Sales is my selection as the best to never earn England Test call-up

Alison Mitchell kicks off a debate that has exercised cricket fans over the decades, and offers a few big names who will have their own supporters

If you need a cricketing discussion around the dinner table during these long winter nights, try asking who is the best cricketer never to play a Test match for England.

It tends to evoke a debate borne out of a mixture of factual accuracy, romantic memory and nostalgic yearning. It is perhaps not surprising that responses tend to correlate strongly with county affiliations and a sense of injustice that a certain player missed out when they were a stalwart and brilliant performer for their domestic side.

Upon closer inspection, however, there is usually a decent reason as to why a talented player over many seasons missed out on England honours. It might have been injury, loss of form at a critical time, or the misfortune to have a career that coincided with another talent who never looked likely to vacate their position in the England team.

My own allegiance to Northants means I always shout out the name of former captain David Sales during these conversations. In 1996 and at the age of 18 he announced himself with a double hundred against Worcestershire, becoming the youngest player to hit a double century in the County Championship.

He was a hard-hitting batsman who was picked for England A but was cruelly afflicted by injury. He damaged ligaments in his knee playing volleyball during a tour of the West Indies in 2001 and missed the rest of the English season. That seemed to put paid to his England pathway, and he also sat out the 2009 season because of knee problems.

Over the course of 19 seasons, though, he amassed 14,140 first-class runs in 249 matches, was a classy slip fielder and captained Northants between 2004 and 2010 with an astute cricketing brain. He deserved to retire with an average in excess of 40, yet he with  one 39.27. Nearly, but not quite.

His was a talent never quite fulfilled at the very highest level. His old Northants teammate Graeme Swann states unequivocally in his autobiography The Breaks Are Off that he believes Sales is the best player of the modern era not to play for England. Injuries aside, Swann adds further insight, though, into another reason as to why some players make it with England while others don’t.

“I think the other problem in regard to international recognition was that his face just didn’t fit,” he opines. “The Duncan Fletcher regime didn’t look kindly upon him. There was a perception in the game that he never wanted it badly enough. That he was not sufficiently motivated to play for England.

“People judged that he was not prepared to go the extra distance required, that he was content in his comfort zone and lacked the desire to better himself. Sometimes a willingness to move clubs and challenge yourself in a new environment can be viewed by others as an ambitious career step.”

Sales spent his whole career at Wantage Road until a serious ankle injury forced him to retire in 2014 at the age of 36.

Another name at the forefront of England’s no-cap-wonders is that of Lancashire all-rounder Glen Chapple. When he did get an opportunity to represent England in an ODI against Ireland in 2006 at the age of 32, he could only bowl four overs due to injury. Three years earlier in 2003 it looked as if he would gain a Test cap when he was called up to the squad for the third Test against South Africa at Trent Bridge. Unfortunately for Chapple, James Kirtley got the nod. Then an ankle injury ruled him out of contention for the next Test.

The name that crops up the most often, however, regardless of county allegiance, is Glamorgan’s Don Shepherd. He has the strongest case of all, having taken 2,218 first class wickets at an average of 21.32 between 1950 and 1972. No one has ever taken more first class wickets without winning a Test cap.

He was known as a strong-willed pace bowler with great stamina, who could bowl in all conditions. Whilst bowling was his greatest skill, he also made a 50 in just 15 minutes against Australia in 1961. By that time he had switched from fast/medium to bowling off-cutters after a slight loss of form. The change suited him, though, and in 1956 he took 168 wickets in the season. He would take more than a hundred wickets in a season a further 11 times, as well as playing a vital role in Glamorgan’s County Championship title win in 1969. He was a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1970.

Historically, the Essex quick Charles Kortwright is commonly referred to as the fastest of his time, yet he never played for England. He played first-class cricket from 1893 to 1907 and died at his home in South Weald in 1952 at 81.

Internationally, apartheid in South Africa and sporting isolation prevented a generation of excellent cricketers from ever playing Test cricket. Clive Rice was probably the most affected. He became known as a world-class all-rounder after making his first-class debut in 1969, but by the time the sporting world opened up to South Africa once again he was deemed too old for a Test debut. His international career was limited to three ODIs when he was 42.

Extend the conversation out to the women’s game and Yvonne Craven fits the bill. She played for Thames Valley Women before Berkshire, averaging 18.81 with the ball. She played her last County Championship match in 2009 and is widely considered to be unfortunate not to have gone further.

Another name to consider is former opening bat and current Loughborough MCCU and Loughborough Lightning head coach Salliann Briggs.

Briggs captained England U19s in Australia in 2002/3 and played in the England Development squad but never made it further as a senior player.

Having turned her hand to coaching and achieving her Level 4 qualification, she is now leading the emerging talent programme at the England Academy. To date, she is the best female coach never to coach the England Women’s team.

She was in prime position just as the ECB decided they wanted a coach with experience of men’s first-class cricket to take the team forward into the professional era.

Thus Mark Robinson was appointed. As with so many aspects of cricket including selection and opportunity, timing really is everything.

This piece originally featured in The Cricket Paper, January 6 2017

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