Saturday, October 07, 2006
Starsky and Hutch (2004) **
Must admit, I had been drinking when I watched this - so I can't recall too much about it, other than it was amusing in places. Definitely no cricket though, disappointingly. Again.
The only tenuous links I can think of is to Paul Hutchison (different spelling to Ken's I know) who for some time was a very promising left-arm seamer with Yorkshire, but whose career has been beset by injury, meaning that he has only made 62 first-class appearances in 10 years. He is on his third county now (Middlesex).
There was a time in the dark days of the nineties when the England selectors would try a new left-arm seamer for the sake of 'variety', each season. This meant that players like Mike Smith, Simon Brown, Paul Taylor, Alan Mullally and Mark Ilott (see below) were tried for a few or just a single test, to prove their (in)ability, before being dumped back into county cricket You could even add Ryan Sidebottom to that list, though not strictly in the dark days perhaps.
Accordingly, it was only a matter of time, under the previous regime, that Jason Lewry of Sussex would get a go, and Paul Hutchison would have been next in line I'm sure.
The 'variety' of attack thing used to wind me up. If your best four bowlers are all right-arm seamers, why weaken the attack by playing a left-armer, just for the sake of variety? Richie Benaud, always used to say "do what the opposition wants least"; not playing your strongest team surely falls into this category.
However - if the best four bowlers in England were all left-arm seamers, what chance is there that the selectors would have chosen all four? Oh no, they would have had to go for a 'balanced' attack. I used to have this argument with my mate Ed at the Oval every year.
The only tenuous links I can think of is to Paul Hutchison (different spelling to Ken's I know) who for some time was a very promising left-arm seamer with Yorkshire, but whose career has been beset by injury, meaning that he has only made 62 first-class appearances in 10 years. He is on his third county now (Middlesex).
There was a time in the dark days of the nineties when the England selectors would try a new left-arm seamer for the sake of 'variety', each season. This meant that players like Mike Smith, Simon Brown, Paul Taylor, Alan Mullally and Mark Ilott (see below) were tried for a few or just a single test, to prove their (in)ability, before being dumped back into county cricket You could even add Ryan Sidebottom to that list, though not strictly in the dark days perhaps.
Accordingly, it was only a matter of time, under the previous regime, that Jason Lewry of Sussex would get a go, and Paul Hutchison would have been next in line I'm sure.
The 'variety' of attack thing used to wind me up. If your best four bowlers are all right-arm seamers, why weaken the attack by playing a left-armer, just for the sake of variety? Richie Benaud, always used to say "do what the opposition wants least"; not playing your strongest team surely falls into this category.
However - if the best four bowlers in England were all left-arm seamers, what chance is there that the selectors would have chosen all four? Oh no, they would have had to go for a 'balanced' attack. I used to have this argument with my mate Ed at the Oval every year.
