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Post by flashblade on Mar 11, 2015 9:56:12 GMT
hhs,
Surely after all these years of priding ourselves on our Academy and Age-group cricket (£460, 000 expended in 2014) we should
be doing much better than that? You touch on a sensitive area. I asked this question to David Bowden who does amazing work in encouraging and bringing through youngsters around Sussex with initiatives like 'Street20'. Agreed, Sussex has a smaller population than some other counties like Yorkshire, Somerset etc... but should not more local players end up in the Sussex CCC teams given all the hard work and expenditure carried out or is it the luck of the draw? Have any of the recent batch made a strong mark at the club? Machan is potentially one. . . . and what was his answer, fluffy? |
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Post by Wicked Cricket on Mar 11, 2015 13:03:03 GMT
Bowden and others do fantastic work but there is an element of luck for Sussex CCC when they do discover someone who
has emerged from the Academy. Bowden explained the path from start to finish is strewn with challenges and why so few
ever make it as a professional player.
Sometimes players come in waves, other times it can be sporadic, and even if they do make it to the professional squad, the
youngster doesn't always fire.
From the recent batch Machan looks the most promising along with Hobden. But even then injury can wreck a young
seamer's evolution, for example.
It's a tough world where luck can play an important role.
Perhaps, cricket in Yorkshire is still deemed a noble profession where a lot more youngsters get involved and are interested
in it, whereas in Sussex that is not so much the case, where football and golf dominate for the most talented sporting youngsters.
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jim
2nd XI player
Posts: 182
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Post by jim on Mar 11, 2015 13:23:25 GMT
Recent ECB Audit Sussex had highest conversion rate of Academy graduates getting a pro contract
Also we have produced women internationals through our Academy
The base in Yorkshire is much larger with three times the number of registered clubs. Hence we have partnerships with GCB and OCB. As a result of our Guernsey links we have unearthed two cricketers for our current intake from other places.
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Post by Wicked Cricket on Mar 11, 2015 13:45:55 GMT
Jim,
Encouraging news from Guernsey. It would be a coup if a player from that island goes on to become a Sussex great.
If Gary Rich was a youngster today would he have made it into the Sussex side?
Meanwhile, how is Oxfordshire fairing? Any budding hopes emerging? And are Sussex looking to enlarge their captive
area to another county?
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jim
2nd XI player
Posts: 182
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Post by jim on Mar 11, 2015 14:38:12 GMT
S& F - should clarify the GCB point - by being involved in Guernsey we have come across two players from other smaller countries
OCB will take a little time as their older players were linked to Glos before we were involved
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Post by hhsussex on Mar 11, 2015 15:16:07 GMT
Recent ECB Audit Sussex had highest conversion rate of Academy graduates getting a pro contract Also we have produced women internationals through our Academy The base in Yorkshire is much larger with three times the number of registered clubs. Hence we have partnerships with GCB and OCB. As a result of our Since 1995 there have been 95 new Tests caps awarded by England. Analysed by the county with whom they learned their cricket, rather than the county (ies) they were with when they gained their caps, the leading Test-producing county is Yorkshire with 13, followed by Lancashire on 10 and Surrey with 8. Durham and Kent both have 7 and Leicester 6. Sussex is one of a group with Notts and Warwicks on 5. The Sussex-produced players here are Prior, Kirtley, Alan Wells plus Giddins and Ambrose who had left the county by the time they played Test cricket. Accepting the point that there is much more organised cricket played in Yorkshire and in Lancashire, those counties with a very few exceptions have rarely been at their peak in most forms of the game in the last 20 years, whereas Sussex has an excellent record, particularly since the early 2000s, which ought to have inspired participation at all levels throughout the county. How is it that we can put successful teams together with imported players and yet only produce one player capable of holding down a Test place for more than a few games in all that time? Durham can point to Collingwood, Onions, Harmison and Plunkett with lengthy careers in the same timescale, from a population almost one-third that of East and West Sussex. |
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Post by spymaster on Mar 18, 2015 11:10:32 GMT
Recent ECB Audit Sussex had highest conversion rate of Academy graduates getting a pro contract Also we have produced women internationals through our Academy The base in Yorkshire is much larger with three times the number of registered clubs. Hence we have partnerships with GCB and OCB. As a result of our Since 1995 there have been 95 new Tests caps awarded by England. Analysed by the county with whom they learned their cricket, rather than the county (ies) they were with when they gained their caps, the leading Test-producing county is Yorkshire with 13, followed by Lancashire on 10 and Surrey with 8. Durham and Kent both have 7 and Leicester 6. Sussex is one of a group with Notts and Warwicks on 5. The Sussex-produced players here are Prior, Kirtley, Alan Wells plus Giddins and Ambrose who had left the county by the time they played Test cricket. Accepting the point that there is much more organised cricket played in Yorkshire and in Lancashire, those counties with a very few exceptions have rarely been at their peak in most forms of the game in the last 20 years, whereas Sussex has an excellent record, particularly since the early 2000s, which ought to have inspired participation at all levels throughout the county. How is it that we can put successful teams together with imported players and yet only produce one player capable of holding down a Test place for more than a few games in all that time? Durham can point to Collingwood, Onions, Harmison and Plunkett with lengthy careers in the same timescale, from a population almost one-third that of East and West Sussex. |
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Post by spymaster on Mar 18, 2015 11:23:21 GMT
The main reasons for our lack of consistent England players are long term and demographic. In the history of the game we have produced very few compared to other counties.
Our current Academy and player development programmes have been repeatedly rated as being excellent by external auditors. We have produced a lot of county players and women internationals in the past 12 years.
I have not completed a careful study of exactly the influential demographic factors. With regard to Durham, I'd guess relevant factors are the number of cricketers for whom Durham is the nearest first class county and the traditional strength of their league cricket.
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Post by hhsussex on Mar 18, 2015 14:35:45 GMT
The main reasons for our lack of consistent England players are long term and demographic. In the history of the game we have produced very few compared to other counties.
Our current Academy and player development programmes have been repeatedly rated as being excellent by external auditors. We have produced a lot of county players and women internationals in the past 12 years. I have not completed a careful study of exactly the influential demographic factors. With regard to Durham, I'd guess relevant factors are the number of cricketers for whom Durham is the nearest first class county and the traditional strength of their league cricket. Your first point seems to be that the reason why we're so bad at producing Test players is....because we're bad at producing Test players and always have been. Doesn't sound like a very positive or aspirational statement to me. Wouldn't a more relevant set of factors with Durham be that they are keen to impress , being proud of their comparatively recent first-class status, and that they have positive, aspirational people working within the wider county structure saying that ancient history is no guide to what can be achieved now? Really we have to do much better than to say that ECB auditors rate us as excellent. Any fool knows that a quality management structure can be manipulated to produce the kind of results that auditors are looking for, to generate further funding and to provide a nice little logo or set of letters to go on the letterhead or the website. The difficulty is to produce evidence that is tangible and inspiring to those who are not ECB auditors. There have been great successess in the Women's game, and we've continued to produce some - not very many - honest, dependable county players, but the real talent seems to elude us. Why is this? It isn't because our club structure is so poor: we have some excellent leagues and a host of strong clubs, regularly providing good class competition with fringe county players and talented overseas pros taking part, no less than in other counties. Nor is it Southern dilettantism versus Northern grit; there is every bit as much professionalism and will to overcome environmental and sociological handicaps in Whitehawk or Crawley as there is in Dewsbury or Hull. I don't know if it is an issue of demographics or simply defeatism, but it is very depressing to think that we pour so much money and resource into facilities and gain so little from it. |
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Post by spymaster on Mar 19, 2015 13:32:12 GMT
My first point was that the main reasons for the historic lack of consistent Test players from Sussex are demographic. The starting point is simply "catchment territory" population size but there are probably other factors too (including the relative weakness of league cricket in Sussex - as any fool would know). It seems logical to have accurate expectations about what we "should" be achieving currently.
I don't believe that Sussex are insufficiently keen to impress, or lack pride in trying to maintain their status as a leading county, but you may have a point. The assertion that people in Durham's wider county structure are significantly more positive and aspirational than their Sussex equivalents is also possible.
100% agreed that the ECB conducting a quality management audit and concluding that Sussex player development programmes are "excellent" is pretty meaningless. The real evidence for what has gone on for the past 20 years, under the leadership of Moores, Robinson and Greenfield, lies in the players produced and their performances. I don't need to list the men and women under consideration. It is a matter of opinion (half full/half empty) whether those players and performances equal what Sussex should be producing, or could be producing with more enlightened and positive methods.
One not very depressing thought is that England recently had the de facto "NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD" wicketkeeper/batter in both the men's and women's games.
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