Mixed reactions from our fan base when announcement made HiFi called for Bangladesh tour. I would like to add my personal congratulations.

However, I am with the school of thought that producing players for England means nothing to me unless the county is successful trophy wise. I hope for our sakes we have Hifi available as much as possible and our bowling attack will not be further depleted.

Time to register vote internally if you are registered user and externally.

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Barmy Kev
I'm only here for the tele



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 29/03/2010 22:57 by BarmierKev.

As it stands Middlesex could be contributing Straussy Morgs and Finny to the next Ashes project. Well done to Finny. At just 20 he can have a great contribution to Middlesex and England. OK I know people say Middlesex will lose him. True then Danny Evans must perform. How you want it. Middlesex have a long and illustrious list of England players and captains. Not had that many seamers of late. Normy Cowans and Gus only two I can think of. Long may we produce young players for England like this. We will always get a reasonable amount of availability. Country before club. As it should be.

I know I said a lot of the below last week, but perhaps this is a more appropriate place to say it:

Quote:

Shots1992
Country before club. As it should be.

Things Middlesex are good at:

• Producing players for England (over the last five years we have supplied the England team with Andrew Strauss (Ashes-winning captain), Owais Shah, Eoin Morgan, Steven Finn, Jamie Dalyrmple and Ed Joyce)

• Producing players for MCC's traditional fixture v the Champion County. For the 2010 fixture, Tim Murtagh, Scott Newman and Dawid Malan are in the squad, while Steven Finn would also have been had he not been called-up for England's tour to Bangladesh. For the 2009 fixture, Finn would have played had he not injured his ankle in a pre-season practise match v Sussex. For the 2008 fixture, Ed Joyce and Owais Shah played, as would have Alan Richardson had he not got injured. For the 2007 fixture, Nick Compton and Owais Shah played. For the 2006 fixture, Ed Joyce played. For the 2005 fixture, Owais Shah played.

• Impressing Sky Sports enough for them to be keen to invite Angus Fraser, Shaun Udal and (if I may include someone who used to be part of the club) John Emburey into their studio (although the club's proximity to Isleworth plays a large part in this)

• Being in the market for signing world-class cricketers either as overseas players or on a Kolpak (what I do know is we have signed Adam Gilchrist and Iain O'Brien, have been linked with Makhaya Ntini, Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh and apparently have made our supporters happy with the players who have indeed signed for 2010, although what I don't know is who those signings are)

• Arranging events such as dinners, the Pimm’s Party (not that I have ever attended either) and Ladies Day

• Giving supporters something to whinge about (although in my case Watford FC currently fill that void, so there is no need for Middlesex to dilute this market)

• Getting close to signing a player (often going as far as to agree terms and get their signature or even simply impressing the player and agreeing their squad number) only for something to go wrong and they end up not signing. This winter Ajmal Shahzad, Sachin Tendulkar and Yuvraj Singh were certainly not a million miles away from becoming Middlesex players while there must have been a few other players who we were not far from signing only for them to sign for someone else (for every signing that goes through - and this is surely true for sports other than cricket as well - there are surely many more instances of a club narrowly missing out on a player - for example if a player is in negotiations with five clubs then there will be four instances of a signing falling through and just one instance of a signing happening). And don't ask me about the situation with Makhaya Ntini. I don't know whether he will sign or not, or if he doesn't sign then how close he got to signing.

Things Middlesex are bad at:

• Lifting (or at least regularly being in the hunt for) silverware

• Getting onto winning runs

• Making their supporters proud

To be honest, I would prefer it if the above is reversed (i.e. what we are good at becoming what we are bad at and what we are bad at becoming what we are good at)

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Click here to read why I sensationally sacrificed the big bucks of Chelsea for the adventure of Watford

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(image on left not representative of how relative my support of Watford is to my support of Middlesex)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 23/03/2010 20:41 by Jonathan Winsky.

It cannot really be good for the self-esteem of Middlesex supporters when you think of the issues in which precedence does not go to the Club and instead the wishes of Middlesex are ignore and take second place:

• Like I wrote last week, my mum thinks it is wrong that Middlesex do not have full use of their England players
• My dad has just said that it is wrong that Eoin Morgan and Owais Shah should miss the start of the county season just so they can make money (my dad's words, not mine) in the IPL
• Also, my dad (referring in particular to Phil Hughes, who had to leave Middlesex sightly earlier than originally planned and way earlier than our supporters would have liked) said it is wrong that if we sign an overseas player then we can only have him for a period decided by the home board (going by this precedent, this should mean that Middlesex can decide when Morgan and Shah can play in the IPL and when they have to come home)
• Like I wrote last night, Middlesex will have to be shoved around London and possibly Hertfordshire during 2012

There are probably other issues in which Middlesex take second place, but I cannot think of them at the moment.

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Click here to read why I sensationally sacrificed the big bucks of Chelsea for the adventure of Watford

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(image on left not representative of how relative my support of Watford is to my support of Middlesex)

[Quote
There are probably other issues in which Middlesex take second place, but I cannot think of them at the moment.[/quote]

JW, I will certainly settle for second place in the CC in 2010.

Things Watford (the club Steven Finn supports) are good at:

• Playing well enough to make people believe that they deserve to win or at least draw matches

Things Watford (the club Steven Finn supports) are bad at:

• Reflecting how well they have played and how many chances they created in the final scoreline
• Winning away matches

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Click here to read why I sensationally sacrificed the big bucks of Chelsea for the adventure of Watford

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(image on left not representative of how relative my support of Watford is to my support of Middlesex)

New poll tomorrow . Last time to vote and don't forget registered users can vote on internal poll

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Barmy Kev
I'm only here for the tele

Poll closed with a very much mixed opinion.

No doubt the debate will continue as Hi Fi's England career prospects will continue to be considered and our bowling resources potentially weakened.

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Barmy Kev
I'm only here for the tele