England Central Contracts for 2008

England centrally-contracted players for 2007/08: James Anderson (Lancashire), Ian Bell (Warwickshire), Paul Collingwood (Durham), Alastair Cook(Essex), Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire), Steve Harmison (Durham), Matthew Hoggard (Yorkshire), Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire), Monty Panesar (Northamptonshire), Ryan Sidebottom (Nottinghamshire), Andrew Strauss (Middlesex), Michael Vaughan (Yorkshire)

No Prior shows his place is not set in stone and offers hope to various other keepers around the country.

No Stuart Broad either which is a little bit of a surprise as you would have thought they would want to manage his workload to some extent, but presumably this suggests they don't seem him as a contender for Test cricket in the immediate future.


Edited by Clobber - 10 September 2007 at 12:14pm

Is it true they have now introduced a 'layered' approach, with Harmy, Hoggard and Vaughan (probably Strauss too) on a lower layer due to their absence in ODI's?

Graveney has stated they have the option of awarding six month contracts to players next April following the winter tours so I guess they are throwing down the gauntlet to one or two

Good point caller there, Read just scored a very fast 90 and is arguably the best keeper in England. Why can't they just accept that they are never going to find a Gilchrist. I would rather have a keeper who didn't drop any and bat to an extent than a guy who is capable with the bat but drops several chances.

Reed is a better wicket keeper than Prior, thats for sure and a wicket keeper should be picked for his wicket keeping abilities on the first hand, otherwise what's the fun in hitting a handful 50 and then dropping a few crucial catches or stumpings allowing the opponents to get on top of you? Gilchrist, no doubt is a top notch batsmen, but his wicket keeping abilities makes him one of the greatest wicket keepers playing today and I think Aussies are not voilating the rule to pick a wicket keeper for his wicket keeping abilities on the first hand.

Edited by shan - 11 September 2007 at 7:38am

Just reading up a little more on this and what i hadn't realised is that Peter Moores has complete control over the 30 players who will be named in the England Performance Squad at the start of the season which probably explains why they felt able not to offer central contracts to one or two players in particular 

the benefits are there for all to see in the improvement of Anderson in particular while both Plunkett and Mahmood (the latter especially) have shown some excellent county form lately

Originally posted by -JP- Quite right top-of-off, Gilchrist has not only changed the game, but changed the way selectors pick squads - Read is amongst the top glovemen in the English game but may never play again. Mind, most counties seem to be playing batsmen who can keep - I have to admit I've not seen enough county cricket to judge this season, but are the likes of Ambrose, Mustard, Batty and Davies genuine international class keepers?

Well Davies looks very good with the gloves and I havent seen much of Mustard but he looked excellent at the FP final. Havent seen enough of the others to comment. Ambrose looks a fine batsman though.

Hi everyone.... interesting