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.

- Alison Mitchell

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.