England Nat's Senior update
I've been pretty quiet on here last few months. So due for an update where we're at.
It's been a mixed period for England senior nats to be honest. Since October we've flipped and flopped between division 2 and division 3. Basically we've shown we're too good for division 3 and not quite strong enough on seaming pitches in div 2. In ratings terms we started the one day tenure in 12th and t20s in 15th. Currently in 11th and 15th, so we've kind of maintained the status quo, which is a bit disappointing.
We've had a lot of close losses, often with a heap of dropped catches costing us some close games which hasn't been ideal, culminating in relegation back to division 2 by 0.07 following the most recent tour.
The good
Our best senior players have performed fairly well, led by the bowlers Stew Noack, Max Speed and Jared McPharlin. Stuart Yallop, Harvey Charlton and Rolon Donaire have become fairly consistent performers with the bat. Samit Colreavy also played a couple of solid innings in difficult conditions on the most recent tour.
We've qualified for the world cup again
(ranked 11th). Actually have a chance to go fairly deep as our squad lacks depth, but with a variety of pitches hopefully we don't get too many uneven and hards
The bad
With a lack of depth we've been exposed a few times, with our next best players unfortunately not good enough. Richard Buckroyd is a very well trained player, but for some reason has been worse than hopeless at Nat level. In theory he should do alright, he has outstanding summary batting, with LFM world class bowling. Yet 8 games into his nat career he's averaging 15 batting and 69 bowling in favourable seam conditions. He also dropped two crucial catches in our recent 1 wicket loss to South Africa which got us relegated. Rowan Triffit is in the same boat. Our only possible seam nat all rounder, but doesn't score runs (averging 19 batting) and over 50 per wicket bowling.
Squad wise we have decent bats, very good keeper bats and good spinners.
England senior nats are lacking majorly in 2 areas which is hindering us substantially at the moment:
Seam A/Rs - Triffit will get better but he's our only 1 (exceptional/exceptional), (at least we have McCombe for the spin A/R).
Seam bowling depth. Our main bowlers are excellent (albeit most without relevant talents), but the second tier fall away alot.
Looking forward
The bad news is the next tenure we're likely to get a bit worse as our seam bowling and A/R sitaution is dire. The good news is there is a few unbelievable seam bowling prospects in the 22-23 age range, led by Ben Rouke and Dion Gaby. So while the short term isn't looking amazing, the next set of bowlers will be great for England seniors.
Long term though the A/R situation is diabolical and are looking the biggest problem. Greame Wall (25y,8w) by far the best future prospect (outstanding bat, spectacular bowling), with Des Doherty the next best of a ridiculously ordinary bunch of future A/Rs. Even Doherty is 24 and only has outstanding (bowling medium), along with no talent he's likely struggle at the top level too. Future England nat senior sides will likely have to pick 5 bowlers and hope 6 bats can make enough of a score. No matter what conditions Triffit is basically a lock to get selected every tour for the next 3 seasons.
Upcoming World Cup
I think we will compete quite strongly in the upcoming world cup. We're completely outgunned by Australia (as most teams are) and teams like Pakistan with their seam bowling. But given a good run of conditions we could go quite deep in the tournament.
Thanks again to the England community for all your in-game messages and support. It's been really great to be apart of. We certainly haven't been the most successful, but the lack of in-fighting and quality suggestions from other managers has been fantastic. Hopefully we can do the nation (and all your players proud) and cause some upsets in the cup.
