Sam Curran called up for England

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Googly
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Re: Sam Curran called up for England

Post by Googly »

Kriterion, I’m not sure you can call Vince and Stoneman hacks :lol: they’re damned good cricketers.
Interesting that Ballance has taken a break, he was captain as well. I wonder what that’s all about? The real pressure was when he wasn’t quite makin the grade in Test cricket, but maybe Yorkshire captaincy is even more taxing? Cricket is a mean old game when you’re not doing well and it’s a game of millimeters. Morkel struggled against the Middlesex Second team openers a couple of weeks ago, which shows how good some of these guys are.

Googly
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Re: Sam Curran called up for England

Post by Googly »

If Ben Curran ever got a contract you may one day see- Curran bowled Curran caught Curran.

Googly
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Re: Sam Curran called up for England

Post by Googly »

It’s interesting that in the absence of Leach that the English selectors would pick Bess who’d only taken one wicket away from Taunton. You would think they would have a few spinners to choose from, wouldn’t you? The talk is that Verdi got the call, but failed a fitness test. I’m not sure how true that is, but to fail a fitness test for a test debut at 20 when you’re part of a professional set up will give him nightmares for a while. I’ve watched him take wickets at FC and then get carted in Prem club, it’s a strange old game. When a side is not doing well everyone panics, particularly the selectors.
Ed Byrom just needs to be coming off the back of a good hundred when Cooke retires and you just never know. Opening is a thankless task anywhere, but particularly in English conditions and selectors will have a look at an opener in good nick probably before anyone else, other than spinners :lol:

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SpitfiresKent
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Re: Sam Curran called up for England

Post by SpitfiresKent »

Googly wrote:
Wed Jun 06, 2018 2:56 pm
If Ben Curran ever got a contract you may one day see- Curran bowled Curran caught Curran.
Ben Curran actually came on for England as a substitute fielder against Pakistan.

sloandog
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Re: Sam Curran called up for England

Post by sloandog »

SpitfiresKent wrote:
Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:40 am
Googly wrote:
Wed Jun 06, 2018 2:56 pm
If Ben Curran ever got a contract you may one day see- Curran bowled Curran caught Curran.
Ben Curran actually came on for England as a substitute fielder against Pakistan.
And boy can he bat

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eugene
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Re: Sam Curran called up for England

Post by eugene »

Googly wrote:
Wed Jun 06, 2018 2:32 pm
Sam is a superb batsman but his role has been as a bowling all rounder for the last three years! He’s almost a seasoned pro.
It’s a matter of time before his role becomes that of a batting all-rounder and then he will really come good.
I’ve watched him since he was a youngster and have always thought he should focus on his batting because he’s exceptionally talented. It’s a good observation that he’s probably not international standard (yet?) if the ball isn’t hooping. He’s definitely better than Tom. Whom everyone has forgotten is the other brother, Ben. He was always ordinary at school, but he’s become an exceptionally reliable and quality opening batsman. I think he may struggle to get a FC contract, which is unfair as he’s good enough. He’s Zimbabwean as well and would probably consider playing here if he failed there and in my opinion he’s a fine player and a gun fielder. He’d walk into our national side as an opener. It’s a percentage game and whilst he lacks a bit of flair he’s rock solid and knows his game and I guarantee he has burning desire having lived in a big shadow.
Bess was fortunate to get a game ahead of Verdi (20 year old Surrey player with 17 wickets on different tracks compared to Bess’ 20 on a Taunton turner), but he did well with the bat.
England have a handful of superb 19-21 year old batters.
Surrey have Pope who’s had 148 and 150 already this season and Jacks with a List A 100. He strikes it as clean as anyone in world cricket. There’s a Somerset or Sussex young leftie (can’t remember his name!) who’s probably better than all of them. I watched him continuously reversing two quicks a couple of weeks ago, it takes skill and confidence to do that. In the game I watched he went out taking on deep backward point with a reverse off a quick, bizarre but true, otherwise he would still be batting.
The fact is guys of this caliber would probably be playing international cricket by now if they were from a smaller nation, they’re that talented. English cricket has a way of somehow stamping out flair from quite a few players. They get so hung up on consistency and very few guys get a pink ticket (like Roy) to just go out and play their natural game.
Zimbabweans seem to coach flair out of their players also, certainly among the white community. Seems to be a big emphasis on correct technique and grafting runs. How many Zimbabweans through the years have been good at improvising shots? Andy Flower and Doug Marillier seem to be the only ones that come to mind among the white guys.
Neil Johnson, Alistair Campbell, Murray Goodwin, Andy Flower (w), Grant Flower, Dave Houghton, Guy Whittall, Heath Streak (c), Andy Blignaut, Ray Price, Eddo Brandes

TapsC
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Re: Sam Curran called up for England

Post by TapsC »

Charles Coventry had a few shots in him. BT too with that ramp shot, one of the few guys who can play almost every shot in the book.

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CrimsonAvenger
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Re: Sam Curran called up for England

Post by CrimsonAvenger »

Andy BligZ. Backed himself to go for it all the time, with supreme confidence. Thankfully he wasn't coached out of that mindset.

I feel Coventry got into two minds and failed ultimately precisely for the reasons quoted by eugene. He couldn't choose between his natural flair and the "coaching methods" imposed on him. I could be wrong but that's the picture I get when I think about him.

And yes, most others have been follow-the-text-book guys due to traditional coaching.

TapsC
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Re: Sam Curran called up for England

Post by TapsC »

I think the best example of that confidence being coached out of somebody is PJ. When he started out he backed himself to clear the ropes and he did a few times. He is such a clean striker of spin. Can literally time his shot out the ground but over the last couple of years he has sort of gone into a shell and doesnt back himself anymore. Add that to struggling to rotate the strike and its a disaster in ODIs but ok in test cricket. If he backs himself I think he will shine in the tri-series.

We dont have many confident players. That I have noticed. It really is a mental thing. I think for the older generation its a combination of being thrown into the deep end way too early and constantly losing. Only BT from those guys has any signs of backing himself. Its rare that he gets out playing a timid shot. I dont count Raza as part of them because he came onto the scene way after them.

Its actually very toxic. Especially for the younger guys. They all come in showing extreme confidence only for it to die down after about a year.

Googly
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Re: Sam Curran called up for England

Post by Googly »

If Dave Houghton had been born in a different era or played for another country I believe he would have been one of the greatest batsmen of all time. I had the privelege of watching him bat many times, he was a unique talent, and probably the greatest player of spin of all time, that’s some statement, but true! He destroyed spinners.
PJ is an interesting case. At school he was really amazing and most of us believed he was destined for great things.
A really good coach pointed out to me that he didn’t like short and fast directed at him and he couldn’t play off the back foot. That turned out to be true when he went into the senior ranks and his problems are now well documented. He worked through that and the transition was painful and is an indictment on our system in general.
Firstly when you have a fantastic schoolboy it’s hard to tell him and his support group if he’s got a flaw, they just don’t want to hear it, and secondly a lot of people will sit smugly by waiting for the problem to rear it’s head, with a “yup, I told you so,” it’s human nature and it’s poor.
He’s a prime example of a kid that should have played club cricket as a junior where he would have had to learn early to withstand good bowling before he’d earned the right to punish mediocre deliveries. Our school bowling is not great and a good bat can pretty much T off every over and you end up believing you’re better than you are. You used to see it when a good kid toured in SA, suddenly they couldn’t buy a run, hadn’t been taught or had no experience of working balls into gaps, all of a sudden they looked ordinary. The stint he did overseas also made him more reserved. Those guys bowl dibbly dobbly lines and lengths on shit tracks that you have to be very circumspect about. It’s a fine line between being a conservative batsman with no flair and being confident enough to pull the trigger when the shot is on. At international level you don’t get many loose deliveries and those few that can really set it alight at that level are damned good. One of the problems is not enough game time. If you play 40 games a year you quickly settle into the tempo that suits you and the situation, if you play 15 then you have no idea. You hear commentators saying a top batter needs time in the middle when he hasn’t played for 2 weeks, our guys regularly go two months!! That’s miracle territory.

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