Some candid opinions from our former captain...

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Interesting take, which many people would agree with.

It does seem to be a little optimistic to take the same players into next season and hope things work out differently.

Moxon however doesn't seem to agree with his former captain with his comments about bringing in maybe one player over the summer.

This quite from Gough will wind up tony:

...When asked about the possibilities of a replacement for Rana, Gough said: “There is (Morne) Morkel. If we can get Morkel, which I doubt we would, then he would be awesome.”

It looks like we have a fairly fundimental difference of opinion between our ex-captain and the director. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

For once I'm on Gough's side.

The Rana problem could be quite a problem if we were to ditch him. Is there
anything in the original contract that says we can dump him for any reason?
Can the ECB legally dump him (and others) for gaining employment during the
winter in a league they don't sanction? The old TCCB went down that road
against Packer and ended up losing face and a lot of money. If we did ditch
Rana and then subsequently Rana (and others) won their case in a court of
law would the ECB then settle the financial implications on Yorkshire's
behalf? We could end up paying for two overseas players including one who's
banned and then re-instated by law.
I'm inclined to side with Rana and the so-called ''rebels'' on this one.
If they want to play ICL cricket, ABC or even XYZ cricket they should be
allowed to do so as long as it doesn't interfere with any other contractual
obligation. The fact the BCCI doesn't like it should have no bearing on the
matter. Time the BCCI were told by the ICC to ''keep their noses out of
other people's business.''

I suspect if we can use the ICL loophole to ship Rana off and cancel his contract we'll do so.

Whether that is right and honourable though is doubtful. The man has a contract and it's our fault for giving him a 2 year deal.

The fact he's not performed is a disappointment but that doesn't void his contract. With his injury record we probably should have insisted on performance related bonusses. Ah well, too late now.

We're probably stuck with him for another season.

Why did we offer Rana a two year deal? I doubt many other counties offer more than a possible rolling one year contract to overseas players and given his injury record I'd have thought that the best he could have hoped for. Pay as you play and we'll review in the winter would have been my offer.

''He showed great commitment and spirit and was always up to a challenge, and the public likes that. And he has that rare quality of not only playing well himself but also lifting the other people in the team at the same time. That is a leadership quality and that is why I brought him to Yorkshire for the last couple of years of his career as captain''.

Did anyone else catch this line from Geoffrey this week? Seems Boycs makes the decisions all on his own nowadays. No great disagreemwnt with that, so long as we know, and therefore know who to praise/blame when things go right/wrong.

Regan said during the Winter of Discontent that he didn't know cricket stuff and had brought Boycott into the fold.

Sounds like he was in charge of getting the Moxon/Gough team in.

I expect now we have a Director of Cricket in place it is Moxon making the cricket decisions now.

Moxon still has to report into the Executive Committee presumably so Boycott is the cricket knowledge on this group who can challenge and question Moxon. I don't think the rest of the committee have past cricketing experience (playing or otherwise) nor do they have the connections in the game that Geoffrey has which can work to our advantage (eg Rudolph)

I agree with Gough. Without adding a strike bowler (hopefully by replacing the the knackered Naved) and shoring up the ongoing fiasco at first wicket, we will struggle right out of the gate and almost certainly go down.

We have to learn from the past and for the last two seasons neither of these issues has been addressed and we've constantly been under the cosh. If Moxon can't see this, he should resign and let someone with a vision take over.

What is it with people on this site ... some of you want us to sign every cricketer who's reputed to be available. Much of the bowling 'problems' in 2008 were due to an injured overseas proffessional & a someone who could only realistically have one spell a day. At least the latter wont be around in 2009.

Please remember some of our other 'signings such as Stemp, Harden, Blain & Lucas.

I'd welcome Plunkett but please dont sign someone just because we can

I don't think anyone is suggesting we go out and sign players willy-nilly. However, we do meed to shore up what is a very brittle lineup with little depth in some key places. (Openers, strike bowler)

For the best part of two seasons we have watched our team getting flogged, with no real idea of how win matches in the Championship. All I'd like to see is us bring in a couple of solid county pros, who can help restore some condfidence and see us through to when our young players are ready to go.

Doing nothing is NOT an option.

we definitely need another experienced bowler now as Kruis has decided to leave and pusrue his career elsewhere according to the official site.

A shame but perhaps not unexpected or too disastrous but at risk of upsetting dpressed I think one external fast bowler will be needed now (and I would still happily see Naved go the same way as Gough and Kruis)

A good player and he will be missed but it gives an opportunity to Patterson or Shazad to take his place. Assuming Breson, Naved, Hoggard and Rashid are certainties, 3 (Wainwright, Patterson and Shazad) instead of 4 are now fighting for the remaining bowling slot.

The fact the club tried to keep Kruis suggests they aren't totally happy with the idea of going with what we have left.

A player of Plunkett's calibre would be welcome.

As Stu said Hoggard, Bresnan, (a fit) Naved & Rashid should be the mainstays with Shahzad (if fit), Patterson & as Scarborough Wainwright taking the other bowlers spot

"Hoggard, Brez, Rana and Rashid should be the mainstay of the bowlers"

the only problem with this is that

1. Rana has not been very good and the T20 connections might be a problem
2. Rashid, brez and Hoggy are all aiming to play for England next summer and whilst all 3 won't be selected at once, what happens if one of them is picked?

You cannot just stand by and watch Gough and Kruis retire/leave and expect to do as well as this year - if you want to improve then we need to strengthen the seam attack from outside as the promising youngsters are now starting to age and suffer from injuries (Patto and Shahzad)

A key aspect of Yorkshire's 2009 plans will be whether we can rid ourselves of the injury-prone, over-the-hill Rana Naved. Until he's jettisoned we can't really move on acquiring a quality strike bowler, other than looking at the limited market in British-born options.

Rana was a huge mistake, and he almost cost us our place in the first division. While other teams prospered with effective overseas players, ours was either unavailable, injured or off form. He made no meaningful contribution to our first class season. The quicker we can dump him the quicker we can explore other possibilities.

Well said, although Moxon (who signed him) might not agree. We would have contended for the title if Morkle had been with us all season.

"Please remember some of our other 'signings such as Stemp, Harden, Blain & Lucas"

I was only casually taking an interest in the performance of Yorskhire (due to being overseas) during the time of Richard Stemp's bowling but I seem to remember him taking a fair few wickets. Is Dpressed being unfair or is this highlighting my (lack of) knowledge of mid-nineties Yorkshire cricket?!?

"Please remember some of our other 'signings such as Stemp, Harden, Blain & Lucas"


Some of our signings from other counties have often looked liked ''we've got a spare tenner but not a spare twenty.'' I'm all for signing anyone if he improves the side but I hope we don't sign someone just because we can afford his meagre wage. The very point should be to improve the side. Plunkett would do nicely and if we could rid ourselves of Rana (who on earth suggested a two year deal when even one seemed dodgy?) and sign an overseas opening batsman for the season then I'd like to think we could compete with the best.