England (and Wales) gloom, doom and recriminations thread

[NotMcKenzie]

I've decided the solution to England's problems is to go back to six days a week cricket.

 

[Flem274*]

Yeah, as touched on by others, England's issues are systemic and not really to do with this particular side. This post might be a bit harsh given I'm not English but FWIW I want you guys to win this series because I'm petty and don't want India copying NZ.

The writing was on the wall when England lost to the NZ second eleven, but there's nothing like a two session batting collapse to a team with Virat Kohli in it to drive a point home.

I think when you have a medium pacer in his mid forties running about taking poles @ 20 in professional cricket, while that is a great achievement and all, you need to investigate what's going on there. Is that allrounder just impeccably skilled or is the competition compromised in some way?

The question isn't confined to Darren Stevens' success either. I don't know how all the random Australian and Saffer journeymen go in County Cricket, but the likes of post-injury James Franklin and Jeetan Patel kept fooling kiwis for years that their bowling had turned the corner because they took poles in County Cricket then returned to the Terrible Plunket Shield and were completely useless with the ball. Once Jesse Ryder became a strike bowler in England we all clicked as to the standard of some of these games, and Matt Henry taking 75 @ 14 was largely ignored by NZ CW.

It's counter intuitive, but overly bowler friendly domestic competitions produce terrible international cricketers. Players aren't rewarded for learning to bat or bowl in a manner that will produce results at test level. West Indies domestic pitches since 2000, NZ domestix until 2008, Australia in the middle of last decade and England now all show the fruits of it. It doesn't work, ever.

If anything, you want domestic conditions to err on the side of batsman friendly. Batsmen get time to learn how to score daddy hundreds and bowlers have to do something beyond rolling their arms over to take poles. Obviously flat domestic pitches create their own issues with test batsmen, but at least if you put the average FC journeyman from Australia or NZ up against a modest test attack on a road, they're probably going to make that attack suffer. Daryl Mitchell and Mathew Wade aren't anything special but they love tasty, tasty mid table bowling.

The odd green dog or rank turner should exist in domestic cricket, but you want your FC conditions to represent your home test conditions as closely as you can and I'm not sure England's always do. The duke is already a boon for pace bowlers, test standard talent doesn't need much else.

Anyway I still really rate Ollie Pope and think there's hope for Sam Curran's batting.

 

[Flem274*]

Yeah, as touched on by others, England's issues are systemic and not really to do with this particular side. This post might be a bit harsh given I'm not English but FWIW I want you guys to win this series because I'm petty and don't want India copying NZ.

The writing was on the wall when England lost to the NZ second eleven, but there's nothing like a two session batting collapse to a team with Virat Kohli in it to drive a point home.

I think when you have a medium pacer in his mid forties running about taking poles @ 20 in professional cricket, while that is a great achievement and all, you need to investigate what's going on there. Is that allrounder just impeccably skilled or is the competition compromised in some way?

The question isn't confined to Darren Stevens' success either. I don't know how all the random Australian and Saffer journeymen go in County Cricket, but the likes of post-injury James Franklin and Jeetan Patel kept fooling kiwis for years that their bowling had turned the corner because they took poles in County Cricket then returned to the Terrible Plunket Shield and were completely useless with the ball. Once Jesse Ryder became a strike bowler in England we all clicked as to the standard of some of these games, and Matt Henry taking 75 @ 14 was largely ignored by NZ CW.

It's counter intuitive, but overly bowler friendly domestic competitions produce terrible international cricketers. Players aren't rewarded for learning to bat or bowl in a manner that will produce results at test level. West Indies since 2000, NZ until 2008, Australia in the middle of last decade and England now all show the fruits of it. It doesn't work, ever.

If anything, you want domestic conditions to err on the side of batsman friendly. Batsmen get time to learn how to score daddy hundreds and bowlers have to do something beyond rolling their arms over to take poles. Obviously flat domestic pitches create their own issues with test batsmen, but at least if you put the average FC journeyman from Australia or NZ up against a modest test attack on a road, they're probably going to make that attack suffer. Daryl Mitchell and Mathew Wade aren't anything special but they love tasty, tasty mid table bowling.

The odd green dog or rank turner should exist in domestic cricket, but you want your FC conditions to represent your home test conditions as closely as you can and I'm not sure England's always do. The duke is already a boon for pace bowlers, test standard talent doesn't need much else.

Anyway I still really rate Ollie Pope and think there's hope for Sam Curran's batting.

ok

 

[OverratedSanity]

Does Ashwin not bowl a doosra any more?

Ashwin mostly bowls the carton ball as the variation and even that's exceedingly rare. Busts out a proper leg break once a test too.

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

Yeah, as touched on by others, England's issues are systemic and not really to do with this particular side. This post might be a bit harsh given I'm not English but FWIW I want you guys to win this series because I'm petty and don't want India copying NZ.

The writing was on the wall when England lost to the NZ second eleven, but there's nothing like a two session batting collapse to a team with Virat Kohli in it to drive a point home.

I think when you have a medium pacer in his mid forties running about taking poles @ 20 in professional cricket, while that is a great achievement and all, you need to investigate what's going on there. Is that allrounder just impeccably skilled or is the competition compromised in some way?

The question isn't confined to Darren Stevens' success either. I don't know how all the random Australian and Saffer journeymen go in County Cricket, but the likes of post-injury James Franklin and Jeetan Patel kept fooling kiwis for years that their bowling had turned the corner because they took poles in County Cricket then returned to the Terrible Plunket Shield and were completely useless with the ball. Once Jesse Ryder became a strike bowler in England we all clicked as to the standard of some of these games, and Matt Henry taking 75 @ 14 was largely ignored by NZ CW.

It's counter intuitive, but overly bowler friendly domestic competitions produce terrible international cricketers. Players aren't rewarded for learning to bat or bowl in a manner that will produce results at test level. West Indies domestic pitches since 2000, NZ domestix until 2008, Australia in the middle of last decade and England now all show the fruits of it. It doesn't work, ever.

If anything, you want domestic conditions to err on the side of batsman friendly. Batsmen get time to learn how to score daddy hundreds and bowlers have to do something beyond rolling their arms over to take poles. Obviously flat domestic pitches create their own issues with test batsmen, but at least if you put the average FC journeyman from Australia or NZ up against a modest test attack on a road, they're probably going to make that attack suffer. Daryl Mitchell and Mathew Wade aren't anything special but they love tasty, tasty mid table bowling.

The odd green dog or rank turner should exist in domestic cricket, but you want your FC conditions to represent your home test conditions as closely as you can and I'm not sure England's always do. The duke is already a boon for pace bowlers, test standard talent doesn't need much else.

Anyway I still really rate Ollie Pope and think there's hope for Sam Curran's batting.

Agree with much of this and it in part relates to the point others have made about the greater prominence of white ball cricket in England negatively affecting FC standards. One of the reasons why CC conditions are largely so bowling friendly is that so many of the games happen in April and May, are suspended for the peak English summer months (less of those sniggers please) and resume in late August/early September. The best times for batting have been reserved for the T20 Blast and One Day Cup - and now The Hundred as well. The CC largely gets the greenest grass and greyest skies.

 

[TheJediBrah]

It's counter intuitive, but overly bowler friendly domestic competitions produce terrible international cricketers. Players aren't rewarded for learning to bat or bowl in a manner that will produce results at test level

I know you went on to address this, but too flat wickets are just as bad. It's fine if you're playing Tests on roads against minnows but the second conditions deviate then your Travis Head's are worse than useless.

 

[wpdavid]

I think it's more about the talent being spread too thinly between the counties. One of the things that came out of the 4-day structure this year is that most of the D1 and D2 sides are of a pretty similar standard, but there are too many freebies due to the mediocrity of much of the bowling and much of the batting.

 

[Nintendo]

Any domestic system that lets marcus harris average 60 in a season and make a match winning 4th innings 150+ score when he's an utter hack needs to be abolished and replaced with hong kong super sixers.

 

[weeman27bob]

I think it's more about the talent being spread too thinly between the counties. One of the things that came out of the 4-day structure this year is that most of the D1 and D2 sides are of a pretty similar standard, but there are too many freebies due to the mediocrity of much of the bowling and much of the batting.

What's the benefit of having the talent spread less thinly - is it just a competition thing (both in terms of places within the team but also competing against people at the same level)?

 

[Starfighter]

I know you went on to address this, but too flat wickets are just as bad. It's fine if you're playing Tests on roads against minnows but the second conditions deviate then your Travis Head's are worse than useless.

Yeah, I don't understand this attitude that making things easy for the batsmen is the answer. There's a reason Sewhag and Warner average 28 and 26 in England respectively. Meanwhile countries with ultra-flat pitches have historically had great difficulty producing pace bowlers - India and Pakistan in the fifties and sixties and Australia in the mid-twenties and thirties being great examples. If you want well-rounded cricketers you need a variety of pitches - not only have pitches become more homogeneous but with the compressed and chopped seasons the changes throughout the season are less evident too.

Then of course there's the elephants in the room of white ball techniques and selection based on white ball form.

 

[wpdavid]

What's the benefit of having the talent spread less thinly - is it just a competition thing (both in terms of places within the team but also competing against people at the same level)?

The current system allows all 18 counties to survive and compete in all formats of the game (apart from the Hundred). Having talent spread less thinly would means that there's a more consistent quality of batsmen and bowlers. with fewer freebies available from batting or bowling against journeymen. However, it would require a reduction of the number of counties competing in some or all of the formats.

 

[GIMH]

End of the day, you have to ask the question whether the counties primarily exist to feed England?

I resent the same idea in football, and though my county associations aren’t huge (Lancs by default but not with the same heart as some of the others round here because ultimately I’m not from historic Lancs) I think there’s enough of a following for the counties to put this challenge out there. Why should their historical structures be ripped apart to accommodate the national side?

But I don’t disagree with a lot that Flem says, which is a strange feeling in a cricket thread

 

[Flem274*]

I know you went on to address this, but too flat wickets are just as bad. It's fine if you're playing Tests on roads against minnows but the second conditions deviate then your Travis Head's are worse than useless.

Yeah, I don't understand this attitude that making things easy for the batsmen is the answer. There's a reason Sewhag and Warner average 28 and 26 in England respectively. Meanwhile countries with ultra-flat pitches have historically had great difficulty producing pace bowlers - India and Pakistan in the fifties and sixties and Australia in the mid-twenties and thirties being great examples. If you want well-rounded cricketers you need a variety of pitches - not only have pitches become more homogeneous but with the compressed and chopped seasons the changes throughout the season are less evident too.

Then of course there's the elephants in the room of white ball techniques and selection based on white ball form.

I'm not saying make it easy for the batsmen, I'm saying make it easier. You cannot create an environment where random medium pacers with no exceptional attributes are as valuable with the ball as Ollie Robinson, Mark Wood or whoever and expect to produce test batsmen.

However, if forced to choose between domestic competitions overly friendly to batsmen or bowlers, I am choosing the batsman friendly one every time. It is far from ideal, but FTBs are better than No Track Dunces.

The real life evidence backs this up. The domestic competitions of the West Indies post 2000ish, NZ 90s and England for the past 5-10 years have held the lowest access barriers for bowlers in their time and those competitions produced terrible test sides who lack the skills to bat or bowl at test level. If you've grown up as a batsman on lottery decks then you're going to be either a plodder with a terrible strike rate and average (every NZ opener after 1993 until Latham excluding Richardson) or a highly speculative dasher who doesn't know how to construct an innings because there's no point in trying when one will arrive with your name on it soon (the West Indies, Craig McMillan, Lou Vincent, Jason Roy etc). You just have no true confidence in yourself as a batsman to bat time if you're developed in this environment. Even players who make it from this environment often betray their origins - Taylor and McCullum are the definition of uncertain and speculative early in their innings, and they were raised in the middle of the meme green domestic deck phase here.

It isn't popular but flat domestic decks teach some skills, and produce better test sides. Not good sides, because they will fold comically if presented with a cloud or some greenery, but teams good enough to send SL and WI packing at home and scamp a couple of away wins in friendly conditions.

You Aussie guys might scorn Travis Head/Khawaja/Wade/whoever, but if they played for the West Indies they'd be their best batsman. If they played for England, they would be uncomfortably close to their second best with Stokes out.

Australia might be bad by their standards right now, but their FC journeymen are still plenty good enough to hold your home record together against most tourists.

 

[wpdavid]

End of the day, you have to ask the question whether the counties primarily exist to feed England?

I resent the same idea in football, and though my county associations aren’t huge (Lancs by default but not with the same heart as some of the others round here because ultimately I’m not from historic Lancs) I think there’s enough of a following for the counties to put this challenge out there. Why should their historical structures be ripped apart to accommodate the national side?

But I don’t disagree with a lot that Flem says, which is a strange feeling in a cricket thread

Yup, that's a fair question, although another good question is how many of them would survive financially without money from England's matches. Because they can't have it both ways.

I'm not saying that some of them should cease to exist, of course. Just that we need to think about how they fit into a domestic structure.

 

[Flem274*]

Couldn't you get around the Counties by funding a 10 team franchise 4 day comp? The ECB are rich.

"Oh yes love history, but we want to fund this instead. I'm sure your great meaning and legacy will ensure you can pay for yourself now. Also if you want to play tests for England kids you need to play in the franchise comp."

Would probably do more for the health of English cricket than the Hundred.

 

[Manee]

It's also quite incredible that England continue picking someone like Curran who isn't Test class in either discipline. Suppose that's in part dictated by the ineptitude of the top order batsmen, but no one's winning anything against major nations with a guy at 8 who averages 25 with the bat and isn't penetrative with the ball.

I have a bit of solidarity with Curran as a former left-arm medium pacer. I think he's got it in him to be something very good in Tests, just gotta get the ball swinging a bit later than it does, at the moment.

Re: England - I clearly am not a fan of seeing England win but am a bit disappointed to see that there aren't any left-field options available to them. The equivalent of the old "call Ramps back" brigade. Looks like Craig Overton is as good as it gets in county cricket and so he might be worth a like-for-like swap with Curran in case Woakes isn't fit. Regarding the batting, was looking at the top run scorers in county cricket and it seems there is no one truly consistently piling it up in FC cricket other than a South African.

I used to play youth cricket with Daniel Bell-Drummond - he was always a very special player - maybe he would be worth a go. It may be time for a Trescothick or Vaughan-style pick based on potential to make the step-up rather than pure numbers (even though I'm aware this is a simplified narrative).

 

[Manee]

I'm not saying make it easy for the batsmen, I'm saying make it easier. You cannot create an environment where random medium pacers with no exceptional attributes are as valuable with the ball as Ollie Robinson, Mark Wood or whoever and expect to produce test batsmen.

However, if forced to choose between domestic competitions overly friendly to batsmen or bowlers, I am choosing the batsman friendly one every time. It is far from ideal, but FTBs are better than No Track Dunces.

The real life evidence backs this up. The domestic competitions of the West Indies post 2000ish, NZ 90s and England for the past 5-10 years have held the lowest access barriers for bowlers in their time and those competitions produced terrible test sides who lack the skills to bat or bowl at test level. If you've grown up as a batsman on lottery decks then you're going to be either a plodder with a terrible strike rate and average (every NZ opener after 1993 until Latham excluding Richardson) or a highly speculative dasher who doesn't know how to construct an innings because there's no point in trying when one will arrive with your name on it soon (the West Indies, Craig McMillan, Lou Vincent, Jason Roy etc). You just have no true confidence in yourself as a batsman to bat time if you're developed in this environment. Even players who make it from this environment often betray their origins - Taylor and McCullum are the definition of uncertain and speculative early in their innings, and they were raised in the middle of the meme green domestic deck phase here.

It isn't popular but flat domestic decks teach some skills, and produce better test sides. Not good sides, because they will fold comically if presented with a cloud or some greenery, but teams good enough to send SL and WI packing at home and scamp a couple of away wins in friendly conditions.

You Aussie guys might scorn Travis Head/Khawaja/Wade/whoever, but if they played for the West Indies they'd be their best batsman. If they played for England, they would be uncomfortably close to their second best with Stokes out.

Australia might be bad by their standards right now, but their FC journeymen are still plenty good enough to hold your home record together against most tourists.

This is so clever, insightful and true!

 

[Pothas]

I don't think it is the 18 counties that are really the issue even if it is the go to argument whenever England struggle. The pitches and time of year that they play first class cricket is more the thing for me along with the more talented players naturally being funnelled into white ball cricket.

 

[wpdavid]

I don't think it is the 18 counties that are really the issue even if it is the go to argument whenever England struggle. The pitches and time of year that they play first class cricket is more the thing for me along with the more talented players naturally being funnelled into white ball cricket.

I think both points are true. Clearly playing most of our FC cricket in the spring and autumn does nothing whatsoever to develop test match players. But the diluted quality of most of the county sides is undeniable.

 

[Uppercut]

Would England be able to have flat tracks in the CC, while keeping the bowling conditions at test level that make test cricket there so distinctive and exciting? In practice I think that might be difficult.