SomerSex - County championship 2021

[longeared]

I always liked him on the telly, he had a presence about him and a certainty of mind as to where England were going wrong, so was pleased when he got the England gig in preference to MJK Smith. It was manifestly not a good appointment though, he was 61 by then (it's like appointing Agnew when Silverwood gets sacked next month) and brought all his old mates from the 60s in along with picking experienced players, Athers asked several times for more coaches in touch with the modern game. Then he wrote that extraordinarily controversial book One Man Committee where he he said Malcolm had bowled crap and lost us the Cape Town Test early in 1996 which led to a hell of a furore as to whether there was a racial element to the criticism. The TCCB brought Bumble in after that to act as coach and Illy faded out of the scene that summer after the World Cup debacle.

That book in Satchmo's post is indeed good, I reviewed it on the Cricket Books thread once.

[The Bean Counter]

DCMS has released its report today. Plenty for cricket to do, unsurprisingly, as well as threats to stop government funding if they don't.

Excellent, no-holds-barred take from Mark Ramprakash here

[diggedy derek]

I was really surprised by Ramp's take because I'd previously heard him discuss about 'different times, different environments' and been reluctant to draw any conclusions about the Yorkshire situation. Seems I had him wrong.

[Tony C]

James Pattinson has joined Notts for the summer which surprised me as I thought he’d retired from first class cricket altogether. Turns out he’s just quit the international scene to spare himself more injury which makes this an even better acquisition for the county. He’s still a relatively young man and a seriously good bowler.

As the BBC site informs us:

“He joins an already strong pace bowling unit including Luke Fletcher, Dane Paterson, Jake Ball, Brett Hutton and, when he is available, England's Stuart Broad” which is a pretty good roster of quicks.


That Ramprakash article is excellent.

[Antepli Ejderha]

DCMS has released its report today. Plenty for cricket to do, unsurprisingly, as well as threats to stop government funding if they don't.

Excellent, no-holds-barred take from Mark Ramprakash here

That's a great piece by Ramprakash, to link the whole hostile environment created by this government to the issues in cricket and to challenge Julian Knight.

[Antepli Ejderha]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...droidApp_Other

This is a lovely interview with Azeem Rafiq. It's a difficult read but congratulations to Donald McRae for presenting it so well.

[Etienne]

Great that the ECB are getting noted race relations expert Dan Ashworth, as well as ethical talisman Dave Brailsford on board with their review.

[diggedy derek]

Brailsford is a walking red flag.

[E10 Rifle]

Yep, there's nothing in that review lineup to be cheered by. It's pure corporate executive-breakfast, call-in-the-Winners-And-Big-Beasts-From-Industry macho bullshit.

[E10 Rifle]

And whatever it is Brailsford recommends, he'll probably claim to have forgotten what it was a couple of years later