[Cricket] ***Sussex CCC v Leicestershire CCC, LVCC Div2, Hove, 4-7 September 2018,10.30 KO's***

[Papa Lazarou]

Today I am mainly a Northamptonshire supporter.

173/6 - Kent are surely only 1 wicket away from the tail and a victory.

147 more runs is a long way away

 

[Mackenzie]

173/6 - Kent are surely only 1 wicket away from the tail and a victory.

147 more runs is a long way away

Yes. Northamptonshire have no chance.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Can we count David Sheppard? Born just outside the county in Reigate, but moved to Sussex as a child and went to school in Bognor......got to be close anyway!

Very, very close. He can't be included as "Sussex born and bred" but along with a couple of others (notably John Snow) can be recognised as a product of Sussex. It should also be noted that Sheppard was a much better player than his 22 test caps suggest.

My agenda is, transparently, to make the point that Sussex have never really produced Sussex born and bred England test players of any note with any regularity. We can debate cases. I think the technically correct statistic might be "3 in 131 years". That can be expanded a little but not by more than 2 or 3 others. It is an extremely low number and I think it is really important to appreciate the full extent of this persistent historic context when considering present day issues and strategy.

 

[Papa Lazarou]

Yes. Northamptonshire have no chance.

180 -7 almost game over.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

180 -7 almost game over.

Shame, but yes. They have about as much chance as Leicestershire had of beating Sussex. I wonder how much of the game Northants have dominated...

 

[KingKev]

180 -7 almost game over.

Yep, Kent will win but Rossington and Hutton are not mugs; hope they make it hard work for the Kents at the very least.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

I am away, any chance of that thunder and lighting in Kent that abandoned our 20 20 game, making a dramatic appearance.

 

[Marshy]

Have we lost yet

 

[Papa Lazarou]

I am away, any chance of that thunder and lighting in Kent that abandoned our 20 20 game, making a dramatic appearance.

The nearest showers are up near the Wash, so seems unlikely.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

Have we lost yet

Being a Sussex fan we know they are building up to this, build up some hope first, just to make the loss more pertinent.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Kent win by 102 runs and are temporarily top of the table.

Warks have been bowled out and gone into tea leading Durham by 217 runs. That should be a draw.

3 way title and promotion battle.

 

[Peter Grummit]

When he was hit amidships, the whole ground winced as one. That final ball was like shooting a badly injured dog.

When Ollie took the first 5, Jofra was having some decent banter with the crowd whilst fielding on the boundary: "I just sof'en 'em up man.." was the gist of it. If you love cricket, get down there for the Warwickshire game in a fortnight. This team is box office.

PG

https://twitter.com/i/status/1037737415165792256

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

There are lots of factors but they mainly trace back to the number of clubs and players in the catchment area. Models of sport development tend to, correctly in my view, follow pyramid type structures where the size of the base determines the viable heights achieved.

Where you have more clubs and more players then every step of the way is more competitive and it is ultimately this competition that creates the pressure to drive up standards and produce the diamonds.

It starts with the level of competition in junior cricket. In Sussex the standard is relatively low with children involved in representative cricket basically because they want to and can afford to. An "Eastern Area" trials days where they are looking to "select" a group of 20 or so boys for winter training, to reduce after Christmas to a group of 15, might not even attract 20 attendees...!! In Yorkshire (as I know one NSCer can testify from personal experience) a smilar situation would play out very, very differently.

Sorry Moshe but I can't agree with that - I follow your logic but it's not all about raw numbers and to suggest the height of the pyramid is dependant on the base is just wrong. There are more cricket clubs in Sussex than in all of Australia. The view I subscribe to is "elite quality is diluted by choice" - in context, the wider the choice and opportunity in sport, the smaller the elite talent pool for any given sport will become.

Example 1: Liam Botham [son of Ian] was given the choice of professional cricket [was playing for Hants twos], professional rugby [with Newcastle IIRC] and a professional football contract - he chose rugby, so his place in the other two sports was filled by a lesser talent.
Example 2: I was coaching a lad as a county age group cricketer, he wasn't the best in the squad, but was in the top 6 and had the correct attitude to progress - unfortunately, Shrewsbury Town offered him a scholarship and his interest in cricket evaporated.

If you look at International sport England are world class at just about all of them, cricket, football, rugby type mainstream sports - we are fairly close to the top in all of them. Now look at other countries, say Germany & Brazil, world class at football but nowhere in rugby or cricket. Now New Zealand and South Africa, world class in rugby and cricket but where are they in football? France & Argentina, great at football and rugby, where are they in cricket? India ;currently world number 1 in test cricket, but their football and rugby teams ... You see the pattern, remove some of the options and those individuals with a sporting talent will be channelled in to what is provided. I'd be fairly confident that this happens at regional / county level in the UK - maybe Sussex sporting talent has opportunities for golf and tennis that's not as mainstream in e.g. Yorkshire.

I understand that junior cricket is massive in Yorkshire [coached Shropshire teams against them], but I'd be interested to see where they fit against other counties in other mainstream sports [I don't know the answer].

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Sorry Moshe but I can't agree with that - I follow your logic but it's not all about raw numbers and to suggest the height of the pyramid is dependant on the base is just wrong. There are more cricket clubs in Sussex than in all of Australia. The view I subscribe to is "elite quality is diluted by choice" - in context, the wider the choice and opportunity in sport, the smaller the elite talent pool for any given sport will become.

Example 1: Liam Botham [son of Ian] was given the choice of professional cricket [was playing for Hants twos], professional rugby [with Newcastle IIRC] and a professional football contract - he chose rugby, so his place in the other two sports was filled by a lesser talent.
Example 2: I was coaching a lad as a county age group cricketer, he wasn't the best in the squad, but was in the top 6 and had the correct attitude to progress - unfortunately, Shrewsbury Town offered him a scholarship and his interest in cricket evaporated.

If you look at International sport England are world class at just about all of them, cricket, football, rugby type mainstream sports - we are fairly close to the top in all of them. Now look at other countries, say Germany & Brazil, world class at football but nowhere in rugby or cricket. Now New Zealand and South Africa, world class in rugby and cricket but where are they in football? France & Argentina, great at football and rugby, where are they in cricket? India ;currently world number 1 in test cricket, but their football and rugby teams ... You see the pattern, remove some of the options and those individuals with a sporting talent will be channelled in to what is provided. I'd be fairly confident that this happens at regional / county level in the UK - maybe Sussex sporting talent has opportunities for golf and tennis that's not as mainstream in e.g. Yorkshire.

I understand that junior cricket is massive in Yorkshire [coached Shropshire teams against them], but I'd be interested to see where they fit against other counties in other mainstream sports [I don't know the answer].

That's all very interesting (ish) but I'm not sure how any of it actually contradicts my central point that the biggest single factor influencing the number of elite cricketers produced by an English First Class county is the number of competitive cricket clubs and cricketers (junior and senior) in that county's catchment area....?

 

[McTavish]

I understand that junior cricket is massive in Yorkshire [coached Shropshire teams against them], but I'd be interested to see where they fit against other counties in other mainstream sports [I don't know the answer].

Well just anectdotally, six of England's football world cup team were from Yorkshire and with seven gold medals, two silver and three bronzes, Yorkshire would have placed twelfth in the London Olympics if they were an independent country.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

That's all very interesting (ish) but I'm not sure how any of it actually contradicts my central point that the biggest single factor influencing the number of elite cricketers produced by an English First Class county is the number of competitive cricket clubs and cricketers (junior and senior) in that county's catchment area....?

Don't overlook the role of the minor counties too. James Taylor played county age group cricket for Shropshire which feed the Worcester academy. Current Worcester first-teamers Joe Clarke, Jack Shantry, Joe Leach and Ed Barnard were all Shropshire juniors [so was Joe Hart but he turned his back on elite cricket]. I still don't think it's the catchment area [quantity] - when we play Warwickshire / Derbyshire / Worcestershire [our local first-class counties] we generally have close / even games yet Staffs and Cheshire are always strong and Herefordshire / Wales the weakest. In junior elite cricket the main providers of quality players are the public schools because they can provide the time and facilities to support decent cricket. I'd estimate that 85-90 percent of cricketers on the junior elite player pathway come from the private school route. So, the more private schools in your catchment will create greater numbers of better players - with good coaching as well. Some of the club coaching is quite poor, ratios of 2 coaches working with 20+ kids just doesn't provide enough time to spend on individual players.

 

[Gwylan]

Some of the club coaching is quite poor, ratios of 2 coaches working with 20+ kids just doesn't provide enough time to spend on individual players.

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 two or three other coaches to join me, the actual coaching that we do improves no end but that's not always possible. There's also the problem that not everyone can bowl accurately, so a batter may get a dozen balls in a net session, not really enough time to iron out any problems.

Having said that, we put forward four players from our club to county trials and I reckon two will get through. And it's gratifying to note that not one of the four is privately educated

 

[erkan]

we put forward four players from our club to county trials and I reckon two will get through. And it's gratifying to note that not one of the four is privately educated

Very well done on that achievement.

Private school kids (aka "jazzers") enjoy an extreme advantage when it comes to cricket in Sussex. Access to facilities (outdoor and, crucially, indoor), technical coaching and time within the school day to practice/play matches from young ages are all huge factors in their development.

This has always been true and it is very difficult to do much about it. All you can do is plug away and work hard at providing the best opportunity you can for state school kids at your club. Creating passion for cricket in as many as possible, while getting some players through to representative level, is a great challenge.

I am very balanced when it comes to dealing with prep school types (I have a massive chip on both shoulders...!). The one thing that really sticks in the craw are the clubs who boast about having a "successful junior section" when all they really do is import private school cricketers to win matches under their name.

 

[erkan]

Don't overlook the role of the minor counties too.

Minor counties play a key role in providing additional catchment area for neighbouring First Class counties.

Shropshire to Worcester is a well known one. Devon & Cornwall to Somerset is another. Dorset to Hampshire. Suffolk to Essex. etc etc

Sussex is unique among the First Class counties in not having either a minor county or a major city as a neighbour.

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[mikeyjh]

Minor counties play a key role in providing additional catchment area for neighbouring First Class counties.

Shropshire to Worcester is a well known one. Devon & Cornwall to Somerset is another. Dorset to Hampshire. Suffolk to Essex. etc etc

Sussex is unique among the First Class counties in not having either a minor county or a major city as a neighbour.

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Kent?