20.9.06

Central Contracts

There were some obvious decisions among the new round of England central contracts announced today - deals for Cook and Panesar for starters - but also some wishful ones - Simon Jones and Michael Vaughan - and a downright odd and potentially counter-productive one, which is covered very well by Tim de Lisle here.

As I've said all along, despite Read's generally excellent keeping and batting in the last two Tests against Pakistan, and the fact that Geraint Jones has made very few runs since he's been back at Kent, don't be surprised if Jones lines up in Brisbane. He will always be Fletcher's favourite and I can't see him being properly removed from the scene until Steven Davies can't be held back any longer.
Posted by at 7:17 PM
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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can see how this selection is very difficult.

Correctly or not, the selectors still consider Vaughan as England captain. This means he gets a contract.

It seems Read (again rightly or wrongly) has not done enough to prove himslef as first choice yet, so no contract to him, but you can't give one to Jones with Read in posession of the gloves.

I'm not sure about Simon Jones though. Maybe they feel they can manage his rehabilitation better if he is under contract?

12:26 PM
Brian Carpenter said...

That's right. Vaughan has to get a contract as he is still, officially, the captain. I personally think that was a silly decision by the selectors as it means that he'll probably come back into the side as soon as he's 'fit', regardless of whether he's actually shown any form and regardless of what other people have been doing, either with the bat or as captain. Very good batsman, very good captain, but not the be all and end all of the England cricket team. How can he be when he hasn't been a member of it for a year?

With the keepers it is obviously exactly as you say - they can't decide between the two. I don't mind this, as, unlike some people, I don't think Read's perfect. I just would rather not see Jones back in the side. Although Jones was improving, Read has shown what it's like to have a really high class stumper in the team and some of the work I've seen recently from James Foster has also put Jones in the shade. I don't know what Foster has to do to get some recognition, and nor, I suspect, does he.

6:49 PM

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