England and Wales?

[Aislabie]

I regularly sit and watch the county scores tick over on Cricinfo as my local Northants, Leicestershire, Kent and Glamorgan get caned by just about everybody except each other. I watched the 2005 Ashes as England for once didn't get caned, thanks in no small part to the contributions of Simon Jones.

The point I'm trying to get to is that Simon Jones and Glamorgan are both out of place, but became part of the fabric of English cricket. English cricket is run by the ECB, which, surprising as it may be, stands for the English and Welsh Cricket Board.

I have no problem with Welsh representation in county cricket. Indeed, it would be nice to see some representation for the other home nations too, unlikely as that may be to happen. But why do we swallow up Welsh players like Jones, Robert Croft, Steve James and more who could have formed the nucleus of a competitive Wales team. (Such a team beat England in an unofficial ODI.)

My quick question is why Wales don't deserve a national team. They may not be Test quality, but they might be a little better than Canada.

 

[barmyarmy]

It's just tradition. If they did have a team the same thing would happen as does with Ireland and Scotland whereby good players get poached.

 

[Aislabie]

I know, but it still irritates me. Same as it irritates me how there's one eligibility rule for players moving from Associate to Full Member nations (four minutes) and another when they move from Full Member to Associate or Full Member (four years).

Make it a flat four years, then Rankin would go back to Ireland, and we could have a Welsh team too. It's still a crap tradition imo

 

[barmyarmy]

Which is why we need to do this...

Time to open up Test cricket?

 

[sifter132]

I'm the other way...why don't they just have a UK team? Scotland should be amalgamated with England, who already have Wales. If they really want to push Scottish cricket, then put them in the County championships, don't make them struggle in the minnow rinse cycle of international cricket.

What about N Ireland? Do their players play for Ireland or England?

 

[barmyarmy]

They can play for either. We only play in the OD comps rather than the FC ones. Only unlimited overs cricket we get is the inter-continental cup.

 

[icyman]

I quite like the idea of an United Kingdom team. That will simplify matters for the lay-man. However, inside there will be a lot of misrepresentation of the units.

Regarding the Associate to Full member-I was not aware of the shortened time-span. Was under the impression that it is flat 4 years across all.

 

[Aislabie]

I quite like the idea of an United Kingdom team. That will simplify matters for the lay-man. However, inside there will be a lot of misrepresentation of the units.

Regarding the Associate to Full member-I was not aware of the shortened time-span. Was under the impression that it is flat 4 years across all.

An example would be Dirk Nannes's move from the land of windmills to the land of kangaroos.

-

And regarding the UK team, I get what you're saying, but if we look at sporting tradition, the home nations always have a fierce rivalry. It would be a pity to completely eliminate that. The only exception to this would be rugby league (I think) but even they recently opened it out into home nations teams.

 

[Aislabie]

Oh, well, might as well turn it into a story.

 

[Owzat]

Not sure there'd be much gain to Wales forming their own team. Glamorgan is the only Welsh first class county, not sure how many cricket teams there are in Wales, but I'm guessing they'd fare little better than some of the better non-Test teams, or maybe some of the weaker Test teams - at best.


Interestingly Glamorgan OPPOSED a petition to form a Wales cricket team, although it seems the old ???? is the main reason behind their opposition.

BBC Sport - Glamorgan oppose petition to form a Wales cricket team

This wiki page lists Welsh players to have played for England or had "notable" first class careers. Isn't Geraint Jones Australian? (EDIT : born in Papua New Guinea of Welsh extraction ie had a Welsh surname!) Hardly enough players on that page to make a team

Wales national cricket team - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Wales games played against England in the early 2000s was mostly Welsh but what you might term a representative XI with a few non-Welsh players turning out for Wales.


So the OP saw that England have Welsh players, that ECB covers England and Wales, knows a few decent Welsh players and beat England in a very informal ODI once, and concludes they could be just like Scotland. Sorry, doesn't work like that. A lot of the ICC non-Test nations have mercs on their books, ex-pats etc. Their cricket is also not an integral part of the county cricket set up, although Holland now do play some ODI cricket in England

Populations (wiki/2011 UK census) :

Bangladesh - 147m
England - 53m
West Indies - 39m

Zimbabwe - 12.619m
Ireland - 6.40m
Holland - 6.07m
Scotland - 5.30m
Wales - 3.06m

Point of the above? Size of population indicating resource, also a lot will depend on infastructure and if there was a sizeable Welsh cricket force then Glamorgan would be a lot better and there'd be more welks in county cricket. Wales is also a big rugby country, while Test nations England, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia can excel in both sports, a lot of countries don't have the size to cope with a lot of major sports. It has been suggested other sports have contributed to the massive decline in West Indies cricket.

Bangladesh are just ****

 

[Sedition]

Holland's population is around 17 million. Quite amazing how they fit them all in without building towering skyscrapers.