After the ball was over

[chickenfeet]

Euphoria is good but what now for England? I think today's series win was fantastic but there is reason to believe that this is the proverbial "house built on sand". England picked the same twelve for the first four matches of this series then when Jones got hurt couldn't bring themselves to play Tremlett. That rather suggests that they intended to play the same XI regardless in the earlier games. In other words, there was no plan B. Indeed the names suggested as a Jones replacement included some has beens so has been that one wondered at times whether they were going to call Trueman out of retirement.

The trouble is, there is no depth. Flintoff is unique and irreplaceable but him aside there are at best seven batsmen in the frame for the five specialist spots and three of those (Bell, Collingwood and Key) aren't entirely convincing. The fixture wicket keeper is just that, a fixture. At least there are alternatives in that department if the selectors would face up to the horrible truth that one can't play test cricket with a wicket keeper who can't catch. The bowling is in worse shape than the batting. Only two of the specialist bowlers (Harmison and Jones) are entirely convincing but there really isn't anyone pressing for Giles' or Hoggard's places so one can't blame the selectors for playing them.

Is it possible in the present structure of the English game to achieve a situation where there is the depth in the player base that, say, Arsenal has? Once upon a time one had the luxury of less international cricket and more first class games which gave more players more chance to impress as potential test players and an environment in which an out of form test player could play himself back to form. That's no longer the case. Maybe the answer is to have a parallel 'A' team series? It would have been fascinating to watch Australia 'A' play a series against England 'A' and see which young players impressed. I'm willing to bet it would have drawn much bigger crowds than county games too. Another possibility would be to have the tourists play more 4 day games against 'select' XIs as used once to be the case. There's not much point in watching the Australians vs Randomshire if most of Randomshire's players either aren't England qualified or are has beens.

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Re A-teams: unfortunately, England and Australia are the two countries that have taken this concept least seriously (though it's amusing that England A has resurfaced in the past two years, largely, it seems, because the countries the National Academy visited demanded that that was how their opponents should be styled). When England A, or the Academy, visit Australia, they're usually given state second elevens to play against. When A-teams come here, the counties rest half their sides. And if they get to play a combined eleven, it's made up of players from the counties who happen not to be playing that week. But your idea is a good one, and not unlike what happened in New Zealand in 2003-04, where they scheduled overlapping Test and A-team series so that fringe players could be swapped between the two.