England captaincy debate continues....

Interesting to hear the debate on TMS about who could replace Alastair Cook should he go as captain - if it happens wouldn't England have been in a so much better position had they picked James Foster from the start of the summer so that he could have stepped into the captaincy role?   What a pity they didn't go with my selection!   Having said that England would have missed out on their top Test run scorer this summer if they'd not picked Root!

Mike Selvey mentioned Chris Read as a possible keeper/captain but he's a couple of years older than Foster so for me Foster's the man.   Sounds like Jos Buttler will take the keeping slot and Cook will continue as captain but time will tell....

More on player discipline...

My County Sussex have been quick to do exactly as I suggested counties would do following the James Foster ban and have demonstrated to all that they take discipline seriously by issuing a statement about how they are disciplining Murray Goodwin. You'll note that there is no actual punishment for Goodwin though - just a verbal ticking off for now.

Interesting view from Derek Pringle yesterday too. He hopes that the push for greater player discipline may bring the umpire back to the centre of the game. Which got me thinking....has the crass implementation of the UDRS by the ICC and national boards led to a loss of respect for umpires? I certainly don't think it can help that players get to review decisions rather than umpires having sole discretion on when to use technology.

And Pringle also raises drinking with umpires after the close of play. That's something that has dropped off in club cricket too in my experience, although I do sometimes share a pint with an umpire or both of them.

Pints or not, it appears that under my watch Steyning won't be retaining the Sussex League fair play award, but I'm at a loss as to what I could have done differently to achieve a 10 out of 10!

Captains and player discipline

The other day I commented on CMJ's piece worrying about a deterioration in player discipline. As I wrote on Cricket Burble a while ago, I don't feel it's fair to saddle the captain with all player discipline issues and I'd like to see umpires challenging individual players that say things out of earshot of the captain.

So interesting then to see that James Foster has been banned for 2 games for persistent discipline issues at Essex. He's guilty of a big breach of discipline himself - the CMJ piece says that he had a slanging match with the umpires in front of TV cameras. But this ban comes as a result of 5 Essex disciplinary issues in the last 12 months - not the specific Foster case.

"The regulations make it absolutely clear that the captains are responsible for discipline on the field and ensuring no repetition occurs."

That is what they say, yes. However, it's simply not possible for a captain to ensure that no repetition occurs - the only way that can be done is through non-selection of the likes of Stuart Broad. All the other counties will now presumably put in place procedures that demonstrate they've taken action whenever a player is reported by an umpire, so they can demonstrate that they've tried to do something to avoid a repeat. But that doesn't really address the issue that the captain could be the best captain in the history of the game, but they still can't totally stop individual ill-discipline.

I'd like to see individual fines and penalties increased, and if the captain is deemed to have encouraged ill-discipline they might receive an even greater fine than the individual in question. While Foster's individual actions have demonstrated that he has set a very poor example, I fear for the precedent penalising the captain for the ill-discpline of his/her players sets. What might it lead to? Use your most dispendable player as captain for the toss and admin potentially?

As a captain in club cricket, I support the umpires wherever possible and do what I can to prevent ill-discipline. But I also know that it's impossible to ensure no repetition occurs. So why have regulations that aren't humanly possible to achieve?

Foster hits 5 consecutive sixes

For those that haven't seen it, James Foster of "he doesn't have the power to bat in the middle order for England in Twenty20" fame, hit five consecutive sixes against Durham on Saturday.

I really hope we atleast pick our best keeper as back up for Prior on the winter tour for all forms of cricket.

Foster unlucky...

James Foster is reportedly "phlegmatic" about not getting any sort of a chance with England in the training squad and Lions, but he has every right not to be. I'm amazed that Stephen Davies got picked for the Lions ahead of him - perhaps the selectors were worried that a couple of smart stumpings and a big score would put them in a difficult situation and prefer to keep things simple.

I hope they keep the door open to Foster and don't really see him as 4th in line for a Test place behind Prior, Ambrose and Davies....

Thoughts on England's Twenty20 exit

Number 1: 80 off 9 doesn't seem like a fair ask when rain intervenes and the opposition have scored 161 off 20. 8 an over off 20 needs to be matched by at least 10 an over from 9 I would have thought. Of course that seems like sour grapes now England have lost, but believe me, I was thinking it as soon as the target was announced!!

Number 2: the value of a good keeper. Foster has made a couple of stumpings the likes of which England supporters haven't seen since Jack Russell was around and it's brilliant to see. He needs to play 50 over cricket for England even if he doesn't play Tests, and stand up as much as possible to all bowlers.

Number 3: Opinion is divided on Dimi Mascarenhas - for me he's a must pick in Twenty20. Yes, he hasn't come off this tournament, but it's about identifying the role you want from someone so that they understand what is required from them. Mascarenhas has been poorly managed, not playing at times, and moving up and down the batting and bowling order indiscriminately.

Tactical errors by England...

Yes, we didn't bat well in the second half of the innings. And Stuart Broad seemed to use all his brain up when bowling each ball of the final over, meaning that when the ball came back to him he lost any sense of intelligence and missed the various chances to take a wicket (and therefore save a vital run). As an England supporter I can't help looking back on the "wide" given against Broad earlier which seemed incredibly harsh....on such harsh calls to close games hinge.

But the biggest tactical error by England was not using Foster as an attacking weapon behind the stumps. He's good enough to stand up to any of the bowlers, and the fact that he didn't must have been discussed and agreed. But, apart from the very early overs, it's wrong for 3 reasons - 1) we lose the option of stumpings, 2) he's not at the stumps for run out chances, and 3) as in the last over there is the chance to run a bye off what should be a dot ball.

When Foster decided not to stand up for the final ball of the innings (he seemed to want to but appeared to be told not to, implying that England were happy to go to the super over if the scores ended level as they were happy to accept one bye) it again cost England. Had he been up at the stumps Broad could have flicked the ball to him risk free and worst case for England, the game would have gone to the super over. Best case, they would have won by one run. I hope the idiot in the England camp (Collingwood as he's captain?) who came up with the bright idea of taking away one of our key fielding "attackers" recognises what an error they made and that it's put right against Pakistan on Sunday.

James Foster gets Twenty20 keeper place

Very pleased to see Foster make it. I think he's worth a wicket per innings standing up to the stumps for all 20 overs.

The final list for the IPL auction

The answer to the question of who would finally go up for IPL auction from the England players has been answered and the answer is:

England: Kevin Pietersen (1,350,000), Andrew Flintoff (950,000), Luke Wright (150,000), Owais Shah (150,000), Paul Collingwood (250,000), Ravi Bopara (150,000), Samit Patel (100,000).

Of those, Patel was publicised before but is still a little surprising as he hasn't done anything to speak of as a batsman in international cricket, and his bowling is average. Of the others Luke Wright might consider himself a little fortunate to have got this far having been dropped from the England side recently. Thankfully the list of all and sundry in English county cricket that was initially put forward has got trimmed down, but I feel a little sorry for James Foster who we've seen can change a Twenty20 game with his excellent keeping.

Looking outside of the England players, who is the bargain to be snapped up? You guessed it - my old friend Shakib Al-Hassan from Bangladesh. At $75,000 I'm telling you he's a bargain and looking at the prices, if he'd been from England he would have been worth about $400,000 - Samit Patel (who is roughly comparable in that he's a left-arm spinning all-rounder) worth more than him? Don't make me laugh!!