English county season 2008 (IV)

Dello wrote:And where's Nick Knight's in depth beige-a-thon as to why Bilal Shafayat has gone from being an ultra-talented, shoo-in for higher honours England under 19 captain to being indistinguishable from dog shit?

He's got a silly beard too. A link, perhaps?

Never mind Knight, I can tell you on that one.

Played against him in a couple of games of indoor cricket 12 - 18 months ago, and he's just a Billy Big-shot who's surrounded himself with sycophantic hangers on bigging him up even though he laughingly got himself out well over a dozen times in one game.

Hardly enough evidence to build a full character map, and of course it was but a game of hit and giggle indoors against a bunch of jokers, but I was frankly embarrassed for him and I don't see a hungry international-bound cricketer allowing himself to be shown up like that in any form of the game.

Played against Derbyshire's Dan Birch a few times as well, and whilst he clearly doesn't possess the natural talent of Shafayat, his approach was completely different, and the bloke is a genuine competitor.

Hope the latter makes a break through soon (though sadly doubt it) whilst I equally hope that Notts manage to ship Shafayat out of town at the earliest possible opportunity.

Shame - played proper cricket against Bilal when he was 14 and he demonstrated that he was gifted with bat, ball and gloves all in the same game.

Clearly not hungry enough to make the most of it though.

Birchy looks like a right geezer. He's done alright for us but I doubt he'll be much more than a journeyman, averaging mid to high 30s. Hope he proves me wrong.

He has been one of our better batsman this season but that's mainly because nearly everyone else has been cack. Our best batsman (Rogers apart) has been our wicketkeeper, James "next Gilchrist" Pipe.

If we strengthen our batting with Stephen Moore and one or two others (shouldn't really have let Chris Taylor leave), we've got the bowling to be a real force.

It was all going so well until those closing words, couldn't help but let out an involuntary chuckle.

Glad to hear Dan's going well - hits the ball bloody hard, can still feel the sting when I close my eyes, but looks to be lacking in something (shot selection being my biggest gripe) whenever I've seen him in the flesh or on the TV at the higher levels.

He didn't say what they were going to be a real force at.

Could be tiddlywinks.

Big_Bad_Bob wrote:

Glad to hear Dan's going well, can still feel the sting when I close my eyes, but looks to be lacking in something whenever I've seen him in the flesh.

Hahahahahah! So much material, so little time!


....Nah - too easy.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:

So much material...

Are you talking about David Sales' girdle again?

Essex v Sussex highlights just coming on SS1 now.

Really worth catching if you've not seen Napier's incredible knock yet!

I heard 4,000 Chinese children work day and night to keep him in pants. Someone once asked them why they do such an unrewarding job for such little pay. They replied that they felt they couldn't inflict a naked Jumbo Sales on the world. Fair play...fair play.

Dello wrote:

Are you talking about David Sales' girdle again?

He couldn't have been on about his repetoire.

Ian Bell > David Sales.

Bit of a weird one that. Put it on the massive 'failed' pile.

Just trying to prove a point.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Just trying to prove a point.

It's actually unproven. And unspecified.

You'll work it out.

Um. My algebra is a little off.

My pointing out your inordinate amount of lead balloons, followed by your Grange Hill/Sooty&Sweep style geeing of forummers to jump on your gash bandwagon = (Ian Bell > David Sales)?

No, no. Nothing to do with that.

The sparrows conspired against the Babylonians and brought down their empire just so Karma would send the Spanish to tank the Oldecs many years later, hence an animated story called 'The Mysterious Cities of Gold' could be created and, in turn, meant the theme tune could be written?

Big_Bad_Bob wrote:Essex v Sussex highlights just coming on SS1 now.

Really worth catching if you've not seen Napier's incredible knock yet!

Just saw the scorecard - holy carp.

Dello wrote:*waits for Mudge to rock up and proclaim Napier a potentially world class all rounder who should at the very least be a part of the England set-up, if not captain, coach and spiritual guru*

Haha. No. But he's always been lingering in the England selector's thoughts when it comes to the shorter forms of the game. He went to the academy a couple of times, and impressed Rod Marsh with the way he played the spinners on a tour of India. He's never really put enough runs on the board to be seriously considered however, despite showing glimpses of stroke playing brilliance. The closest he came to being picked for England was probably in 2003 just after the world cup. I seem to remember Graveney mentioning his name (as he tended to do in an effort to keep everyone happy) when talking about the players who were 'unlucky' to miss out on selection.

One of those players who's always had the talent but has never kicked on.

Was disappointed with his pace. He got up to 87mph, but he was consistantly there last year.

Napier?

Yeah, Napier. He was consistantly 85 last year, top end 88. This year, despite losing weight and gaining muscle, he was a bit more pop-gun.

He's pretty much identical to Luke Wright, but 5 years older.