, who like Paul Collingwood before him, seems to have been written off by the England establishment as nothing more than a promising one-day player. Have the Test selecters not noticed how many runs Michael Yardy has scored in four-day cricket, not to mention the number of wickets he has taken?
The most inexplicable omission has to be Matt Prior. The record shows that he is a better batsman than either Chris Reed or Geraint Jones, and is as good a keeper as the former. Moreover, as he proved in the county championship match at Hove, against Hampshire, during the early part of the 2005 season, he does not shrink before sledging from the likes of Shane Warne.
Don't get me wrong, I am grateful that our county's best cricketers have not been lost to the national cause. However, I still think that someone should tell Duncan Fletcher that Sussex CCC are not the county champions for nothing.
