U19 Cap – stepping stone to a Test career?
March 29, 2010 
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The awarding of a full England cap (player identity missing from records)
Ey up,
U19 international cricket is great isn’t it? In a sort of ‘filling out the Sky Sports schedules’ kind of way, I mean. National boards get to feel they’re helping nurture talent rather than getting in its way (that happens later). The players themselves experience overseas conditions and play against opponents who’ve developed strengths in differing aspects of the game. All topped off with the knowledge that we’re witnessing talented young players at the start of a successful career.
So everything’s just tickety-boo and pucker then? Well, perhaps, perhaps not. Is an U19 cap really a stepping stone to becoming a test player? Is it even a guarantee of a career in the game? Look back at previous U19 players and you start to get a mixed picture.
Take the period of England U19 cricket between 1997-2006; these cricketers are now aged between 20 and 32, a time when you’d expect them to have become regular first team players for their counties and perhaps even broken into the full England test side itself. But how many have actually managed that?
| FC games | Players no | |||||||||||
| County at time | U19 Players | U19 | Played in | Total | Total | longer in | ||||||
| of U19 debut | 1997-2006 | Test Caps | last 3 years | Test Players | Tests | pro game | ||||||
| Derbyshire | 1 | 1 | 27 | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||||||
| Durham | 11 | 63 | 128 | 1 | 9 | 5 | ||||||
| Essex | 12 | 71 | 324 | 3 | 71 | 5 | ||||||
| Glamorgan | 5 | 35 | 101 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||
| Gloustershire | 2 | 10 | 49 | 1 | 15 | 1 | ||||||
| Hampshire | 4 | 11 | 82 | 1 | 3 | 1 | ||||||
| Kent | 5 | 24 | 156 | 2 | 16 | 1 | ||||||
| Lancashire | 8 | 42 | 146 | 3 | 127 | 0 | ||||||
| Leicestershire | 2 | 2 | 90 | 1 | 27 | 0 | ||||||
| Middlesex | 7 | 26 | 183 | 2 | 8 | 2 | ||||||
| Northamptonshire | 5 | 25 | 136 | 2 | 57 | 0 | ||||||
| Nottinghamshire | 6 | 37 | 155 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||
| Somerset | 7 | 19 | 133 | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||||||
| Surrey | 6 | 24 | 117 | 2 | 11 | 1 | ||||||
| Sussex | 4 | 21 | 125 | 1 | 29 | 1 | ||||||
| Warwickshire | 4 | 27 | 129 | 1 | 55 | 0 | ||||||
| Worchestershire | 5 | 22 | 143 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| Yorkshire | 13 | 62 | 276 | 4 | 13 | 4 | ||||||
| 107 | 522 | 2500 | 25 | 442 | 27 |
It turns out that about a quarter of them (25 out of 107) have gone on to appear in full Tests, although the total caps they’ve won (440) would only cover about three years of test cricket by the England team. That’s all the players from the England U19 side over a ten year period, winning three years worth of full Test caps (so far at least).
Or to look at this from a different angle, of the current England squad members, whist the majority showed enough potential in their teens to play in an U19 youth test:
Cook
Bell
Prior
Swann
Anderson
Tredwell
Bresnan
Broad
Finn
There are plenty who didn’t:
Andrew Strauss (71 full caps)
Steve Harmison (63)
Kevin Pietersen (60)
Paul Collingwood (59)
Graham Onions (8 caps)
Whilst others, Jonathon Trott (7 full caps) and Craig Kieswetter (wait for it, it’s coming) developed from a different route entirely.
Perhaps even more revealing is that an U19 player is actually more likely (27 out of 107) to find themselves without a future career playing the game at all.
I guess that just reflects the uncertainty and the potential of a teenage life. At nineteen you’re as much at a crossroads as on a predefined path. The ECB might like to believe they can short cut players into the international game, and in some cases perhaps U19 exposure does that, but for others a slower road is needed to get them there.
Si’thee later,
Len
