2019/20 Domestic Cricket Season - Logan Cup, Pro50, Twenty20

In English county you have the age group sides from about u10 to u17. Then you have the academy side which is from u18-u20 give or take. So basically you lose more than half of the u17’s. Digest that for a second- guys who’ve been in the system for 7 years know that only about one third of them are going to make that final cut into their academy side. From that academy side maybe one or two will get a contract. Some get a contract a few years later, but most will quit when there’s a break in the flow of their development. It means after a 9 year process of developing about 15 of the best players of that age in that county you’re left with one or two guys. It’s an expensive and time consuming process. If you consider how many schools in any given county, both state and private, you find that final handful of boys are serious players.

In my opinion a lot of them are actually pretty ordinary, but with the sheer numbers you’re going to end up with a couple that are just extraordinary. This is a production line that produces a couple of brilliant boys every single year like clockwork. There’s no-one in the men’s side willingly moving over either. People just don’t realize how strong English cricket is.

I think it’s fair to say that our AC academy has established itself here, but if my model above is accurate, and it is, then you’re only realistically going to get one or two of them that should go on. If they pick these boys really carefully from the outset we should get about 3 or 4 to find franchise spots, and that’s because there’s a lot of dead wood to replace. The trick is persuading our best kids to join that academy, they will always be a bit short and have to make up numbers, but they need a small nucleus of quality boys to make it work.

To answer your question, Zimbo, the key is an organized, efficient and independent club system. One or two exceptional academy boys should find a franchise slot, and the best of the rest should get absorbed into a competitive club system. These muppets broke the factory 😂

We can’t copy that. We don’t pick age group sides every year, the few we do pick is for a one off tour at year end and then they’re forgotten for at least two years. Those county age group sides play each other, at least a dozen games and they’ve got their school cricket on top of that.

Also as I’ve said before we’ve only got about a half dozen schools that play any meaningful cricket. How we have even produced one good kid is nothing short of a miracle.

The answer lies in identifying the small handful of good players spread across the age groups and giving them extra coaching. It’s unfair and all of that, but it’s the only way to get the best out of the few guys that are capable of playing up. ZC can’t even organize an annual inter-provincial for all the age groups, I mean if you can’t do that with any regularity everything else is surely impossible. The goal must be to produce two good players a year, that’s realistic and would work. It’s actually what the counties do- all that time and money to find two boys.

We just need to do it a different way.

And that’s why I like the idea of these ZC scholarships. Our system is no longer strong enough to produce good kids, so let another country do it for us. Place these boys, give them a bit of financial assistance and make them sign a contract that they’re coming back. It works out a thousand times cheaper than what the counties are doing.

What value do you put on a Myers, a Muyeye or a Byrom?

It would be such an interesting exercise if you got a group of guys in charge of development and asked them that very question-

What would you be prepared to spend to get these three players in our system?

Here’s my reasoning-

If you add up 9 years of money spent by Counties it’s hundreds of thousands to arrive at the final shopping list of three players of this caliber. We don’t have close to the expertise to produce them, they’ve got the talent and someone else has done all the hard work for us, all we have to do is buy them ready made off the shelf.

What are they worth to ZC?

What are they worth to our cricket?

These are two separate answers because ZC don’t appear to give a s**t, by assuming that’s not the case they have to have a monetary value. I know what I’d pay.

encore wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2019 1:40 pm

sloandog wrote: ↑Tue Sep 17, 2019 7:09 pm
bias and twisting of facts and figures to suit your agenda

I invite YOU to critique/debunk the facts and figures that I put forward in these posts below. (As far as i'm concerned, no one, even among those who responded or tried, actually proved the figures wrong/biased/twisted.)

BT & KJ AGAINST PEERS AMONG LOWLY SIDES

viewtopic.php?p=140098#p140098

ZIMBABWE WIN-LOSS SINCE BT & KJ RETURNED

viewtopic.php?p=140101#p140101

PLAYER OF THE MATCH AND LIVE RUBBERS

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15725

Facts are different from opinion based arguments. I think I back up what I say, and most don't address the evidence that I provide in fact based analysis.

To be quite frank mate I have better things to do, honestly. Going through facts and stats the way you do says a lot about how much time you have on your hands.

encore wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2019 1:59 pm

sloandog wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2019 1:55 pm

encore wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2019 1:40 pm

I invite YOU to critique/debunk the facts and figures that I put forward in these posts below. (As far as i'm concerned, no one, even among those who responded or tried, actually proved the figures wrong/biased/twisted.)

BT & KJ AGAINST PEERS AMONG LOWLY SIDES

viewtopic.php?p=140098#p140098

ZIMBABWE WIN-LOSS SINCE BT & KJ RETURNED

viewtopic.php?p=140101#p140101

PLAYER OF THE MATCH AND LIVE RUBBERS

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15725

Facts are different from opinion based arguments. I think I back up what I say, and most don't address the evidence that I provide in fact based analysis.

To be quite frank mate I have better things to do, honestly. Going through facts and stats the way you do says a lot about how much time you have on your hands.

Fair enough. At least that way you concede that any dismissive comments that are made are baseless. I know a lot of people who find 5-10 minute task highly demanding and involving.

Believe me it's not that, if I wanted to go round and find stats and put my lettering in bold to make it look for official I could, and have done. But when it comes to you, there's no point kiddo. No matter how many stats or facts and figures I (we) through at sticks in the mud like you, there's always a biased, twisting of facts response and after what, 5 incarnations on this forum? it gets boring and not worth a second of my time.

It just makes me laugh that's all

😂😂 I’m in two minds weather to speak direct to the admins about this weed, or genuinely just go with it..

😂

What the hell? This is ridiculous trolling