As the dust settles on yet another World Cup catastrophe, thoughts are now turning to broader problems with the English game. We’ve had a right old go at Paul Downton and Peter Moores – and every word of it was justified – but not all the problems are their fault.
Having digested the thoughts of prominent pundits over the last few days, the phrase that stands out to me is “don’t panic”. This was very much Michael Atherton’s mantra last week. While the English system clearly has flaws, it has strengths too.
Let’s not forget that England briefly reached number one in the world in both tests and T20s not so long ago. You might argue this was in spite of our structure, not because if it, but this is somewhat unkind in my opinion. English cricket needs reform but it’s not all bad.
For me, the major problem is simply that our players play too much. Stuart Broad never used to bowl at a pedestrian 80mph. He’s been worn down by a ridiculous fixture list.
With the possible exception of Jimmy Anderson (who is a bit of an athletic freak), every single world class or match winning bowler England have produced in the last twenty five years has suffered career defining injuries: Angus Fraser (hip), Darren Gough (knee), Andrew Flintoff (knee), Simon Jones (knee), Dominic Cork (various) are examples that immediately spring to mind.
In many cases these valiant bowlers soldiered on after serious injury, but they lost a yard of pace and were never quite the same. In some cases they retired prematurely.
If England want to improve in all formats, we need to produce quick bowlers and mystery spinners. The former looks almost impossible at the current time. Even if we did produce a Mitchell Johnson or Mitchell Starc, they’d either be bowled into the ground or ruined by hapless coaches (see Finn, Steven).
This problem has two solutions, the first of which is a no-brainer (a) schedule less England games (the seventeen tests in ten months scheduled for 2015 clearly demonstrates ECB greed and their distain for player welfare), and (b) change the structure of the county championship.
Long time TFT reader Goose, an old friend of mine who enjoys a good debate, suggested to me yesterday that the championship should be split into three divisions. I think this sounds like a good idea:
Games would be competitive because there’s promotion and relegation, the smaller clubs would still survive (becoming semi-pro is better than simply being disbanded), the quality of the top flight would eventually be enhanced, and most importantly there would finally be some breathing space in the calendar.
England’s ODI and T20 form would also be improved by the introduction of an ELP. I won’t repeat the numerous arguments advocating a high profile twenty over competition (with a possible franchise system) because you’ve heard these a million times. I think most people agree it’s a good idea – and it might actually happen.
The final subject I’d like to address is pitches. The days of David Masters and Darren Stevens taking bucket loads of championship wickets must come to an end. We need flatter pitches, where only bowlers with genuine pace, relentless accuracy or an uncanny ability to swing and seam the ball are successful.
At the moment there are far too many county bowlers who simply put the ball in (vaguely) the right area and let the pitch do the work. If we want England to be successful, we should make our domestic pitches as similar to those in international cricket as possible.
County teams will soon learn that innovation, imagination, speed and aggression are what separates the Wasim Akrams from the Harry Gurneys. Quality spin bowling, and ability to take wickets rather than just keeping the runs down, should also be encouraged.
This subject is so vast that it’s impossible to discuss everything here. I could go on and on about English cricket, but I’ll send you all to sleep. Instead I’ll let you discuss things like selectors (who should have more international experience) and the various coaches in the comments section. I’m surely many of you are doing a merry jig now David Saker is interviewing for other jobs.
There’s also a debate to be had about foreign players. The standard of the county championship has declined since all those much maligned kolpak players disappeared. Perhaps we got that one wrong?
Meanwhile, there’s the argument that the number of overseas pros should be increased once again. The trick, of course, is to raise the standard of domestic cricket – so it’s a good finishing school – without blocking the development of young English talent.
What do you think? What would you do? Answers on a postcard to Colin Graves please.
James Morgan
@DoctorCopy
Three divisions seems fine. BUT the Test players need to actually play, games deliberately set up around Test breaks where possible. Open up “transfers” for players… Might make some very average players in the team better, and, IMO, be a better maturing and development experience than the Loughborough hot-house for the chosen few.
Ah, you say, the international fixture list prevents this. Not so IF you have three distinct teams, Test, ODI and T20 with a bit of natural overlap, of course. For example, if Bell, Broad, Jimmy, Balance, Cook etc are going to play ODI/T20 games anymore? Of course not. Is there any point, conversely, on Eoin Morgan playing championship cricket? He’s not very good at it and would be better earning and learning at the IPL and in the West Indies. Identify who’ capable of what.
Not perfect, perhaps. But it’s a suggestion and sort of workable.
As for Broad. Never really rated him. Had Simon Jones, Tremlett and Onions stayed fit, I doubt he would have been the automatic choice he has become. Now, his talent and age has taken him as far as it can. Time for others to be given a try
So many issues need fixing
There are too many sub standard county players currently. To improve this we need to introduce three divisions (if we are going to keep 18 counties, if not just amalgamate a few), promotion and relegation and salary caps in div 2/3 (to promote top players moving to top teams to increase quality). I’d also allow transfers like football where players can bosman free and be paid for etce. Again, earns counties money for producing plauers and gets the top plauers at the top teams.
Allow kolpack players back in, no reason why not. In theory, they’ll only make it if they are good enough. If the counties aren’t producing the quality of English youth then let’s not keep on those not good enough. To promote english youth, ecb can (rather than giving them all money!) give money to clubs who produce talent (make it a hefty amount if you produce a player who plays for England (low amount for t20, bit more for ODI and a wedge for a test player)
Raise the quality of wickets, make them as close to international wickets as you can. Now, I don’t want flat batting tracks but they need to stop producing <85mph dilly dobblers. These plauers need to not make it unfortunately.
We need bowlers and fielders who can take wickets and not just focus on economy, the only way is for them to grow up HAVInG to take wickets to win (ie draw cricket). I know modern people don't like it but it forces capts to be tactical, it forces bowling to have penetration, it forces fielding to be sharp etc. Win/lose makes capts defensive as they know if you keep it tight the batsmen will slog and gift you their wicket. That if spread through amateur cricket will slowly produce the talent required. Amateur wickets need to be upgraded so silly dobblers aren't rewarded.
Amateur cricket needs genuine investment. I'm not on about the top clubs as they already have the cash. I'm taking about the Middle to low level game,l it needs investing in to raise the standard and also to make it appeal to plauers to keep playing.
Participation. This is vital. This is what the ecb needs to really focus on and stupid hints like chance to shine and the idiot county board coaches (or development officers) need to go. The wrong types of peope apply for these roles. These roles need to go to genuine ceicket nuts who also don't just follow ecb mantra. These guys need to be running youth indoor leagues, running summer camps,master camps.. And again, not for the 'top' players. For the lower level!
Amateur leagues should be linear and as local as possible until the top 2 leagues. Assume down the ladder you have 15 leagues. Top 5 should be 50 over win/lose/draw. 6-10 should be 45 over draw, rest 45 over win/lose. Remove over limits of 9/10 overs for bolwers and place a max of 15. However, make it known that 5 bolwers must bowl and each one a minimum of 7 per bowler (basically it means the good ones can bowl more but you still must have depth. Means more of the team get a game and won't be lost to the game).
Amateurs leagues should make it non paying. Is, you aren't allowed to pay players (and paying a coach who then plays counts !). This means no team will be artificially strengthened and hopefully spread the talent around more.
There are still so many things
Ell is needed and its needs to be short and sharp, same with the 50 over comp. build up momentum and meaning to every game. Play as many tests for sure but let's be more sensible with the amount of time pre and post tests and let plauers go back to counties to bolster them.
Nearly every one says ‘improve pitches’ but how? Two ideas:
1) Centrally contracted groundsmen
2) Use of drop-in pitches
ECB could quite easily divert money it wastes on MD’s, coaches, county board development officers and all the trimmings that the different squads get to the amateur teams. buy proper rollers in buik, buy covers in bulk, buy loam in bulk, send experts around to every ground to test and decide the best course of action to make the wicket decent. employ a firm permenantly that builds wickets (from the wages of the sacked MD’s etc). They can easily they go around clubs and literally build new wickets for them. buy equipment in buik and sell to clubs (do a ‘loan’ deal, few quid a year etc), give clubs real assistance by detailing how to prepare a wicket etc.
it would cost a lot of money but the ECB has the money and could easily buy enough covers for league clubs in aheart beat. no way a company building them would not do a huge deal on them !
I fundamentally disagree on the use of drop-in pitches. The only point of them is to enable multi-sport use of a stadia (such as rugby or AFL in the Southern Hemisphere). Drop-ins cost money, but recoup that by enabling the aforementioned multi-sport use, but crucially the pitches are prepared in the same environs as the stadium (e.g. In the grounds outside Adelaide Oval), so that they benefit from local environmental conditions. We do not need to spend money on them here, as we do not have land available outside major Test grounds to prepare them in the first place. Pitches can be prepared in situ in our grounds, with good to excellent drainage, and proper covers which grounds already possess. I also believe drop-ins minimise the skills of a good groundsman, by homogenising the process of preparation. We should trust in the skills we already have. Finally, the concrete underpinnings/foundations for drop-ins gave a major impact on drainage (i.e. the modern relaud outfields will still drain brilliantly, but the square will retain much more moisture due to the concrete “barrier”). You can get away with this in Aus/NZ, but it would be a much larger problem in England.
Sounds reasonable. I only floated drop-in pitches as an idea because slow, low pitches in England are often blamed on tired, over-used squares.
D you agree tired squares is a reason or is it a red herring? If it is a reason, how would you tackle it?
I’m not sure the squares are tired; I think the pitches in recent years have been affected by the new improved drainage (plus a sub-conscious desire at the Counties for “chief exec” wickets).
Compared to 2013, I thought the pitches used in Tests were much better, but I think there is still some learning to be done.
Plus there is always the weather to contend with. Anyway, end of my rather fudged answer!
I saw separate articles last year by Michael Atherton and Andy Wilson that those two reasons, new drainage and ‘chief exec pitches’, were red herrings. Their point against ‘chief exec pitches’ was that the 5th day of a test makes no money.
On the new drainage, the TB groundsman when he produced that ‘poor’ pitch for India last year said the water table was high and the dryness of the square was not the issue. Anyway, they’ve spent all the money on the drainage so they aren’t going to tear it up and we can’t go back to sitting around all day after rain waiting for the outfield to dry.
Why expand from 40 to 50 overs? 40 is already enough of a time commitment as it is, and an extra 5 overs per innings doesn’t really add anything.
What amateur cricket needs overwhelmingly more than anything else is professional cricket on free to air tv.
Jimmy Anderson suffered a stress fracture of the back early in his career which as I recall led him to abandon the changes coaches made to his action. Since then, bowling in that old way (that looks oddly back-breaking on telly – he loses eye contact with the ball on the downswing of the arm, its that bad) he has been near-impervious to injury.
And the reason the bowling gurus at Loughborough originally changed his action – to protect his back from likely stress fractures…
Don’t know about playing, I’m tired of watching it!!!
There’s just not enough middle class people to fill the teams. The VAST majority of the population have little to no interest in cricket. The ECB have no inclination to get them involved. And they certainly don’t want other countries nicking their game, still! There is no future for this game in this state, unless they build more public schools and invade more ‘foreign’ countries
There’s a small problem with the “they play too much cricket” line – yes, too much time on the field will wear a player down. But not enough time will produce sub-standard results.
The line I’ve heard from England in the aftermath of this WC is that the English players don’t have enough T20 experience. We even got that from some people “inside cricket.” Well, pardon me for asking, but when are you going to add T20 to the schedule? Will they drop Test games and ODIs in favour of farming players out to the IPL and BBL? I’m sure that some of the players would like to see that happen (their bank accounts would definitely like it), but that would eat into the ECBs revenues as well.
Also, has the English schedule been any more arduous than the other “big teams?” How has the Test and ODI schedule of Australia, South Africa and India compared for the same period? Was England playing a significantly greater number of games? Or was it more that the English coaching staff was not managing their player welfare as effectively as other teams were?
I just checked cricinfo for the 2013-14 period. Australia played a total of 23 Tests (14 in 2013, 9 in 2014) while England played 22 (14 in 2013, 8 in 2014). Australia has also played one Test in 2015 (vs India at Sydney) while England has not played a Test since 15-17 August 2014. You can’t even argue that England had to travel more, as Australia played more away Tests in 2013-14 (14 in total) than England did (8 in total).
As for ODIs, for 2013-14 Australia played 42 (24 in 2013, 18 in 2014). England played 46 in the same period (21 in 2013, 25 in 2014). Australia played 22 away, England played 23 away (though I include games in Ireland and Scotland as “home” games as they’re very short trips).
This does not suggest an over-played team to me, considering that Australia’s workload for the same period looks to be about the same…and they haven’t collapsed. In fact that period saw Australia recover from a pretty atrocious slump while England took a nose-dive. I think this is more a case of the coaching staff not managing their players effectively. I don’t know what it is that the Australian coaching staff does to keep the players fit (maybe Vegemite really /is/ superior to Marmite) but it looks, on the surface, like it might be the real difference between the two teams. Also, I don’t have any numbers for player turnover during the same period, but considering the changes since a certain 5-0 result I don’t think the current English team can really use that excuse.
“Player turnover”.
England used fewer players in ODIs between the last WC and this one of any of the top eight (if we can still use that term) except Sri Lanka. England’s problem is not an overall lack of continuity.
I think Australia’s figures have been distorted by the two back to back Ashes series. I could be wrong, but normally they don’t play anywhere near as much cricket as us. Their domestic players certainly don’t. There was a study done recently that found England cricketers spent almost 230 nights per year in hotel beds. That’s surely too much.
It’s a while ago now, but after an ashes series in the 90s, they found Mark Taylor had played 80 days of cricket per year, whereas his opposite number Atherton had played 200+
Here are the Test and ODI stats for 2010 and 2011 (two recent years chosen at random):
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=matches;spanmax1=31+dec+2011;spanmin1=01+jan+2010;spanval1=span;template=results;type=team
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=2;filter=advanced;orderby=matches;spanmax1=31+dec+2011;spanmin1=01+jan+2010;spanval1=span;template=results;type=team
What’s striking is how similar England and Australia’s figures are. England players may play more f/c cricket outside of international fixtures but the grade cricket Australians play may not be f/c but it isn’t exactly soft.
Australia it mustn’t be forgotten have had their injury problems – particularly with young bowlers.
I just extended the stats to run from 1 Jan 2010 to 31 Dec 2014.
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=matches;spanmax2=31+Dec+2014;spanmin2=1+Jan+2010;spanval2=span;template=results;type=team
http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/stats/index.html?class=2;filter=advanced;orderby=matches;spanmax2=31+Dec+2014;spanmin2=1+jan+2010;spanval2=span;template=results;type=team
England played 4 more Test matches in that period, but Australia played 9 more ODIs. In the scheme of things the difference isn’t massive.
That’s really interesting. So why do all our players look knackered? Is it because we don’t rotate well enough, or we don’t have the strength in depth to rotate? Or maybe it’s because our matches are in more concentrated bursts? Just weird. Then again, the Aussie bowlers have suffered a lot of injuries too: Mitch, Harris etc have all suffered to some extent. Perhaps their additional strength in depth simply masks the problems. Either way, I think England are playing too much. Sounds like the Aussies are too!
Not sure it’s the playing too much.Maybe the training too much.By the time they get to play they’re exhausted.Just get the idea there is too much training and often at wrong time of day in the heat.
Because we play more international cricket than anyone else, and we’re one of the only teams who insist on playing the same small group of cricketers no matter what the format. No wonder they’re bloody knackered.
Rotation got a bad name in Australia when they tried it and their younger fast bowlers like Starc, Pattinson and Cummins kept going down injured. Whether there was a causal connection or it was a coincidence who knows?
It is certainly clear that several of Australia’s regular test bowlers since 2010 (I’m thinking Harris, Siddle, Lyon) have played very little one day cricket.
English players have loads of experience of high quality, high intensity T20, as they play week in week out, against some of the best players in the world in the natwest T20. The only ones that don’t are the ones in the Test team.
Our problem is, those are the only players we have the imagination to pick, when actually they’re the very players that should be automatically disqualified from contention.
Fred Trueman used to bowl 2,000 overs a season. He was considerably faster than anybody that has played since. Very few injuries. No 10 over spells in ODI’s to have a rest in. Today’s players haven’t a clue.. The more you bowl, the faster you get. It’s not rocket surgery.
Bet Fred didn’t do much fitness work, circuits and training back then. I think that’s probably the difference.
He didn’t actually do much fielding either!
“He was considerably faster than anybody that has played since”
We all love a bit of hyperbole, but don’t be silly.
Most of them back then had a workload that wouls send a modern bowler running to his mummy. Fred wasn’t express but he was skilled, strong and burned with desire to get batsmen out – none of this containment stuff. And:
Fred 67 matches 307 wickets 21.57 average
Anderson 99 matches 380 wickets 29.72
Chuck into that Fred never had a bowling coach, gym sessions, diet sheet, laptop and he liked the odd pint
I could not disagree with any of that.
I’m not sure I want a county game where Darren Stevens isn’t a big damn hero.
Right on, brother! That said, being a Wuztershyree dweller, I err towards Jack Shantry who is a goddamn cricketing Terminator at least once a season.
Y’know, if one/any/all of us came up with the 100% perfect solution to the ECB’s woes, they’d do the friggin’ opposite. If God rocked up at Lords with his coach’s badges or a sexy going-forward corporate/cricket playing plan they’d give the uber-job to a good egg who’d played in a Test match stuffing back in the 80’s (batted twice, got a 10-ball duck and a futile 12 not-out, dropped a catch, didn’t bowl) and had since made the right connections in the city. He is a good egg, though. Won’t cause any ripples like a deity might.
Why not this? The top brass can sack themselves off (nice redundancy wedges all ’round), the national team can sack themselves off for a year, Sky can televise croquet on a loop for a year, and we can all go watch county cricket live, in person. Top 10 batters, top 10 bowlers, best two keepers can then go to a boot camp with Darren Lehmann’s clone, made from the saliva off a purloined fag end. He counts as English coz he was grown in an English test tube. There you go, we’re ready for anything now. No need for an upper echelon either. County cricket runs itself, and the averages declare who is in the best 22 suited for international duty. We have to pick a captain, of course. He’ll be the hardest barsteward out of the lot. You wouldn’t dare deny him. (Or we clone Brearley’s brain and drop that into the hardest bloke’s skull.)
And we’ll never run out of Lehmann clones! This is The Answer: we use science, not laptops.
Isn’t this the point where we starting writing lists of future England XIs containing our favourite players of our county plus a few blokes who did something good a couple of years ago when we happened to be watching? Strangely therapeutic somehow…..
It’s no coincdefence that the IPL is full of Australian coaches and Australian players. Or for that matter that the big bash has become one of the best competitions in the game. Until we stop playing meaningless three test series in May and let our players go and play in India we won’t improve one bit. I’ve said it before on here, back in 04/05 when our bowlers were hooping it round corners and bowling at 90mph Troy Cooley was coaching England’s bowlers. Who do you suppose is coaching Australia’s bowlers now?…
“Or for that matter that the big bash has become one of the best competitions in the game”
The players playing in the big bash are basically the same players as play in the NatWest t20 blast, just rearranged into different teams. Its exactly the same standard of cricket. Statistically the NW t20 saw slightly higher average scores and a higher proportion of close finishes, for example. From an entertainment point of view, the Big Bash suffers a little by comparison.
The T20 blast actually draws in more live spectators, but more spread around the country.
The sole difference is that the big bash is on free to air tv, so gets huge coverage and really captures the attention of the nation, whereas the t20 blast is hidden away on sky, and no-one other than dedicated cricket fans are even aware it is taking place.
If you put the NW T20 blast on free to air tv, the number of tv spectators would explode 10-fold, and the number of live supporters would probably double or triple. A lot of teams already sell out their stadia of course, so a doubling of live spectators wouldn’t be possible in a lot of cases.
I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment, but in order to make your case stick, you would need to demonstrate that the loss of income due to switching from Sky to free-to-air is at least equalled by the increase in income due to greater attendance at live matches. You’d also have to convince ECB that all that money going to the counties rather than into the ECB’s coffers is a good thing. And if it pleases Sky, they almost certainly have the wherewithal to offer ECB an amount which could never be matched by increased income from other sources.
I’m currently re-reading Steve James’ book “The Plan”. It’s proving very interesting, as it was written at the height of the Flower/Strauss axis, so at a position of English strength. It’s also worth noting (as he himself admits) that James was very close to Duncan Fletcher, Andy Flower and Hugh Morris, so naturally defends them all even when it is hard to do so.
However, there are some valid arguments as to how England got to that stage in 2011 when they were looking like becoming the world’s best team and staying there for some time, especially the fact that the ECB had ‘bypassed’ the county system by setting up the Lions, the EPP and an age-group structure that led to youth players being developed by the ECB and central coaching rather than their counties.
Whilst we are all currently slating the England coaches (e.g. David Saker, who was a magnet for praise back in 2010/11) and thus whilst this approach currently appears to be a weakness, it does click with your point, James, that England had those halcyon days in 2010/11 ‘despite’ the county system.
Indeed, I recall articles written in 2011 about how England were going to stay as number one, and how their new system was inspired by American sport, especially Moneyball and their use of statistics and training.
Didn’t really work, did it?! But, it’s fascinating as to how it fell apart so quickly, as it seemed that a solid foundation was being built for England to stay in a decent position in all forms of the game, even if being the best eluded them. And how so many of the strengths of the 2011 regime are now being dismissed by people as weaknesses of now. And I don’t mean that pejoratively – it’s genuinely very interesting and I suspect that the truth comes someway in the middle, here.
People have compared Flower’s method to the very successful systems used by Clive Woodward’s rugby team and Brailsford’s cycling set-up (and there have been a few threads recently about the suggestions cricket should emulate Lancaster’s England).
A couple of the problems with the comparisons that are often missed are this:
i) Cycling and rugby have a regular competitive structure but are really based around a four-year competition structure – RWC and Olympics. The ‘hot-housing’ method can be used because there is an obvious crescendo, a period at which to peak. Cricket, on the other hand, carries on forever. There’s always another big series around the corner. Keeping the players wound so tight in perpetuity means that some time they will snap; mentally or physically. No one can stay at 100% readiness all of the time.
ii) The hot-housing and marginal gains methods are about getting as close to maximum performance as possible, eliminating every obstacle – diet, fitness, etc – to winning. However well you do this, you still need the personnel. Woodward’s plan was based on a famous game between England and the All Blacks; England went toe-to-toe with the ABs in a brutal first half and proved they could beat the best, but the ABs romped home in the second half because the English were buggered and could no longer compete physically. CW realized that the way to win the World Cup was to turn his team in to the fittest, strongest team in the world. He was blessed with the likes of Wilkinson, Johnson, Lewsey, Robinson, Greenwood etc. He didn’t necessarily develop their talent, just put them in a position where their talent could compete physically.
Brailsford, likewise, had the luxury of Hoy, Kenny, Wiggins, Cavendish, and so on. Sky – also run by Brailsford – have very simple tactics: they get to the front of the Peloton and go hard to prevent breakaways and nullify tactical moves. Their strategy really boils down to being stronger than everyone else. Not really brain surgery.
Flower inherited a team full of magnificent players – three batsmen averaging fifty +, a wicket-keeper-batsman second only to Gilchrist, the best spin bowler in the world, a group of six or seven classy pace bowlers all of international standard, a team in which Ian Bell was probably only the fifth or sixth best batsman. Like the other two, did he bring on talent, or did he make them efficient at using what they already had? When players started to crack under his methods, who did he replace them with? No one really. He just patched them up and carried on until they were broken permanently.
I think that’s the real thing about the 2011 drop-off; cricket is such an attritional game, there’s a constant need to substitute and replace players and bring on new talent. It’s unavoidable. It’s like spending a lottery win instead of investing it; you can live like a millionaire, but what happens when the money runs out?
The most important point about Andy Flower is he never had to play under Andy Flower.
I think that would be like crossing the beams.
Good angle Tristan. Good thoughts there.
Really good stuff, here, I agree with almost all of it.
Just on your final point – and this is why I won’t take 100% negativity of Flower – how were England playing, with their three batsmen averaging 50+, the best ever English wicketkeeper-batsman, the best spinner, the classy pace bowlers, before Flower took over? Pretty terribly is the answer.
Actually, it was at the start of the Flower/Strauss era that that team was patched together. Swann only made his debut in 2008 as a secondary spinner to Monty and only became the number 1 spinner over the course of the 2009 West Indies tour. Similarly, Peter Moores had been using Tim Ambrose as his wicketkeeper over the 2008 summer. Who’s to say that Trott would have come in in the same manner under Moores/Pietersen? And remember that Flower dropped Bell from the team in the wake of the 51-all-out debacle in his first match in charge. Once Bell had gone away and toughened up a bit he then became the player who really took charge of a situation (and won us the home 2013 Ashes series quite a bit down the line).
I think it’s easy to forget that the 2010-11 team and squad was put together impressively by Flower and Strauss over the course of 2009 – by 2010 this band of players became accustomed to playing together and the team really did click.
But in between Fletcher and Flower we really were a right shower, despite having the same talent available. I fully accept the criticisms of Flower’s approach in terms of the fact that it was not sustainable for the players. But he did do a very good job initially in putting that team together, helping them to find their brand of cricket (which they hadn’t got under Moores, lurching from one poor performance to another) and guiding them to their success between 2010 and 2011.
Well that’s very much the point; the strength of that method of coaching isn’t creating or nurturing talent, but taking existing talent and through organization, drilling, fitness – and eliminating inefficiency – pushing it to its maximum output.
It requires extraordinary intensity, though. It’s suited to sports with a natural build-up and climax: a world cup, an Olympic Games. The England rugby team had a steady rise for the two years prior to the 2003 WC, and then fell apart spectacularly as the pressure was released (it was actually the worst drop in form of any WC winning side). The British cycling squad are noted for their distinctly silver/bronze performances between Olympics, before their own build-up and all-conquering performances when it matters most, and then back down to bronze and beyond.
It’s a method suited very well to a cyclical sport. Flower’s England, as you said, built up very well from the low of 2009 through to their peak in 10/11. They had a similar decline to the other two squads, but their problem was they had to carry on playing the big events without the natural release and rebuild period of the other two sports. It’s a method which, for cricket, will always be short-term with inherent cliff-drops in performance. It’s sugar-hit cricket.
Fast-forward a couple of years and it’s all the same guys still trying to play at maximum intensity, but they’re tired, injured, burnt-out and miserable – and no longer listening to the message. As Pietersen said, if someone tells you that today is the biggest day of your life, every day for five years, it stops meaning anything. It’s just background noise. There’s no peak, no trough, just more, until even the actual peaks – Ashes, World Cups – are just more days of drudgery.
There is plenty that the cricket community could learn from Messrs Brailsford, Woodward and Lancaster, but in order to learn well, their various approaches must be analysed and understood, differences identified and weaknesses avoided. Brailsford is now managing Sky’s road cycling team, which is a year round operation more similar to cricket than the track team. Lancaster has built an excellent system where the pathway from club into the elite squad and on to the two national teams is clearly defined and well managed. Individual players have development plans which are agreed with and delivered by the clubs where the players spend the majority of their time. The system is producing loads of good international players, but there is doubt as to whether it would identify and nurture genuine world-class players. By comparison, centrally contracted cricketers spend very little time with their counties and don’t seem to spend much time working at specific aspects of their game. Lancaster has struggled to get his players to play ‘heads-up’ i.e adapt to changing match situations, something (TCUP) which was a vital part of Woodward’s strategy.
A system is only as good as the people who operate it. What happens if the the all seeing recruiters select the wrong youth players, who end up not developing as much as expected, or the central coaches do a poor job of bringing the youngsters along. The same system that can appear to work in one instance can also appear later to have a far worse affect.
Very interesting comments. Some very good ideas.
schedule less England games – yes.
But schedule 14 tests a year 7 at home, 7 away. If you want to cut down, get rid of pointless T20s and ODIs.
an extremely good idea…
I read the other day that a single ODI against India is worth AU$7million to Cricket Australia (I assume the amount is similar for the ECB). Some of these game seem like such a nonsense but, when you hear the numbers behind them, you realize why they arrange so many of them.
The problem is we can’t schedule less ODIs if we want to become better at them and compete at World Cups. It’s a bit of a catch 22.
Somehow, I think we just need to make ODIs mean more. Putting them before test series, rather than after them (like the good old Texaco Trophy) would help. When they’re after the tests they seem irrelevant … after the Lord Mayor’s show etc.
If this world cup has proved anything, it is that there is absolutely no correlation whatsoever between the number of ODI’s played and the quality of the team.
You wanna make ODI’s mean more? Reduce the number of them but make each one count towards qualification for the next world cup. Suddenly they’d be deadly serious.
“Reduce the number of them but make each one count towards qualification for the next world cup.”
Good idea.
Or the ICC should consider the system used in women’s cricket where the Tests, ODIs and T20s all score points that count towards the victory in a series.
Which make all the money, which pays the players and the coaches and keeps the counties alive.
“I think most people agree it’s a good idea – and it might actually happen”
I haven’t heard a single coherent argument in favour of a franchise system. If anyone would like to present one, please go ahead and I will explain why you’re wrong.
Here’s an account of the origins of the Big Bash and why Australia switched to a franchise system:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/big-bash-league-2014-15/content/story/825189.html
The two key lines are:
1) “It’s become pretty clear to us,” said CA’s operations manager Mike McKenna at the time, “that T20 is the vehicle by which we were going to get females and kids interested in the game … it’s the product they prefer and it’s the one that’s going to get us into a new space.”
2) “The six state associations represented over 100 years of history and were part of the fabric of the sport in the country, but they were institutions seen to be out of touch with modern inclinations and were anti-brands as much as they were brands”.
For states, read counties of course. I don’t feel like that about my county and I doubt you do but our feelings aren’t the issue here. It needs to be added that a franchise system alone isn’t the answer and it worked as part of a package with ticketing policies, FTA coverage and regular scheduling in school holidays every bit as important.
The Big Bash expanded the number of teams so that more people would have access to watch cricket.
Would you agree this was a good idea that we should replicate?
Expanded from six to eight – your point is….?
Do you accept that counties are “anti-brands”?
Not only expanded from 6 to 8, but the 2 extra teams both belong to cities already represented (Melbourne Renegades/Melbourne Stars; Sydney Sixers; Sydney Thunder)!
No, not really. I don’t see how Nottinghamshire would suddenly get more fans simply from dropping the “shire” from their names.
At the end of the day,I don’t really think people care what the team they go and watch is called. They just want a half decent game of cricket, played at a helpful time somewhere reasonably local to them.
The suffix ‘shire’ doesn’t put me off – but again I’m already a fan and am not the issue here. If the name of the team is so irrelevant it works the other way too – existing fans would go to see Nottingham Cyborgs or whatever they were called! If you think they wouldn’t, then you’re acknowledging that the name matters.
Counties are seen as fuddy-duddy, exclusive and rural by a large potential audience for cricket. I don’t think it is fair or agree with that necessarily – but I do recognise it and accept it. I watched Perth Scorchers win their Big Bash SF in front of a sold out home crowd. A couple of days later I watched Australia-England in the tri-series at Perth and the ground was half-empty. There is a message there.
You contradict yourself. First you claim that the name doesn’t matter, then you claim counties are seen as “fuddy-duddy, exclusive and rural”.
So if you think Nottinghamshire Outlaws became Nottingham Outlaws, they would magically become cool and hip overnight and would suddenly sell out every single game? Most people in Nottingham already call them “Nottingham Outlaws” without even really thinking about it.
To paraphrase Bill Clinton, its not the name, its the exposure, stupid.
“I watched Perth Scorchers win their Big Bash SF in front of a sold out home crowd. A couple of days later I watched Australia-England in the tri-series at Perth and the ground was half-empty. There is a message there”
Yes, and the message is that context matters. A well organised domestic league carries more interest than just another meaningless friendly game.
I think we need more random / amusing team names. A bit like the IPL. What about the Somerset Pasties or the Gloucestershire Cheese Munchers? Or even the Middlesex Super Duper Kings? ;-)
A brilliant idea! I could go with that far easier than say, ‘London United’. Yuk.
AB, you’ve misunderstood my first paragraph. I say the name doesn’t matter to me. I’m an existing cricket fan and will watch cricket. It does matter to attracting a new audience. That’s the point I’m trying to make.
Will name changes produce sudden coolness and hipness? Not on their own and I never claimed they would. But as part of a package of measures? Quite possibly – and it’s worth trying. As I said in my first post, FTA scheduling with regular slots in school holidays has been crucial to the BB. Current broadcasters need a push to get interested in cricket again and name changes would help there. Undoubtedly the BB also got lucky with their broadcaster – but they helped make their own luck.
Finally, just a factoid I heard about the BB. Every team made a profit. In the IPL half the teams are operating at a loss. In the CC over half the counties didn’t earn enough to pay the interest on their debt. Leicestershire’s recent financial statement was eye-watering. I don’t see that doing nothing is an option. (Worcestershire’s accounts seem good though – James must be pleased!).
“I say the name doesn’t matter to me. I’m an existing cricket fan and will watch cricket. It does matter to attracting a new audience”
It doesn’t matter to you, it doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter to the kids I coach, it doesn’t matter to anyone I ever discuss it with, It doesn’t matter to anyone I’ve ever spoken to.
In short, the name doesn’t matter to anyone. Its naïve and actually extremely patronising to suspect that it would. People aren’t stupid, the reasons they don’t go to watch county cricket are not because they dislike the “shire” on the end of the team name. Give them some credit.
” In the CC over half the counties didn’t earn enough to pay the interest on their debt”
Actually, in the CC every team makes a profit on their T20 matches. Its the other stuff they’re obliged to do: pay players to play 16 4 day games and numerous one day games every year in front of empty stands that forces them to struggle to make ends meet.
You’re right, if we want these teams to survive, then doing nothing is not an option. But taking away their only profitable enterprise is WORSE than doing nothing. Its actively forcing them to fail.
A brand is a whole lot more than the name, it’s the whole thing. Name, identity, location, ticket plans, promotions, community involvement etc, everything that makes you view the enterprise as worthwhile. It is something in this country which cricket is really, really bad at.
Could you explain how it needs improving, Howard, giving specific examples?
Interesting article, but I remain to be convinced.
The strategy Cricket Australia went from is to attract a mainstream market – that is to say the one everyone goes for. It seems to have worked up to a point, even though I BB makes a loss and no-one wants to invest in the franchises.
English cricket however, has always struck me a niche market – it does attract all ages, just not in the vast numbers that go to, say football. And when I was young, many years ago, it was exactly the same. Rather than the Australian lowest common denominator plan, I suggest that a more commercial approach would be to build in English cricket’s strength, appealing to an audience who are prepared to make the effort to engage with the game and learn to love its intricacies and nuances. Such an audience is not numerically huge, but it is loyal and committed and there is enough potential there for the game to survive and prosper for ever and a day.
For instance, whenever I go to a 20:20 game, I always make a point of looking around at the spectators whenever the music is being played between overs. What I invariably see and pained faces, tolerating the incongruous row and perhaps 5% enjoying it. And the 5% who enjoy it probably hate the cricket and won’t be returning. The trouble is that the format for 20:20 has been devised by people who don’t like cricket and are desperate to distract the audience onto what they consider more interesting entertainment.
Meanwhile, if you go to a test at Lords, you will see 30,000 people, not all of them aged by any means, having a marvelous time. That is the most successful product in English cricket and much can be learned in terms of how to market and stage the game.
How about one division with only eight teams.
Surely even the ECB must understand that the present scenario cannot continue?
So you’d half the number of players, half the number of fans, half the revenue.
Half the teams would go bust, half the academies would disappear. The quality would half, the number of fans would half. Cricket would disappear.
Its a fucking terrible idea, its economically illiterate, and would be a complete disaster for cricket in this country, so much so that I’d be surprised if the ECB didn’t go for it.
No – if half the teams go bust, the quality DOUBLES, because only the very best players can get into the remaining teams. If the quality goes up, the excitement goes up, so the number of fans INCREASES. If the number of fans increases, the revenue INCREASES.
If you want to talk about economic illiteracy, you haven’t got a leg to stand on.
I’m a professional economist and cricket coach. You are utterly clueless “anonymous”.
Have you actually ever been to a T20 game? The standard is actually already extremely high – as good as the Big Bash, just look how well every English journeyman cricketer did who went over there. Most of the top runscorers were English county players.
Keep it polite fellas. Cheers.
Australian domestic 1st-class cricket consists of just 6 state teams. Talent is concentrated; quality of cricket in domestic games is not diluted.
And we wonder why they’re better than us…
A very good point but I find it difficult to accept any format that would see the counties mauled. I’m a Dinosaur from Middlesex, a county that doesn’t exist! Just about sums it up :-)
Depends on how much you want the England team to win…
They’ve only been better than us for about 18 months, and for the 10 years before that we were saying what a fantastic strength our competitive county system was and how jealous the Australians were of it.
Its utterly incredible how short some people’s memories are.
Actually, they’ve been far stronger than us IN ALL 3 FORMATS of the game for at least 30-40 years. Only team ever to have won 16 Tests in a row, and 16 years of unbroken Ashes victories. Meanwhile, several World Cup victories (none for us) and ranked consistently higher than us in T20Is.
That “competitive county system” of ours clearly hasn’t added up to much international success compared to theirs, has it?
Au contraire, AB: after the 2006/7 whitewash there was a lot of talk about the Australian system being better and how we should learn from it.
Prior to that, Duncan Fletcher didn’t think much of the county system and thought players were coming into the national side inadequately prepared.
Hence central contracts, central coaching etc.
Central contracts came in in 2000 along with the 2 division structure and the T20 cup 3 years later, all of which raised interest and standards in the domestic game. We then won 4 of the next 5 Ashes series as a direct result.
My mistake, I thought central contracts came in later – but it’s an Australian system originally.
Australians have a third of the population, and a third of the number of teams. Makes sense.
It has nothing to do with the population of the country; it’s about limiting the number of cricketers who can get into first-cricket, thus increasing competition for places, thus ensuring only the best get in, thus raising the level of domestic cricket, thus forging better cricketers and ensuring the gap in quality between domestic cricket and international cricket remains as small as it can possibly be.
and also limiting the number of fans who can go and watch, thus limiting the numver of cricket fans and cricket players, reducing the supply of players and competition for places, thus significantly reducing the overall standard in the long run.
the problem in England is that our utterly insane player selection process means that the England T20 team wouldn’t even get to the quarter finals of the Natwest T20 blast.
It’s a bit deceptive. Australia has a third of the population of the UK, bit it actually has twice the number of people actively playing cricket at some level.
There are pros and cons to both systems. The talent is very concentrated in Australia but they also lose a lot of talent because it’s so hard to make a living. In England, it’s not actually *that* hard to get a gig with a county. If you’re half decent you can start making a living from cricket at 18. If you’re on the fringes of the first team you can drop down in to the 2nd XI or the ground staff and carry on getting paid and training. There’s a relatively small talent pool in England and 400+ pro cricketers. In Australia, only a handful of players have a guaranteed living. Plenty of players will play Shield cricket one week and then have to drop back down to their club side the week after. Lots of the younger, fringe players don’t have contracts so have to work on the side. Inevitably some walk away. If you’re a wicketkeeper or a spin bowler, there are only six places available in the country. Not great odds.
Look at where Nathan Lyon came from…
He plays for my local club, strangely.
Are you referring to him leaving South Australia because they got Botha in as captain, meaning they would always be playing Botha as their spinner and he’d be out, even though he was a Test player?
I meant how he was working as a grounds assistant previous to the BBL stint that AFAIK was his breakthrough, as an example of your point about, I suppose, Australian depth in the cricketing scene as compared to the 18 counties breadth in England.
I also suppose that it’d be rather unlikely that anyone could take such a career trajectory in the English system.
Yes, he did an apprenticeship at Manuka Oval and then moved to the Adelaide groudstaff. He got noticed after a stint in BB, as you say.
There were a few grade cricketers played in the last BB. The money means they can take cricket seriously and not have to work whilst they’re trying to get in the the Shield side. It’s ridiculous, in many way. They lose an awful lot of very talented players – thinking of it, they lost Sam Robson to England because of it.
Interesting factoid: In order to have the same number of teams per head of population as the Big Bash, the Natwest T20 Blast would have to have 23 teams.
And the IPL has 8 teams for over a billion people in India…
and look at the fucking shite standard of that!
If I wanted to watch full tosses and dropped catches and fat 40 year old batsmen who can’t run, I’d go down and watch division 7 village cricket.
I hope no one from Sky reads that. It would become the next big thing — “Reality Cricket”. Bigger than the IPL.
You might get it on C9. Brad McNamara apparently has Google alerts set up for any mention of his name.
Hi Brad.
If you want to reduce anything, reduce the number of teams playing 4 day cricket, seeing as this is a significant net loss for most clubs, it would reduce their financial burden as well as increasing the intensity of the competition.
You wouldn’t even have to impose this: you could simply allow the counties to decide which competitions they wished to enter. The bigger counties would probably still enter all three competitions, the smaller counties who currently languish at the bottom of CC division 2 would probably voluntarily become T20 only counties out of financial necessity.
But the idea of having some counties that ONLY play longer format cricket and not T20 is completely financially unsustainable. Its utterly bonkers. You’re removing their main source of revenue without really reducing their costs.
and for god’s sake, get rid of finals day. whoever came up with the idea of playing all 3 games in a single mind-numbing sitting should be taken out and shot.
Thanks for all your excellent comments. Maxie and I are just fans, like most of you guys, so we don’t have all the answers. It’s brilliant to see so many interesting suggestions and contributions.
One thing that this debate is missing thus far: we need to nick more quality South Africans ;-)
Ok, I’m being a little facetious, but boy could we use another (younger) Trott or KP at the current time. Or even better, an English qualified Allan Donald!
Facetious is OK. There’s an ex-zimbabwe WC centurion going kolpac we could nick and we’ve picked Scottish players in the past so we could steal from them
I recall articles written in 2011 about how England were going to stay as number one, and how their new system was inspired by American sport. England used fewer players in ODIs between the last WC and this one of any of the top eight except Sri Lanka.
Downton, I assume, will be sacked tomorrow. And, ironically, he will grizzle about being a scapegoat.
KP, I assume, will play in the Ashes. I know there are a few steps in between, but in his favor, regardless of whether their chances of winning would improve, ticket sales would skyrocket if he plays.
(Profit motive (not preparing for the WC) was what drove the ECB to organize back to back Ashes. They knew full well it would be to Aust’s advantage. It devastated the team and at the same time built up the Aust team in a away would never have otherwise been possible. Their sincerity about wanting to prepare for the WC can be gauged by looking at just how their preparations were carried out.)
I think they prepared for the World Cup quite well, if their objective was to be a humiliating failure and a laughing stock the world over.
Here we go. I love cricket and enjoy going to watch CC
1. We love heroes. Make our “stars” play CC. Don’t agree they are overworked (in the gym maybe)
2. Put someone intelligent on the county fixture list. Last 2 weeks of the 2014 season, the nearest county match to me was 200 miles away.
3. Make it comfortable for the ordinary spectators not just members or corporates. Plastic seats OK but not a damp one. Shelter me from sun (I had a spot of melanoma a while ago), rain and wind.
4. Make grounds multi-functional. Add a cinema, shopping mall, bowling alley (just brainstorming now) so man can go to cricket, wife and kids to an alternative nearby – or vice versa.
5. Really promote women’s cricket. I’d love to watch Tresco or Monty one week and Lottie the next.
6. Make access easy. I don’t want to go train, bus, 5 mile walk to get there (sorry Rosebowl)
7. String up any groundsman who keeps the wicket dry but leaves a large unplayable puddle in the outfield.
Basically, my take is grow from the bottom upwards. The ECB does the opposite. Fill the grounds and I reckon it will inspire the players. Can you imagine Clapton playing brilliant stuff to a Wembley audience of 40 people?
Gonna go bang my head on a wall now.
Three interesting videos on cricinfo with George Dobell discussing various ECB and Pietersen related matters.
Choice quote:
“Maybe people should be asking themselves who is going to win more matches for England, Paul Downton or Kevin Pietersen?”.
Good point. Same applies to that outstanding coach of his generation, too.
I’ll forgive KP pretty much anything – insulting my wife, defiling my guinea pig, etc – just for that century at the Oval in 2005 but I ain’t forgotten that catch Downton put down at Trent Bridge in 1981. The useless sack of wotsit.
Oh… Saker’s off. Jolly good.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/851209.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/31910070
Yea! Saker is going! He’s leaving by the end of the Ashes summer, or sooner (which unfortunately probably means still not soon enough).
Saker says he wants to go back to Aus immediately, but since his contract has a 6-months termination period it is not up to him. If the ECB insist he would have to stay with England through the Ashes, according to him. This means he gave notice at the end of February/ beginning of March.
Sorry, source is SMH: http://tinyurl.com/kz7lrj6
Lets club together and start a #payoffhiscontractsohecangohome Justgiving page for David Saker, shall we? Hmmm?
This being England, one piece of good news must be rapidly followed by two pieces of bad news:
1) The favourite to replace Saker is Ottis Gibson.
2) According to the Guardian, the selectors are going to ‘risk’ Moeen Ali for the West Indies’ tour even though he has a grade one muscle tear in his side.
I seem to recall that Ottis Gibson worked with the England bowlers before the 2009 Ashes and he seemed to do a reasonable job – getting Flintoff firing at something close to his best etc.
I can’t see the counties voting to cull themselves, however I do think there is merit in the 3 Divisions County Championship idea. There would be fewer games and more promotion/relegation so each game would matter that little more.
This would also free the calendar and allow more emphasis and proper preparation of the 1 day games. Instead of what we have at the moment where the 1 day game is usually tagged on the end of a 4 day game on a tired pitch…
In theory yes but if the other 5 counties in your division are 300 miles away, you ain’t gonna see much cricket
Here’s about as blinkered and elitist a view for the 10 Country World Cup in 2019
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/851165.html
It really is all about the money
These people don’t deserve our patronage