Pete Barrow: Burnley Express’s journey to the top brings more questions than answers

Dec 4 2009 by Peter Barrow, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

England’s selection process has caused arguments for decades.

Some players faces seem to fit and are given time to prove themselves despite underachieving, while others are discarded after a game or two and left to ponder what might have been.

The cynic in me tells me I am wrong to deride England’s youth policy because they plainly have a plan in place.

That plan is to pick out the top young talent, pray that South Africa don’t select them first, then wait for them to qualify as England players.

Okay that is unfair on skipper Andrew Strauss, Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott, who all seem determined to give of their best for England in the coming series against their native South Africa.

But you do have to look at the touring team out there at the moment and wonder whether young English-born cricketers are thinking ‘What am I supposed to do to get a game?’

IT USED to be a ‘must-watch’ on television as Ian St John sat there with his fixed grin as Greavesie would say ‘It’s a funny old game Saint’.

They really should put the old Liverpool striker Saint and the one-time dashing goalscorer Jimmy Greaves back on the box again because it really is still a funny old game.

The easiest funny of the week would be to highlight Ireland expecting FIFA to redo their maths homework to try and make 33 fit into 32.

Okay, it was an unfair way to lose to a blatant handball, but honestly how was asking to be an extra team at the finals ever going to work mathematically!

But that is merely the tip of the iceberg.