I have no qualm with giving caps to people, let them try and keep others on their game. You never know who might take to the challenge of representing their country.
Better than keeping those who aren't performing in situ for months or years without challenge.
The fundamental problem is the muddled selection structure and process.
It is actually very difficult to establish who exactly is picking the side. It seems to be a committee of which Ed Smith is nominally the head. Public announcements however are rare and little attempt is made to explain strategy or decisions. When palpable errors are made (e.g. the Anderson fiasco) nobody steps forward to explain or accept responsibility.
There is a strong suspicion that some ex-players (e.g. Kevin Pieterson) exercise unofficial influence and not in a good way. This may be the explanation for, say, selections such as Dawson and Crane which defied all logic and, again, were never officially explained. Gus Fraser is another who, for some reason seems to have a say in selection.
Nobody has ever troubled to explain why we don't just have a manager who picks a side with the help and cooperation of the captain and keeps the position as long as results justify it. It would cut the salary bill as well as giving us a structure we could all understand.
If anyone thinks I am being excessively critical, try reading Vic Marks' book Original Spin for a taste of cricket circles.
Yes, it's the lack of accountability that does it. The ECB should appoint and pay well a Test-match Team Manager and a Short-game Team Manager, allow them to appoint experts to advise them - but with a clear person in charge who's accountable for the results. Cricket is unique among the major team sports for the structure by which national teams are organised. Football and rugby both do it better.
The current match was lost yesterday evening with the ball - we let them have 95 runs for their last three wickets. If we'd have had 280 as a target rather than 365, well, we just saw how close it could have been.
I've some sympathy for them. A bug going round the team has wreaked havoc. Pope was sidelined through illness and would certainly have played ahead of Bairstow, but why is Foakes not on the tour? He's the best keeper in the country and a more than adequate Test batsman. Taking Bairstow made no sense.
I have no qualm with giving caps to people, let them try and keep others on their game. You never know who might take to the challenge of representing their country.
Better than keeping those who aren't performing in situ for months or years without challenge.
The fundamental problem is the muddled selection structure and process.
It is actually very difficult to establish who exactly is picking the side. It seems to be a committee of which Ed Smith is nominally the head. Public announcements however are rare and little attempt is made to explain strategy or decisions. When palpable errors are made (e.g. the Anderson fiasco) nobody steps forward to explain or accept responsibility.
There is a strong suspicion that some ex-players (e.g. Kevin Pieterson) exercise unofficial influence and not in a good way. This may be the explanation for, say, selections such as Dawson and Crane which defied all logic and, again, were never officially explained. Gus Fraser is another who, for some reason seems to have a say in selection.
Nobody has ever troubled to explain why we don't just have a manager who picks a side with the help and cooperation of the captain and keeps the position as long as results justify it. It would cut the salary bill as well as giving us a structure we could all understand.
If anyone thinks I am being excessively critical, try reading Vic Marks' book Original Spin for a taste of cricket circles.
Yes, it's the lack of accountability that does it. The ECB should appoint and pay well a Test-match Team Manager and a Short-game Team Manager, allow them to appoint experts to advise them - but with a clear person in charge who's accountable for the results. Cricket is unique among the major team sports for the structure by which national teams are organised. Football and rugby both do it better.
The current match was lost yesterday evening with the ball - we let them have 95 runs for their last three wickets. If we'd have had 280 as a target rather than 365, well, we just saw how close it could have been.
I've some sympathy for them. A bug going round the team has wreaked havoc. Pope was sidelined through illness and would certainly have played ahead of Bairstow, but why is Foakes not on the tour? He's the best keeper in the country and a more than adequate Test batsman. Taking Bairstow made no sense.
Foakes used to play for Essex? Was moved to Slurry at the 'request' of the ECB IIRC.
England’s last seven wickets were lost for 64 runs. Again.
If Sibley can refrain from brain fades it looks as though the top four are getting somewhere at last. But what the hell is going on with 6 and 7? They’re not worth their place in first class cricket, why would they be in Tests?
Time for some radical surgery.
Why do we have selectors? Seems off to me. Hire a manager and let him pick his team. Sack him if it doesn't work. The selectors thing is daft.
Jobs for the boys, mate, and a wish to avoid appearing to do things like those football oiks. It helps to have a large number of selectors too. You can obscure things so that nobody is entirely sure who is making the decisions. This is particularly valuable when blatant blunders are made, like picking an unfit Jimmy Anderson for the first Ashes Test, and giving caps to Dawson and Crane.
Better than keeping those who aren't performing in situ for months or years without challenge.
The fundamental problem is the muddled selection structure and process.
If anyone thinks I am being excessively critical, try reading Vic Marks' book Original Spin for a taste of the kind of larks involved in modern 'professional' cricket. For example, when he was made captain of Somerset, he was advised to pick his friends, '...because they will support you when things go wrong'. It is easy to believe that a similar approach exists within England cricket circles.
There used to be a similar muddled structure in Essex County Cricket. We had the extraordinary situatiounty Championship twice and been runner up once.
I know. And as an Essex man you will be aware that the England Selectors (whoever they may be) seem to be oblivious of the County's recent success.
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It was also widely believed that James Foster, untilof England's great and good, and consequently was never considered for England again.
Correct, but the opportunities to pick any of the Essex candidates was somehow overlooked. Both Browne and Lawrence should have been capped by now. Bopara's exclusion was down to the 'he's failed before' principle. That's fairy nuff, except it doesn't seem to apply universally.....Bairstow, Vince, Jennings etc.
I'm inclined to think that some of those Essex boys are considered too bolshy for Head Office's tastes. One cannot be sure, but the history of the MCC is littered with well-documented examples of that kind of thing.
BA's IT problems are that the infrastructure is well out of date, the applications are a hodge-podge of stuff developed over the decades and not originally designed to interface with each other, and that the whole damn thing is outsourced to Tata Services, with most of the staff in India.
Outsourcing, and otherwise failing to comprehend the importance of IT to the business and what that implies for how it needs to be resourced and how vital continuity of knowledge of the systems is, is a scarily widespread phenomenon. The recent independent report on the TSB IT mess was a compilation of shocking lack of understanding and oversight on the part of the TSB board. Most of the board had no idea how much software was being written for them, and they just kind of took most of it on trust. Meanwhile the CIO was massaging the status reports, upgrading things from 'red' to 'amber' or even 'green', thus feeding the board with an overly-rosy view of things. The entire project was practically doomed from the start because they started with a "we want to finish on date X" and produced a plan to fit, without ever going back to ask whether that resulted in realistic timescales, even as progress slipped further and further behind the plan. The natural result was that the board eventually approved a go-live when the project was not ready for it, and the bank's IT facilities just fell apart as customers tried to use them.
Agree 100% - but I work as an interim IT director!
Most companies don't understand the importance of technology to their core business - and even those who do often see it as primarily as a cost centre to be minimised, not as an opportunity for differentiation and efficiency elsewhere in the business.
I'm sure I've said this in the past on here and I know I do it elsewhere when talking / selling.
All companies are IT companies - how they make their money is just a sideline nowadays. Without IT the company would be worth nothing within days.
Agree 100% - but I work as an interim IT director!
Heh. I would recommend looking through the report into the TSB mess (250 page pdf) if you haven't already, in the same spirit in which people working in the rail industry should read RAIB accident investigation reports :-)
I have no qualm with giving caps to people, let them try and keep others on their game. You never know who might take to the challenge of representing their country.
Better than keeping those who aren't performing in situ for months or years without challenge.
The fundamental problem is the muddled selection structure and process.
It is actually very difficult to establish who exactly is picking the side. It seems to be a committee of which Ed Smith is nominally the head. Public announcements however are rare and little attempt is made to explain strategy or decisions. When palpable errors are made (e.g. the Anderson fiasco) nobody steps forward to explain or accept responsibility.
There is a strong suspicion that some ex-players (e.g. Kevin Pieterson) exercise unofficial influence and not in a good way. This may be the explanation for, say, selections such as Dawson and Crane which defied all logic and, again, were never officially explained. Gus Fraser is another who, for some reason seems to have a say in selection.
Nobody has ever troubled to explain why we don't just have a manager who picks a side with the help and cooperation of the captain and keeps the position as long as results justify it. It would cut the salary bill as well as giving us a structure we could all understand.
If anyone thinks I am being excessively critical, try reading Vic Marks' book Original Spin for a taste of cricket circles.
Yes, it's the lack of accountability that does it. The ECB should appoint and pay well a Test-match Team n 365, well, we just saw how close it could have been.
I've some sympathy for them. A bug going round the team has wreaked havoc. Pope was sidelined through illness and would certainly have played ahead of Bairstow, but why is Foakes not on the tour? He's the best keeper in the country and a more than adequate Test batsman. Taking Bairstow made no sense.
Foakes used to play for Essex? Was moved to Slurry at the 'request' of the ECB IIRC.
That's right, and he developed wonderfully at his new county. He should have had twenty caps by now but Bairstow is bed-blocking.
England’s last seven wickets were lost for 64 runs. Again.
If Sibley can refrain from brain fades it looks as though the top four are getting somewhere at last. But what the hell is going on with 6 and 7? They’re not worth their place in first class cricket, why would they be in Tests?
Time for some radical surgery.
Why do we have selectors? Seems off to me. Hire a manager and let him pick his team. Sack him if it doesn't work. The selectors thing is daft.
Ashes Test, and giving caps to Dawson and Crane.
Better than keeping those who aren't performing in situ for months or years without challenge.
The fundamental problem is the muddled selection structure and process.
There used to be a similar muddled structure in Essex County Cricket. We had the extraordinary situatiounty Championship twice and been runner up once.
I know. And as an Essex man you will be aware that the England Selectors (whoever they may be) seem to be oblivious of the County's recent success.
The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. It was also widely believed that James Foster, untilof England's great and good, and consequently was never considered for England again.
Correct, but the opportunities to pick any of the Essex candidates was somehow overlooked. Both Browne and Lawrence should have been capped by now. Bopara's exclusion was down to the 'he's failed before' principle. That's fairy nuff, except it doesn't seem to apply universally.....Bairstow, Vince, Jennings etc.
I'm inclined to think that some of those Essex boys are considered too bolshy for Head Office's tastes. One cannot be sure, but the history of the MCC is littered with well-documented examples of that kind of thing.
Well, Browne is certainly no worse than any of those openers capped so far, although I never thought he'd quite step up. Suspect...... and this was a matter for discussion in the pub the other day..... that Lawrence's relatives;y poor season last year stood against him. A decent run with the Lions might prove something. Westley rather proved out of his depth when given the opportunity, sadly.
45% of voters voting SNP give them 81% of the vote, as long as the Indy vote isn't split, and the Unionist vote is.
The SNP gain hugely by arguing for Indyref2 and never getting it, because they get all that lovely lovely grievance.
BUT Indyref2, if it were to happen, would be exactly the sort of thing that, if it failed, would cause the Unionist vote to coalesce into one party - the party of opposition. The Tories.
So the SNP most likely DON'T want it, and Boris MIGHT. Certainly Cummings could see the advantage of grouping all of the Unionist votes together to beat the SNP and turning half of Scotland Blue.
Boris, of course, might just get addicted to ignoring people while they tell him he can't ignore Scotland.
(I do think Indyref2 will fail as the SNP have a huge Leave vote, those people can be bought off with fishing rights once we Brexit, and Brexit overall makes Independence harder to argue for. And the SNP's arguments - we all get sweeties - only create soft support. "Tough but worth it," tests people's character and makes sure that the people who want it, really want it.)
Agree 100% - but I work as an interim IT director!
Heh. I would recommend looking through the report into the TSB mess (250 page pdf) if you haven't already, in the same spirit in which people working in the rail industry should read RAIB accident investigation reports :-)
Rather like reports into airline operational disasters which are regarded as gold standard by those looking at why and how, rather than finding a scapegoat.
Agree 100% - but I work as an interim IT director!
Heh. I would recommend looking through the report into the TSB mess (250 page pdf) if you haven't already, in the same spirit in which people working in the rail industry should read RAIB accident investigation reports :-
Will add that to the reading list for six hour flight tomorrow, thanks.
I have an interest in aviation and read all the AAIB reports. Does get frowned upon sometimes to read them on planes though!
Fair play to TSB if that's a genuine report in the mould of what the AAIB and RAIB do.
England’s last seven wickets were lost for 64 runs. Again.
If Sibley can refrain from brain fades it looks as though the top four are getting somewhere at last. But what the hell is going on with 6 and 7? They’re not worth their place in first class cricket, why would they be in Tests?
Time for some radical surgery.
Why do we have selectors? Seems off to me. Hire a manager and let him pick his team. Sack him if it doesn't work. The selectors thing is daft.
Ashes Test, and giving caps to Dawson and Crane.
Better than keeping those who aren't performing in situ for months or years without challenge.
The fundamental problem is the muddled selection structure and process.
There used to be a similar muddled structure in Essex County Cricket. We had the extraordinary situatiounty Championship twice and been runner up once.
I know. And as an Essex man you will be aware that the England Selectors (whoever they may be) seem to be oblivious of the County's recent success.
The MCC is littered with well-documented examples of that kind of thing.
Well, Browne is certainly no worse than any of those openers capped so far, although I never thought he'd quite step up. Suspect...... and this was a matter for discussion in the pub the other day..... that Lawrence's relatives;y poor season last year stood against him. A decent run with the Lions might prove something. Westley rather proved out of his depth when given the opportunity, sadly.
Agree completely. However, both Browne and Lawrence should have been given the chance at the right time - i.e. when they were emerging talents and in spanking good form. The selectors had opportunities but spurned them. Browne, for example, was passed over for an out-of-form Keaton Jennings. Lawrence should have made the last tour down under, as a back up. It might have made him.
I suspect it is too late for both now.
A big part of the problem is the lack of meaningful red ball cricket now. It is almost impossible for a rising star to establish a case for selection. Best route through to the England team is now success in the short-form and then hope to transition.
England’s last seven wickets were lost for 64 runs. Again.
If Sibley can refrain from brain fades it looks as though the top four are getting somewhere at last. But what the hell is going on with 6 and 7? They’re not worth their place in first class cricket, why would they be in Tests?
Time for some radical surgery.
Why do we have selectors? Seems off to me. Hire a manager and let him pick his team. Sack him if it doesn't work. The selectors thing is daft.
Ashes Test, and giving caps to Dawson and Crane.
Better than keeping those who aren't performing in situ for months or years without challenge.
The fundamental problem is the muddled selection structure and process.
There used to be a similar muddled structure in Essex County Cricket. We had the extraordinary situatiounty Championship twice and been runner up once.
I know. And as an Essex man you will be aware that the England Selectors (whoever they may be) seem to be oblivious of the County's recent success.
The MCC is littered with well-documented examples of that kind of thing.
Well, Browne is certainly no worse than any of those openers capped so far, although I never thought he'd quite step up. Suspect...... and this was a matter for discussion in the pub the other day..... that Lawrence's relatives;y poor season last year stood against him. A decent run with the Lions might prove something. Westley rather proved out of his depth when given the opportunity, sadly.
Agree completely. However, both Browne and Lawrence should have been given the chance at the right time - i.e. when they were emerging talents and in spanking good form. The selectors had opportunities but spurned them. Browne, for example, was passed over for an out-of-form Keaton Jennings. Lawrence should have made the last tour down under, as a back up. It might have made him.
I suspect it is too late for both now.
A big part of the problem is the lack of meaningful red ball cricket now. It is almost impossible for a rising star to establish a case for selection. Best route through to the England team is now success in the short-form and then hope to transition.
Heartily agree with your last para. Very evident when watching Buttler and Bairstow.
England’s last seven wickets were lost for 64 runs. Again.
If Sibley can refrain from brain fades it looks as though the top four are getting somewhere at last. But what the hell is going on with 6 and 7? They’re not worth their place in first class cricket, why would they be in Tests?
Time for some radical surgery.
Why do we have selectors? Seems off to me. Hire a manager and let him pick his team. Sack him if it doesn't work. The selectors thing is daft.
and giving caps to Dawson and Crane.
I have no qualm with giving caps to people, let them try and keep others on their game. You never know who might take to the challenge of representing their country.
Better than keeping those who aren't performing in situ for months or years without challenge.
The fundamental problem is the muddled selection structure and process.
It is actually very difficult to establish who exactly is picking the side. It seems to be a committee of which Ed Smith is nominally the head. Public announcements however are rare and little attempt is made to explain strategy or decisions. When palpable errors are made (e.g. the Anderson fiasco) nobody steps forward to explain or accept responsibility.
There is a strong suspicion that some ex-players (e.g. Kevin Pieterson) exercise unofficial influence and not in a good way. This may be the explanation for, say, selections such as Dawson and Crane which defied all logic and, again, were never officially explained. Gus Fraser is another who, for some reason seems to have a say in selection.
Nobody has ever troubled to explain why we don't just have a manager who picks a side with the help and cooperation of the captain and keeps the position as long as results justify it. It would cut the salary bill as well as giving us a structure we could all understand.
If anyone thinks I am being excessively critical, try reading Vic Marks' book Original Spin for a taste of the kind of larks involved in modern 'professional' cricket. For example, when he was made captain of Somerset, he was advised to pick his friends, '...because they will support you when things go wrong'. It is easy to believe that a similar approach exists within England cricket circles.
You think Pieterson wielded undue influence over those selections made whilst Strauss was Director of Cricket... 9/11 was an inside job too...
Lol! I've no idea, but I have yet to hear any credible explanation for the selection of Dawson and Crane. If you have one, be pleased to hear it. (I should add that I have heard Pieterson is a powerful influence, Strauss or no-Strauss.)
Fair play to TSB if that's a genuine report in the mould of what the AAIB and RAIB do.
I dunno if I'd go overboard with the comparison. It was a genuinely independent report (and there are one or two RAIB-style things like referring to everybody by job title rather than by name), but TSB disagreed with it in places, and there seems to have been an adversarial element to some of the proceedings (eg TSB's Spanish parent company refused to cooperate or provide information). Also it doesn't try to clearly call out recommendations-to-the-industry to avoid future occurrences the way an RAIB report would. But I found it an interesting read regardless.
I notice on that link we see the obligatory Boris/Trump fascist image. But these crimes are almost certainly not done by people who take their political and religious instructions from Boris or Trump.
45% of voters voting SNP give them 81% of the vote, as long as the Indy vote isn't split, and the Unionist vote is.
The SNP gain hugely by arguing for Indyref2 and never getting it, because they get all that lovely lovely grievance.
BUT Indyref2, if it were to happen, would be exactly the sort of thing that, if it failed, would cause the Unionist vote to coalesce into one party - the party of opposition. The Tories.
So the SNP most likely DON'T want it, and Boris MIGHT. Certainly Cummings could see the advantage of grouping all of the Unionist votes together to beat the SNP and turning half of Scotland Blue.
Boris, of course, might just get addicted to ignoring people while they tell him he can't ignore Scotland.
(I do think Indyref2 will fail as the SNP have a huge Leave vote, those people can be bought off with fishing rights once we Brexit, and Brexit overall makes Independence harder to argue for. And the SNP's arguments - we all get sweeties - only create soft support. "Tough but worth it," tests people's character and makes sure that the people who want it, really want it.)
Interestingly if you take the GE 2019 Scottish voteshares of SNP 45% and the Tories on 25% then the SNP would actually see a swing to the Tories if repeated at Holyrood 2021 from the Holyrood 2016 constituency voteshares of SNP 46.5% and the Tories 22% (never mind on the PR list too)
Agree 100% - but I work as an interim IT director!
Heh. I would recommend looking through the report into the TSB mess (250 page pdf) if you haven't already, in the same spirit in which people working in the rail industry should read RAIB accident investigation reports :-
Will add that to the reading list for six hour flight tomorrow, thanks.
I have an interest in aviation and read all the AAIB reports. Does get frowned upon sometimes to read them on planes though!
Fair play to TSB if that's a genuine report in the mould of what the AAIB and RAIB do.
It looks fairly comprehensive.
However, without proper reading I would reckon that (like almost every other major IT project in history) the most likely cause is going "big bang" rather than iterative.
If I were in charge of such a project I would first shard the existing customer base into five groups: 0.1%, 1%, 5%, 15%, 78%.
The first group would be a hand picked group (say students) who would be told that there might be significant problems with the IT system, and who would receive £10/month for being beta testers.
When it came to switch over, I'd move this 0.1%, and then run this for six months, until all the issues were solved. Then I'd do the next 0.9%. And hopefully find an order of magnitude fewer issues. Etc.
England’s last seven wickets were lost for 64 runs. Again.
If Sibley can refrain from brain fades it looks as though the top four are getting somewhere at last. But what the hell is going on with 6 and 7? They’re not worth their place in first class cricket, why would they be in Tests?
Time for some radical surgery.
Why do we have selectors? Seems off to me. Hire a manager and let him pick his team. Sack him if it doesn't work. The selectors thing is daft.
and giving caps to Dawson and Crane.
I have no qualm with giving caps to people, let them try and keep others on their game. You never know who might take to the challenge of representing their country.
Better than keeping those who aren't performing in situ for months or years without challenge.
The fundamental problem is the muddled selection structure and process.
Nobody has ever troubled to explain why we don't just have a manager who picks a side with the help and cooperation of the captain and keeps the position as long as results justify it. It would cut the salary bill as well as giving us a structure we could all understand.
If anyone thinks I am being excessively critical, try reading Vic Marks' book Original Spin for a taste of the kind of larks involved in modern 'professional' cricket. For example, when he was made captain of Somerset, he was advised to pick his friends, '...because they will support you when things go wrong'. It is easy to believe that a similar approach exists within England cricket circles.
You think Pieterson wielded undue influence over those selections made whilst Strauss was Director of Cricket... 9/11 was an inside job too...
Lol! I've no idea, but I have yet to hear any credible explanation for the selection of Dawson and Crane. If you have one, be pleased to hear it. (I should add that I have heard Pieterson is a powerful influence, Strauss or no-Strauss.)
We still blaming Pietersen for the state of English critic, long after he departed the test scene ?
I notice on that link we see the obligatory Boris/Trump fascist image. But these crimes are almost certainly not done by people who take their political and religious instructions from Boris or Trump.
It's a mental blindness.
I haven't checked the thread but was anyone suggesting that this was done by people who take their political and religious instructions from Boris or Trump? If some Trumpian, septic tosser lumbers in to immediately blame this on immigrants, telling him to eff off and look to his own hate-filled polity is a reasonable response imho.
45% of voters voting SNP give them 81% of the vote, as long as the Indy vote isn't split, and the Unionist vote is.
The SNP gain hugely by arguing for Indyref2 and never getting it, because they get all that lovely lovely grievance.
BUT Indyref2, if it were to happen, would be exactly the sort of thing that, if it failed, would cause the Unionist vote to coalesce into one party - the party of opposition. The Tories.
So the SNP most likely DON'T want it, and Boris MIGHT. Certainly Cummings could see the advantage of grouping all of the Unionist votes together to beat the SNP and turning half of Scotland Blue.
Boris, of course, might just get addicted to ignoring people while they tell him he can't ignore Scotland.
(I do think Indyref2 will fail as the SNP have a huge Leave vote, those people can be bought off with fishing rights once we Brexit, and Brexit overall makes Independence harder to argue for. And the SNP's arguments - we all get sweeties - only create soft support. "Tough but worth it," tests people's character and makes sure that the people who want it, really want it.)
Interestingly if you take the GE 2019 Scottish voteshares of SNP 45% and the Tories on 25% then the SNP would actually see a swing to the Tories if repeated at Holyrood 2021 from the Holyrood 2016 constituency voteshares of SNP 46.5% and the Tories 22% (never mind on the PR list too)
45% of voters voting SNP give them 81% of the vote, as long as the Indy vote isn't split, and the Unionist vote is.
The SNP gain hugely by arguing for Indyref2 and never getting it, because they get all that lovely lovely grievance.
BUT Indyref2, if it were to happen, would be exactly the sort of thing that, if it failed, would cause the Unionist vote to coalesce into one party - the party of opposition. The Tories.
So the SNP most likely DON'T want it, and Boris MIGHT. Certainly Cummings could see the advantage of grouping all of the Unionist votes together to beat the SNP and turning half of Scotland Blue.
Boris, of course, might just get addicted to ignoring people while they tell him he can't ignore Scotland.
(I do think Indyref2 will fail as the SNP have a huge Leave vote, those people can be bought off with fishing rights once we Brexit, and Brexit overall makes Independence harder to argue for. And the SNP's arguments - we all get sweeties - only create soft support. "Tough but worth it," tests people's character and makes sure that the people who want it, really want it.)
Interestingly if you take the GE 2019 Scottish voteshares of SNP 45% and the Tories on 25% then the SNP would actually see a swing to the Tories if repeated at Holyrood 2021 from the Holyrood 2016 constituency voteshares of SNP 46.5% and the Tories 22% (never mind on the PR list too)
'Interestingly' putting in a real shift there.
It could be enough for a Unionist majority, killing off any prospect of indyref2 for the foreseeable future, given the SNP do not even have a Holyrood majority now and the Nationalists only have a majority because of the SNP and Green combined vote
England’s last seven wickets were lost for 64 runs. Again.
If Sibley can refrain from brain fades it looks as though the top four are getting somewhere at last. But what the hell is going on with 6 and 7? They’re not worth their place in first class cricket, why would they be in Tests?
Time for some radical surgery.
Why do we have selectors? Seems off to me. Hire a manager and let him pick his team. Sack him if it doesn't work. The selectors thing is daft.
and giving caps to Dawson and Crane.
I have no qualm with giving caps to people, let them try and keep others on their game. You never know who might take to the challenge of representing their country.
Better than keeping those who aren't performing in situ for months or years without challenge.
The fundamental problem is the muddled selection structure and process.
Nobody has ever troubled to explain why we don't just have a manager who picks a side with the help and cooperation of the captain and keeps the position as long as results justify it. It would cut the salary bill as well as giving us a structure we could all understand.
If anyone thinks I am being excessively critical, try reading Vic Marks' book Original Spin for a taste of the kind of larks involved in modern 'professional' cricket. For example, when he was made captain of Somerset, he was advised to pick his friends, '...because they will support you when things go wrong'. It is easy to believe that a similar approach exists within England cricket circles.
You think Pieterson wielded undue influence over those selections made whilst Strauss was Director of Cricket... 9/11 was an inside job too...
Lol! I've no idea, but I have yet to hear any credible explanation for the selection of Dawson and Crane. If you have one, be pleased to hear it. (I should add that I have heard Pieterson is a powerful influence, Strauss or no-Strauss.)
We still blaming Pietersen for the state of English critic, long after he departed the test scene ?
Not blaming KP for anything. I'm saying the Selection process is incoherent, and giving examples to illustrate.
Comments
I'm inclined to think that some of those Essex boys are considered too bolshy for Head Office's tastes. One cannot be sure, but the history of the MCC is littered with well-documented examples of that kind of thing.
All companies are IT companies - how they make their money is just a sideline nowadays. Without IT the company would be worth nothing within days.
Westley rather proved out of his depth when given the opportunity, sadly.
45% of voters voting SNP give them 81% of the vote, as long as the Indy vote isn't split, and the Unionist vote is.
The SNP gain hugely by arguing for Indyref2 and never getting it, because they get all that lovely lovely grievance.
BUT Indyref2, if it were to happen, would be exactly the sort of thing that, if it failed, would cause the Unionist vote to coalesce into one party - the party of opposition. The Tories.
So the SNP most likely DON'T want it, and Boris MIGHT. Certainly Cummings could see the advantage of grouping all of the Unionist votes together to beat the SNP and turning half of Scotland Blue.
Boris, of course, might just get addicted to ignoring people while they tell him he can't ignore Scotland.
(I do think Indyref2 will fail as the SNP have a huge Leave vote, those people can be bought off with fishing rights once we Brexit, and Brexit overall makes Independence harder to argue for. And the SNP's arguments - we all get sweeties - only create soft support. "Tough but worth it," tests people's character and makes sure that the people who want it, really want it.)
I have an interest in aviation and read all the AAIB reports. Does get frowned upon sometimes to read them on planes though!
Fair play to TSB if that's a genuine report in the mould of what the AAIB and RAIB do.
https://twitter.com/mackenzy10/status/1211235043051474946?s=20
No doubt they have been inspired by the hatred in the Labour party.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_in_Europe
It's a mental blindness.
NEW THREAD
https://mobile.twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1211318839385956352
However, without proper reading I would reckon that (like almost every other major IT project in history) the most likely cause is going "big bang" rather than iterative.
If I were in charge of such a project I would first shard the existing customer base into five groups: 0.1%, 1%, 5%, 15%, 78%.
The first group would be a hand picked group (say students) who would be told that there might be significant problems with the IT system, and who would receive £10/month for being beta testers.
When it came to switch over, I'd move this 0.1%, and then run this for six months, until all the issues were solved. Then I'd do the next 0.9%. And hopefully find an order of magnitude fewer issues. Etc.