Spanky : England is 'pinching' talent from everywhere

He also thinks that the money the poms spend on its youth academies of excellence are wasted given what's coming through the ranks.


http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/cricket/trott-the-latest-soft-option-for-england/2009/08/06/1249350638418.html?page=2

What a load of Aussie dick sucking shit from Spanky.


Strauss and Prior came to England as babies- They were fully nurtured and raised by the english cricketing system. They're no more South African than Andrew Symonds is West Indian.

England used to be an Empire. Having people from former colonies come to England to further their careers is a result of that.

Which country raised Spanky and gave him his cricketing and journalism skills? Newspapers in Australia, South Africa, India, and wherever else have clearly taken the soft option by paying this Brit to write articles for them.

Exactly, can't be arsed to read his brown nosing sh!t and indeed I have some sympathy for him on the academy/kolpak front but if he's included Strauss & Prior in his argument he's a grade 'A' wanqer.

Didn't he do something like that in an article about a year back when he included Panesar in his bunch of foreigners?

I like the fact he's got his nose so far up Australias backside now he's resorted to calling us 'the poms'

Precisely. I would think many an England fan is uneasy with so many South Africans coming over and qualifying for England, but to include Strauss and Prior is just complete idiocy.

Strauss for one only happened to born in SA because his parents were working there at the time.

So, does anyone actually take anything Spanky says seriously?

Excellent article, as mosty of Roebuck's articles are.

If a third of county players are born overseas compared to about a 20th of the total population then something is going very badly wrong in the development of young cricketers in England.

Shooting the messenger doesn't change the uncomfortable truth.

Australia is just starting to notice its predicament. English-born, Australian-raised Darren Pattinson's surprise Test debut for England last year was a warning.

You mean the bloke who couldn't get a game for Victoria and will probably never play international cricket again?

Now Stewart Walters, a handy cricketer from Perth, is captaining Surrey. More pertinently, Sam Robson, two years ago an Australian under-19 player, and a fine batsman and leg-spinner, is opening the innings for Middlesex. Cricket Australia needs to monitor these developments.

Why?

ten years after wrote:

Shooting the messenger doesn't change the uncomfortable truth.

What's uncomfortable about it? I don't find it at all uncomfortable that Tawny, Lamby, Judgey and KP wanted to come and play for England.

It's not uncomfortable that such a large proportion of county cricketers have learned the game overseas? It should be.

Hey, let's draw a parallel from football. The huge number of overseas players in the EPL has taken that league to great heights.

Unforch, it's also meant England's national team has won dick for forty years, I assume this is because - especially in the past 2 decades, a lot of English talent doesn't get to play top-flight football, due to the number of imports.

At least in cricket it's a bit easier for a lot of blokes to qualify for England, despite OS birth.

Symonds is a Brummy is he not?..as well as being "West Indian"

ten years after wrote:It's not uncomfortable that such a large proportion of county cricketers have learned the game overseas? It should be.

Of course it is, and I agree with Spanky on that. He's talking bollocks about Prior & Strauss though, and he has played the ethnicity card about Panesar before too - sailing dangerously close to the wind.

Roebuck is a tossquer. Simple as.

doctorspin wrote:Symonds is a Brummy is he not?..as well as being "West Indian"

and a complete cockhead.

That'll be the Brummy side of him.