Over the years, We’ve provided chances for stokes, Harmison, colly, Borthwick, rushworth, mustard, , onions, and plenty of other local lads to progress
All bar rushworth went on to England recognition. More so than the four names you listed above
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Durham New Contracts
- Thread starter Tongey
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All bar rushworth went on to England recognition. More so than the four names you listed above
Twisted
Striker
haseeb seems an odd example, has he not been jettisoned?
jennings was persevered with much longer than most durham fans wanted. i remember being one of the rare voices on here thinking we should stick with him but even i said drop him down the order as he's not cutting it and wanted him playing at 4 as more of an all rounder. then he went on to score about 1700 runs the next year as an opener!
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Indeed another young one from the Durham conveyor belt.
haseeb seems an odd example, has he not been jettisoned?
jennings was persevered with much longer than most durham fans wanted. i remember being one of the rare voices on here thinking we should stick with him but even i said drop him down the order as he's not cutting it and wanted him playing at 4 as more of an all rounder. then he went on to score about 1700 runs the next year as an opener!
not sure where that poster has got the idea that those examples he gave are outdoing what durham have done over the decades
haseeb was dumped by Lancashire
Absolutely
Goes against everything we stand for
He’s hit n miss steel but he has talent that could be developed
Twisted
Striker
ah right. i did wonder if it was just an aussie using a british phrase wrong
Not a fan of this when we are signing a rage kolpaks
Twisted
Striker
assuming it was all about money then aye, fair shout. there was a lad previous around the first team we tried to keep on an academy contract who i think left?, can't remember who that was. a handful of years back now. perhaps it was hickey? around that time
it would be interesting to see how many of these 'dismissed young players' we never gave a chance to have actually gone on to any kind of career elsewhere.
i can think of a few. ben raine, kyle coetzer and chris rushworth. none of them would have got into the side at the time and all have gone on to have decent careers and tbf the first two were given the chance. so a grand total of one player, who has gone on to become one of the best players durham ever produced.
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If it’s about lack of opportunity then the same argument about the recent average signings could be made.
Twisted
Striker
you don't even need to go that far back. over the last few seasons we've seen burnham, potts, coughlin, trevaskis, pringle, steel, weighell and many more given opportunities and that's just off the top of my head
he played pretty much every t20 game and a few in the bob willis... at the end of the day we won't know until later on down the line. if the club deemed him not good enough to be a major part of our first team squad at age 20 (which he was at the start of this season, 21 now i think) and that we needed a few better more experienced pros ahead of him then that's fair enough imo. done a pretty decent job over the years
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Getovermyside
Subs Bench
I didn’t deny Durham produce good kids or
Players ,my arguement is based around letting them go and how it’s done over the years,Raine, Coughlin, Stoneman,Borthwick all left and it’s probably cost durham more to bring them back rather than manage them better and coach them individually to maximise their potential whilst already in the camp. “Yes” you’ll say money but i don’t think it is that personally.Rushy stayed loyal and I guess got his rewards by becoming player
Of the year rightly so I might add and has embraced everything that NE cricket stands for imo...
Ps I am lover of Durham Cricket just expressing an opinion.
Durham arrived in 1992 with a local proud identity that I feel is lost collectively by again my opinion piss poor management.
Players ,my arguement is based around letting them go and how it’s done over the years,Raine, Coughlin, Stoneman,Borthwick all left and it’s probably cost durham more to bring them back rather than manage them better and coach them individually to maximise their potential whilst already in the camp. “Yes” you’ll say money but i don’t think it is that personally.Rushy stayed loyal and I guess got his rewards by becoming player
Of the year rightly so I might add and has embraced everything that NE cricket stands for imo...
Ps I am lover of Durham Cricket just expressing an opinion.
Durham arrived in 1992 with a local proud identity that I feel is lost collectively by again my opinion piss poor management.
Your ‘more experienced pros’ are others’ South African journeymen. Did Steel play one red ball game this year? Did he get any opportunity at the top of the order in T20 despite doing well last year?
Twisted
Striker
it was an odd year all round. the club don't get everything right, but more often than not they have done over the years so i feel able to cut them some slack
Raine, Coughlin, Stoneman,Borthwick : none of these players fit your description as " dismissing young players without giving them a chance"
raine is the only one we let go off willingly and at the time our team was too good for him to get into. might as well say safc should have kept liam bridcutt as he'd get into the side now
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Stoneman and Borthwick left due to finance and restrictions placed on durham by the ftecb
coughlin was tapped up by notts with the prospect of being fast tracked into the England squad
raine I’ll give you
I agree Durham have been brilliant over the years but you can’t give the current regime credit for what’s gone before. It all smacks of (failing) short termism atm.
Twisted
Striker
hard to say. windows is still running the academy right and cook is still involved in the youth set up i believe. so as a result i think alot of the voices deciding if the players, like bell, steel etc are ready to be regular first team members or if the need an extra year or so to develop or if they'll never make it are still the same.
you might well be right. it's always a tough balancing act between bringing in the right amount of youth but having enough experience around them. it's a tough place to play CLS and we've seen where trying to bring through too many academy players at the same time has got us. obviously bringing in rank average plodders isn't the right move but i don't think we signed players like dickson expecting them to be poor. salisbury is a good example of what you might call a journeyman cricketer coming in being a good signing.
If Cook is still involved with the Academy with Windows , plus Walker and Killeen at senior level, I can't see much changing regarding development. 2 of the Saffers are internationals so they're a bit more than "journeymen " but I can't see the point of signing Dickson especially as Borthwick was clearly on the horizon. Fact is though, there are no young batting prospects knocking on the 1st team door so interim signings were necessary. 3 youngsters in the Under 19 Lions squad indicates that the Academy is still producing.
Bri
Striker
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Twisted
Striker
we needed someone who could open this season though, and at a time before covid was around (if that was ever a time?) and if cook, windows & etc thought that a scott steel or sol bell was not quite ready to be a fixture opening the batting this year then i'm willing to assume they were probably right.
I took from it that it’ll depend on how his Australian summer goes and any prospective call-up to the Aussie side which would affect availability.
Seems clear we want him but there’s a lot of cricket for him between now and next April so it’s up to him from there.
On the news, I think it’s more positive signs on the whole, I’m really excited about next season now and I genuinely think we’ll get promoted if we’re able to have a proper season.
Said many times this ‘summer’ that I hoped everyone could be retained, I certainly don’t feel it’s fair to get rid of anyone based on performances - but to me, those who’ve been let go are probably being done for mainly financial reasons, of course cricketing ability/promise will be part of it, but I think all counties will be thinking long and hard about how much money they can afford to spend on their playing staff, I don’t think we’ll be alone in trimming our squad.
You’ve got to be on a wind up........?!
Not quite the whole story though, is it?
Dale Benkenstein anyone? Michael Di Venuto? Otis Gibson?
We’ve had plenty of kolpak players who’ve been a success for/with us and yes, of course we would rather have homegrowns, but we’ve got a pretty decent record over the last twenty years of both producing world class talent AND picking up valuable naturalised Brits.
It’s perfectly fine to have both.
AND, I feel very strongly that actually, we’ve almost always maintained the right balance on this issue. Certainly with respect of the circumstances we’ve found ourselves in.
I remember the early years of kolpaks, they were littered all around the county circuit, some very good players and some absolute dross aswell, but we stuck for a long time with our one overseas man and a side full pretty much of local lads. Problem was, every game it seemed like the oppositions kolpaks were making key contributions and we were being left behind.
The thinking quickly became ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’.
We struck gold with Benks and he’ll go down as one of the most influential players in the clubs history. Others like Thorp and Breese, along with the lads already mentioned helped to propel us right to the top of the tree.
How much of the growth and development of lads like Stoneman, Borthwick, Stokes, Harmison, Mustard, etc, etc, etc were improved exponentially by having role models and mentors like them?
Of course the overarching point is that you have to be practical and pragmatic - we’ve got plenty of local talent in the squad and they’ll get their chance - but sometimes you have to look further afield to strengthen your ranks.
That’s before you consider that in recent times, many players who we produced from local sources have left for what they view as greener grass - those gaps need plugging and players like Mark Stoneman, Keaton Jennings and Scott Borthwick don’t just come along all the time. They’re not ten a penny. Nurturing talent takes a long time and when that talent chooses to leave you there’s no real compensation - either financially or from a squad strengthening point of view.
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