Long delayed rant

[chickenfeet]

 Like I guess many other people I've been following the multi-year train wreck that is English cricket.  It's the only thing that comes close to Brexit in terms of its weird combination of complacency and delusion.  The test team is crap; a bit crap at home, seriously crap in, say, Australia.  Some of this has been somewhat concealed by the fact that by historic standards a lot of their cricket is played against other crap teams.  I think there are two fundamental problems; selection policy and the structure of the county game.  Let's take each in turn.

There used to be a rule of thumb for selecting a cricket team that went as follows (as far as I know I first saw this in the Ladybird Book of Cricket c. 1962 but it's basically sound:

1. Pick two opening batsmen
2. Pick three middle order batsmen
3. Pick two opening bowlers
4. Pick two spinners; preferably contrasting
5. Pick a wicketkeeper

Note, it's implied that one picks the best in each category not a bits and pieces player.  At this point you have ten players picked or, if you are seriously lucky and one of the bowlers or the wicket keeper is a real batsman or one of the batsmen is a quality bowler of Barrington or Kallis ilk, nine.

Use the remaining place (or two) to balance up the side.  Usually this means picking a 30:30 player who can bat at 6. and bowl some seam.

Contrast this with the current England approach which reminds me of the old Not the 9 O'clock News sketch of Rowan Atkinson designing a bathroom with six toilets.

1. Pick six batsmen because you know at least two will fail
2. Pick four seam bowlers because one of them might be off form.  Hope to hell one of them can bat.
3. Pick a spinner but fudge it because you need a batsman at 8.
4. Throw the gloves to one of the batsmen and hope.  After all once a century a proper wicketkeeper batsman like Gilchrist comes along and who needs a wicketkeeper anyway.

Note that the deficiencies here are cumulative and self reinforcing.  For example, absent a real wicketkeeper, even if there was a real spinner they would be much less effective.  When you demand that eight of the side be, essentially, batsmen, you set yourself the self defeating task of finding eight batsmen.  usw.  A wicket keeper who takes one catch per innings that would otherwise have gone begging is, statistically, worth as much as a non-specialist with an average 30 runs better but, in fact, is better than that as he boosts the bowlers' confidence and offers additional tactical options.  Imagine if England had a keeper who could stand up to Anderson the way Evans used to Bedser.  So enough, suffice it to say that the Ladybird Book of Cricket would do a better job than the current laptop obsessed jobsworths.

And so to the county game:

1. 18 first class counties in a country that can't produce half a dozen test batsmen?  With promotion and relegation!  A guarantee of dilution, mediocrity and safety first.
2. Half of those counties, and more than half the games, played on grounds rather less suited for quality cricket than my old school first XI ground (admittedly Witherden père et fils are way better at turf than 99.9% of the human race).
3. First class games crammed into April, May and September when the smart plan is to play four 65mph trundlers and let the ball wobble around and, increasingly, the quality player are off making the spondoolicks in the Crash, Bash, Clash in Outer Mongolia or somewhere.

Is anyone really surprised that this formula doesn't produce quality test players?

I'd cut the first class counties to eight playing all their four day games on their test grounds (OK I'd let Yorkshire play one in Scarborough for old times sake).  If there has to be professional cricket in Northampton and Chesterfield than maybe pair the counties up so that, say, Derbyshire becomes Lancashire's second string.  Play the first class games when the weather and the pitches are good.  If that means playing T20 on artificial turf I really don't care (and nor would the punters as long as they get enough beer and rock music).  If the reality is that the three 75 year olds who control Worcestershire won't play then forget the counties and centrally contact enough players to play winter and summer as first team, Lions and U22 against the other major test countries in all three formats. 

Of course it won't happen.  Success against Afghanistan and the West Indies will be used to justify the abject bollocks we've just seen in Australia.

</rant>

Comments

[mountainkiss]

Is this a public post? If so then my other half would love to read it.

[chickenfeet]

It's public

[mountainkiss]

Oh good. Thanks.

[mountainkiss]

He enjoyed reading it and thought it interesting, but he also thinks that the players are not there to select from, which is a more systemic problem.

[chickenfeet]

Which is a function of the structure of the county game; the second part of the rant. I didn't get into the England coaching set up either which seems to be able to wreck promising young bowlers with remarkable consistency.

[mountainkiss]

Have responded accordingly.

[cmcmck]

I'm just a maid of Kent so what would I know? :o)

[frandroid]

I don't understand any of this but I know a good rant when I see one...