Selection Policy (IMO)

[Goughy]

This is for both ODI and Test cricket. I would apply it more strictly to Test cricket and give a little (and a mean a little) more leeway in ODI cricket

- A player must earn the right to be selected by performing at a level above that of his peers. That means consistent good performance over a period of time that is well above average. Average domestic performance with the hope of success at a higher level is a a) a proven massively flawed strategy and b) removes the desire for players to strive to improve as selection isnt based on excellence but other factors. There is transparancy in merit based selection which doesnt exist in other methods.

- Selection on potential and for the future is a big danger. It hurts moral as experienced players that have been performing are excluded for an unproven junior player and the furture never actually arrives with often one 'potential' player getting replaced by another, who in turn is replaced by another. The potential is seldom actualised. Selection of raw, young talent should be a rare occurance and selectors should be staking their reputaion on it as it is a high risk choice they are making. I dont exclude the possibility of a young raw player being selected, just that it should be reserved for players of 'special' talent (ie not one a year)

- International cricket is where players learn about International cricket, especially the mental side and the step up in class. As it is, this is difficult. What isnt needed is a player with limited success, limited knowledge of their own ability, limited skills and often technical issues having to learn about cricket itself rather than just the step upto Int cricket.

- Once selected a player must be given a fair run in the team. What is fair can be decided

- If they are a failure after a period in the team then they shouldnt be selected for a while and sent back to domestic cricket to re-tool their game and re-earn the right to selection.

- Once dropped a player goes back to domestic cricket and isnt selected again until they re prove themselves and re-earn the right. This keeps players hungry and selection honest.

- If a young player is selected then they need to be able to contribute at the required level straight away and need to be a 'wunderkind' or once a generation player. Too often (in English cricket) young players are selected when they are not ready and have not earned it after a lot of hype and it ruins their careers.

- The other type of selection is that of a role player. This is acceptable as the overall balance of the team is priority. However, there needs to be a special skill set that this player needs to provide. eg batting allrounder, hardhitting wicketkeeper or aggressive opener.

- Too often a selection is justified on something like "well he bowled fast the other day" or "he played a good knock last week". Occasional performances mean nothing. All decent players can have special days. Only the good ones can do it regularly. Hand picking the events of a few (or less) games as justification of selection is a fraudulent representation of that player.

 

[Goughy]

This is basically just me getting my thoughts on the topic down.

 

[wpdavid]

This is for both ODI and Test cricket. I would apply it more strictly to Test cricket and give a little (and a mean a little) more leeway in ODI cricket

- A player must earn the right to be selected by performing at a level above that of his peers. That means consistent good performance over a period of time that is well above average.

I wouldn't argue with your logic, but do England have XI players who fit this critieria?

 

[social]

Agree with regards to your average player but there will always be exceptions made for people who are perceived to be outstanding talents

 

[Goughy]

I wouldn't argue with your logic, but do England have XI players who fit this critieria?

Probably not. There doesnt really have to be. Its just a structure.

Obviously those that fit the bill must be included. Those that are unproven (unless an exceptional rare talent) must be excluded.

The rest filled in by the guys that have done well and the selectors choose to go with. This is where the tough decisions are to be made.

The other thing is the way players are treated and dropped. England are far better than they used to be in terms of giving a fair crack (right players or not). Those that are dropped must (IMO) then go back to CC and re-earn the right to play for England rather than possibly coming back a few Tests later.

I hope that is what happens with Hoggard and Harmison (ie if they bowl well in CC they comeback) but it didnt happen for Caddick.

 

[wpdavid]

It's a quiet afternoon, so lets see if it works. I'm not being awkward mate, just wondering.

Let's take the best of the successsful England sides from 2004 & 2005 - say:
Trescothick
Strauss
Vaughan
Thorpe
KP
Flintoff
Jones G.
Giles
Hoggard
Harmison
Jones S.

How do their FC averages stack up?

 

[silentstriker]

Agree with regards to your average player but there will always be exceptions made for people who are perceived to be outstanding talents

But if you have such an outstanding talent, you ought to be able to prove it in domestic cricket for a year.

 

[social]

But if you have such an outstanding talent, you ought to be able to prove it in domestic cricket for a year.

A year generally isnt long enough - could be just a flash in the pan and plenty of players suffer from "2nd year syndrome."

However, there are players who are deemed talented enough to make the next step without any meaningful fc experience or success behind them

Doesnt always work but that doesnt mean it shouldnt happen

 

[Richard]

Doesnt always work

More accurately, hardly ever works. Yeah, exceptionally occasionally it does, but mostly an "exceptional talent" promoted prematurely will struggle for a while. See Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar for instance - both something a bit special, which would presumably have been obvious from an early age, but both of them were picked too early with little to recommend them, and sure enough it took a year of poor performance (not shocking for Tendulkar, abysmal for Warne) before their Test careers started go well.

Imran Khan is another example. Another of the greatest cricketers the game has known, but some idiots can throw the "he wasn't good enough for 5 years" nonsense his way because he was picked totally wrong-headedly in 1971 and 1974, when his bow shouldn't have come until 1976/77.

If you never make these selections, everyone will gain far more than they'll lose.

 

[Goughy]

How do their FC averages stack up?

Their First class averages are not great, which is maybe why the success couldnt be sustained and only 3-4 years later there are only 3 members of that team still involved.

FC cricket is still a good indicator of what a player is capable of at a higher level, even if you ignore the principle of a 'cap' being earned with certain performance levels being reached.

The below has some interesting exceptions which we all know about. The only real flyer was Trescothick. He was a player that had no record and was a gut instinct that payed off to a decent extent.

Vaughan was a phenom that lost his way. He was selected after a poor season, but having to graft and work in CC and realise failure was an option probably helped him in the long run.

Simon Jones has too small a sample to really see too much.

The rest pretty much follow type (especially bowlers). That makes a lot of sense. If you cant take wickets in CC then its unlikely you can do so regularly in Test cricket. Especially when CC sees more seam bowler friendly tracks than certain places around the world.

I want to write more and go into more detail but must rush. Apologies

Name		Batting		Bowling
Flintoff	FC		FC
Strauss		Test		-
KP		FC		- (FC)
Giles		FC		FC
Harmison	-		FC
Vaughan		Test		- (FC)
G. Jones	FC		-
Thorpe		FC		-
S. Jones	-		Test
Trescothick	Test		-
Hoggard		-		FC

 

[Richard]

It's a quiet afternoon, so lets see if it works. I'm not being awkward mate, just wondering.

Let's take the best of the successsful England sides from 2004 & 2005 - say:
Trescothick
Strauss
Vaughan
Thorpe
KP
Flintoff
Jones G.
Giles
Hoggard
Harmison
Jones S.

How do their FC averages stack up?

Let's see...
Trescothick - poor at First-Class level, lucky at Test level.
Strauss - years of decent performance, then a couple of excellent, picked just at the right time and had instant success.
Vaughan - a few decent years, then a poor one after which bizarrely he was selected. Didn't do all that much on his first tour while obviously possessing class, but sure enough as soon as his Yorkshire form looked-up, so did his England.
Thorpe - actually don't know TBH.
Pietersen - everyone was forced to wait, which was a very good thing, as he'd had years of excellence in the domestic game before making his Test bow and sure enough came in and scored 3 consecutive half-centuries in his first 3 Test innings.
Flintoff - picked way, way, way too early basically for no reason other than he'd just hit 34 in an over. Sure enough, a useless waste of space for 3 years. Finally sorted himself out after summer 2001 and has looked-up since then - slowly.
Jones G - picked after 1 good season. Worked for a while, but in the end we know 2003 was just a flash in the pan. Jones was never any good at Test level and hasn't ever looked particularly good for Kent since either.
Giles - hardly an outstanding Test cricketer, just a good bowler on a turning pitch.
Hoggard - picked rather too early, but domestic performance always good (though often limited with his county's extraordinary number of seam-bowlers at his time).
Harmison - never deserved to play Test cricket, never any good at it apart from in the first few months of 2004.
Jones S - hard to form many conclusions in any way shape or form, so often injured has he been.

These of course are just a handful of those who've played in the last decade. A more fair assessment I think would be to look at those who've had success since our revival, starting in 1990, then those who've failed. It'd take a while, but I guess we could do it.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

These are, of course, ideals, and unfortunately cannot be applied to the likes of West Indies cricket. A seemingly limited pool of talent and a shocking lack of domestic cricket mean that the policy for West Indies selection is a radical departure from your (Kev's) stated ideals. Players like Kieron Pollard, who had a fine first season, had virtually nothing to do in the Caribbean for the next 10 months to improve his game. His second season was poor.

A lot of the players go to England to play league cricket, and while that is helpful, it's not first-class cricket. West Indies cricket really needs to rethink the domestic strategy, though I'm not sure if they can afford to, financially.

 

[Richard]

One of those unfortunate "can't afford to, can't afford not to" situations. :|

 

[social]

More accurately, hardly ever works. Yeah, exceptionally occasionally it does, but mostly an "exceptional talent" promoted prematurely will struggle for a while. See Shane Warne and Sachin Tendulkar for instance - both something a bit special, which would presumably have been obvious from an early age, but both of them were picked too early with little to recommend them, and sure enough it took a year of poor performance (not shocking for Tendulkar, abysmal for Warne) before their Test careers started go well.

Imran Khan is another example. Another of the greatest cricketers the game has known, but some idiots can throw the "he wasn't good enough for 5 years" nonsense his way because he was picked totally wrong-headedly in 1971 and 1974, when his bow shouldn't have come until 1976/77.

If you never make these selections, everyone will gain far more than they'll lose.

You cant just pick a point in time and say that a player was picked too early because he only became successful a year down the track.

Warne and Tendy were picked at exactly the right time because they were good enough and simply required a success or two AT TEST LEVEL to gain the confidence to perform on a regular basis.

Performing at fc level for another year or two would not have proven anything to themselves or the selectorsbecause they could do that on their ear

In the case of Imran, he could have done with another year or two at fc level, but he admits that he knew nothing about the game until he played with and against international players - see SJS' thread on fast bowlers for evidence of this

The vast majority of young players who fail do so because they dont have a solid technical base to work with e.g. Imran

Steve Waugh failed as a youngster because he wasnt ready technically - the guy wasnt even the best batsman in his club team when selected

Compare him to Ishant or Southee - those guys were international quality almost before they made their fc debuts and have every right to be playing at the top level (just look at the rate of improvement with a few games)

 

[Richard]

We can't really know yet whether Ishant Sharma or Southee are currently international quality, and there's plenty of evidence to suggest both aren't yet.

I don't see any reason to suggest Warne and Tendulkar's careers - and by extension, their teams' success at the time they were playing when they weren't good enough - wouldn't have been better had they been picked later.

Tendulkar was 16 when he was first picked FFS - no-one has any chance of being Test-quality at that age. It's incredible that he managed to do so at 17. Of course he was picked too soon. Whether a bit more time at the domestic level would have made any difference is a moot point - but it'd have been better for Tendulkar not to be playing international cricket. Likewise, it didn't do Warne any good at all playing for Australia in 1991/92. In fact it's done him a small amount of harm, as his poor record against India looks even worse than it is. Much is made of Warne's poor record at the domestic level, so again you can't neccessarily say playing there would've done him any good, but playing at the Test level and being out-of-depth does no-one any good, ever.

 

[social]

We can't really know yet whether Ishant Sharma or Southee are currently international quality, and there's plenty of evidence to suggest both aren't yet.

I don't see any reason to suggest Warne and Tendulkar's careers - and by extension, their teams' success at the time they were playing when they weren't good enough - wouldn't have been better had they been picked later.

Tendulkar was 16 when he was first picked FFS - no-one has any chance of being Test-quality at that age. It's incredible that he managed to do so at 17. Of course he was picked too soon. Whether a bit more time at the domestic level would have made any difference is a moot point - but it'd have been better for Tendulkar not to be playing international cricket. Likewise, it didn't do Warne any good at all playing for Australia in 1991/92. In fact it's done him a small amount of harm, as his poor record against India looks even worse than it is. Much is made of Warne's poor record at the domestic level, so again you can't neccessarily say playing there would've done him any good, but playing at the Test level and being out-of-depth does no-one any good, ever.

You cant ignore the experience of a few (and we're only talking a couple of months here anyway) failures had on both Warne and Tendy.

It obviously wasnt bad as they wouldnt have gone on to have had the careers that they did if this was the case

However, I tend to think that it was to their benefit as it gave them a sharp reminder that the hard work had just started

As for Ishant and Southee - pace of up to 150 ks with movement and solid actions is too good for fc

 

[Richard]

You cant ignore the experience of a few (and we're only talking a couple of months here anyway) failures had on both Warne and Tendy.

It obviously wasnt bad as they wouldnt have gone on to have had the careers that they did if this was the case

However, I tend to think that it was to their benefit as it gave them a sharp reminder that the hard work had just started

I don't. I'm of absolutely zero doubt that had they been picked a bit later it'd have taken them less time to start doing well.

Indeed they might very well have come in and started doing well instantly. They're that good.

As for Ishant and Southee - pace of up to 150 ks with movement and solid actions is too good for fc

Neither are anywhere near that quick anyway - but it's accuracy that makes an international bowler, not speed and swing.

 

[social]

I don't. I'm of absolutely zero doubt that had they been picked a bit later it'd have taken them less time to start doing well.

Indeed they might very well have come in and started doing well instantly. They're that good.

Neither are anywhere near that quick anyway - but it's accuracy that makes an international bowler, not speed and swing.

The first is a moot point as both went on to become 2 of the greatest in history in spite of their early selection

The second point you make is quite baffling and really beggars the question as to whether you've seen either bowl or know what it takes to make a good bowler

Ishant and Southee are quick with solid actions and movement - that's precisely why they've been ranked as no. 1 bowlers in the making

 

[Richard]

The first is a moot point as both went on to become 2 of the greatest in history in spite of their early selection

They did, but the first part of their careers was completely irrelevant to their excellence, because they were poor. Their careers would be even better had they not been brought in prematurely.

The second point you make is quite baffling and really beggars the question as to whether you've seen either bowl or know what it takes to make a good bowler

Ishant and Southee are quick with solid actions and movement - that's precisely why they've been ranked as no. 1 bowlers in the making

Err - of course I've seen both bowl, plenty. Far more than you, it seems, if you think they're both 150kph+ merchants. Southee has never been timed that fast and Ishant Sharma has perhaps 4 or 5 times. Both have a standard speed of the mid-130s in kph (low 80s in mph) though they have sometimes managed to get a bit quicker (low-140s or mid-80s). Who knows whether they might get a bit quicker, but right now that's the speeds they bowl at.

And of course I know what it takes to make a good bowler, and of course both fairly obviously have the potential to be superlative, but you can swing the ball all you want at extremely fast pace, and if your areas are poor you'll still not be all that good. Sharma and Southee are better than most their age tend to be with their accuracy, but they're still not yet up to international standard, and hence both have records which can be described so far as no more than "promising". Until their control improves, they won't fulfill their obvious potential.

 

[social]

They did, but the first part of their careers was completely irrelevant to their excellence, because they were poor. Their careers would be even better had they not been brought in prematurely.

Err - of course I've seen both bowl, plenty. Far more than you, it seems, if you think they're both 150kph+ merchants. Southee has never been timed that fast and Ishant Sharma has perhaps 4 or 5 times. Both have a standard speed of the mid-130s in kph (low 80s in mph) though they have sometimes managed to get a bit quicker (low-140s or mid-80s). Who knows whether they might get a bit quicker, but right now that's the speeds they bowl at.

And of course I know what it takes to make a good bowler, and of course both fairly obviously have the potential to be superlative, but you can swing the ball all you want at extremely fast pace, and if your areas are poor you'll still not be all that good. Sharma and Southee are better than most their age tend to be with their accuracy, but they're still not yet up to international standard, and hence both have records which can be described so far as no more than "promising". Until their control improves, they won't fulfill their obvious potential.

Tendulkar, Warne, Ishant and Southee were/are obviously good enough to play test cricket when they debuted

In most cases, it takes time to succeed as it is a massive step up,

However, when you are sooooooooo far ahead of your age group peers (stuff the "relative" nonsense, these are the best in the world), selectors take the risk of a few average performances because the long-term benefits are huge