England (and Wales) gloom, doom and recriminations thread

[ma1978]

Its not all doom and gloom.

England lost the most valuable test cricketer in the world in Ben Stokes who was a leader.

Chris Woakes who is a ridiculously good test player is also out.

I hate to say this as an India fan but Indua is probably down 2-0 with Stokes and Woakes

Also Crawley and Lawrence are real talents and need to be given a proper opportunity and deep red ball only immersion

 

[Lillian Thomson]

It isn't true to say that the standard of County Cricket has always been poor. It's come about in the last 20 years with the advent of Central Contracts meaning that the England international players rarely play it and the sports science brigade deciding that top level sportsman should play as little as possible. It's also possible for top overseas cricketers to earn a good living without playing County Cricket, so they don't play either. When I started watching Somerset for a spell regularly you would have Botham, Richards and Garner along side damn good County pros like Rose, Roebuck and Dredge and the odd journeyman. If Kent were the opposition you would have Knott, Underwood, Dilley, Tavare and the Cowdrey brothers as well as Asif Iqbal or Aravinda De Silva and a bit later even Terry Alderman. These days you look at a team sheet and even Google doesn't know who half the players are.
Of course that isn't to say that County Cricket has ever produced a stream of world class batsman, but the standards were good.

 

[karan_fromthestands]

England lost against India because they got carried away by their emotions and started attacking Shami and Bumrah with garbage short balls and expected them to just loft one up in the air. Less than an hour of madness and they lost the game, this is the same team that beat SL in SL and won the first game against India in India convincingly before losing a few games on rank turners.

I see nothing wrong with the English side. They are missing a few key players and doing well without them. Both teams have won a fair amount of sessions in both the games, we are witnessing some quality cricket and I can't wait to watch the next game.

 

[wpdavid]

It isn't true to say that the standard of County Cricket has always been poor. It's come about in the last 20 years with the advent of Central Contracts meaning that the England international players rarely play it and the sports science brigade deciding that top level sportsman should play as little as possible. It's also possible for top overseas cricketers to earn a good living without playing County Cricket, so they don't play either. When I started watching Somerset for a spell regularly you would have Botham, Richards and Garner along side damn good County pros like Rose, Roebuck and Dredge and the odd journeyman. If Kent were the opposition you would have Knott, Underwood, Dilley, Tavare and the Cowdrey brothers as well as Asif Iqbal or Aravinda De Silva and a bit later even Terry Alderman. These days you look at a team sheet and even Google doesn't know who half the players are.
Of course that isn't to say that County Cricket has ever produced a stream of world class batsman, but the standards were good.

I agree with much of this actually. And I suspect that we've both read pieces by former players saying how domestic cricket in the 1970s and 1980s provided a much better introduction to test cricket. And yet results in the second half of the 1980s were our worst ever. I suppose the downside of that era was that the number of overseas players was, for whatever reason, detrimental to the development of English players, and I know that potentially taps into all sorts of dodgy lines of argument. There was also far too much cricket. I politely disagree about the negative impact of central contracts from 2000, if only because they helped to create a system that developed the guys who took us to number 1 in 2011.

 

[karan_fromthestands]

Its not all doom and gloom.

England lost the most valuable test cricketer in the world in Ben Stokes who was a leader.

Chris Woakes who is a ridiculously good test player is also out.

I hate to say this as an India fan but Indua is probably down 2-0 with Stokes and Woakes

Also Crawley and Lawrence are real talents and need to be given a proper opportunity and deep red ball only immersion

No.

 

[theegyptian]

Since 2015 they've rebalanced their aims and took white ball cricket much more seriously.

In the past test cricket was always the main aim, and lets be fair we weren't always particularly good at that even when we took it seriously.

Now I'd say we more evenly treat all 3 formats - obviously some will disagree with this. Test cricket has suffered as a result, but we've gained in the white ball game. Proof that you can't have everything.

It's not just English domestic cricket where 20 over/hundred is the dominant feature in the domestic schedules. That's a global trend.

 

[wpdavid]

Of course that isn't to say that County Cricket has ever produced a stream of world class batsman, but the standards were good.

I remember having a conversation many years ago about the decreasing number of really good England players being introduced to test cricket each decade since WW2. It went along the lines of loads in the 1950s, some in the 1960s but not as many as in the 1950s, fewer again in the 1970s and even fewer in the 1980s. That trend didn't really change until the 2000s and obviously it's dropped off again since then. The conversation was interesting, although we came to different conclusions. And it took place 20 years ago, before the improvement from around 2004 anyway.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

England lost against India because they got carried away by their emotions and started attacking Shami and Bumrah with garbage short balls and expected them to just loft one up in the air. Less than an hour of madness and they lost the game, this is the same team that beat SL in SL and won the first game against India in India convincingly before losing a few games on rank turners.

I see nothing wrong with the English side. They are missing a few key players and doing well without them. Both teams have won a fair amount of sessions in both the games, we are witnessing some quality cricket and I can't wait to watch the next game.

Way too simplistic. Take away the 9th wicket partnership and we're still chasing 190+ with a batting line up of one man and not even his dog. I wouldn't have put tuppence on us getting any nearer that total than we did.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I remember having a conversation many years ago about the decreasing number of really good England players being introduced to test cricket each decade since WW2. It went along the lines of loads in the 1950s, some in the 1960s but not as many as in the 1950s, fewer again in the 1970s and even fewer in the 1980s. That trend didn't really change until the 2000s and obviously it's dropped off again since then. The conversation was interesting, although we came to different conclusions. And it took place 20 years ago, before the improvement from around 2004 anyway.

I wasn't too aware of it as a youngster starting out following the sport. But looking back to my early days of watching in the early 70's we produced absolutely nothing. Frank Hayes was 26 when he made his debut and he was considered a young prospect. Gooch was picked at 21 but after a couple of failures was discarded for three years. The likes of MJK Smith, Cowdrey and Close were recalled when way past their sell by date. Keith Fletcher was almost an automatic choice along side the established players from the 60's. Although I think he served England quite well despite his limitations, it showed a lack of real quality. Even Derek Randall was 26 when he was selected as a young prospect, and again he did okay but was hardly top drawer. It was really only Gower in 1978 that was genuine class. Gatting was about the same age but took a long time to establish himself.

 

[wpdavid]

I wasn't too aware of it as a youngster starting out following the sport. But looking back to my early days of watching in the early 70's we produced absolutely nothing. Frank Hayes was 26 when he made his debut and he was considered a young prospect. Gooch was picked at 21 but after a couple of failures was discarded for three years. The likes of MJK Smith, Cowdrey and Close were recalled when way past their sell by date. Keith Fletcher was almost an automatic choice along side the established players from the 60's. Although I think he served England quite well despite his limitations, it showed a lack of real quality. Even Derek Randall was 26 when he was selected as a young prospect, and again he did okay but was hardly top drawer. It was really only Gower in 1978 that was genuine class. Gatting was about the same age but took a long time to establish himself.

Yes, that was exactly it. Botham from 1977 was the other exception of course. And Willis and Gooch went on to have stellar test careers after a while. But the cupboard looked pretty bare for most of the 1970s.

 

[Gremlin]

Some very interesting points in this thread.

One thing that stands out for me regarding the structure of the domestic calendar over and above what has already been mentioned is that the likes of Crawley who is an undoubted talent has been sent back to his county to find some form. And there is no red ball matches available for him to do so.

 

[Shri]

Does Ashwin not bowl a doosra any more?

never did. but he did bowl once in a limited overs game with full sleeve and turned it more than usual to tell everyone why full sleeve spinners were all cheats

 

[Shri]

re too many teams debate

i have thought for a while that in both india and england, the current system should be a feeder tournament run cheaper that feeds into a more efficient and higher tier competition that is given more importance like the zonal matches that take place in india where the best players play for north/west/east/south zones

should be a longer tournament and performances here should inform national selection decisions in addition to A tours and the IPL (for limited overs selections)

 

[honestbharani]

re too many teams debate

i have thought for a while that in both india and england, the current system should be a feeder tournament run cheaper that feeds into a more efficient and higher tier competition that is given more importance like the zonal matches that take place in india where the best players play for north/west/east/south zones

should be a longer tournament and performances here should inform national selection decisions in addition to A tours and the IPL (for limited overs selections)

See in India its almost possible to play throughout the year so it can work. But in England, they really only have a 3-4 month window to fit their season. That is the biggest issue.

 

[Spark]

India's strength in a lot of conditions comes from there incredible A system and the coaches involved in that more then ranji, it's the reason a bowler with the talent of siraj was so good as soon as he came in. Lot of credit has to go to dravid for that, he has been phenominal with the u19 and A team guys.

Yeah this is correct. All their super-gun fast bowlers are still principally products of the elite pathways systems they've set up or improved dramatically out in through exposure to the national set up (Ishant, Shami, Yadav). The traditional Australian path (which is growing less of a thing in Australia too) of being spotted at FC level and then graduating to Tests isn't that relevant and thus neither is the intricacies of the FC setup.

For fast bowlers, when you know, you know, and more and more the elite level talents are being identified before they enter the FC system. For batsmen it's a very different story. Since England's elite levels pathways are obviously excellent (though IMO still underperforming given the resources they have), they're still doing fine at producing good pace bowlers. But there's no shortcut to producing Test quality batsman; you just gotta know how to score the runs and right now English batsmen just don't seem capable of constructing long innings. There's a difference between batting slowly and constructing a real innings, many English top order batsmen seem to have confused the latter for the former.

Needless to say I agree fully with what Flem said before, having said so myself many times. It even hurt India quite a bit for a while. Consistent greentops (or dustbowls) at FC level = **** Test batsmen. Of course you want a variety of pitches ideally, but that's near impossible to achieve these days so you should settle for pitches where bowlers have to really earn their wickets through unusual skill, stamina or physical gifts and batsmen are expected to play long, multi-session innings as a base standard.

 

[Noumenon]

The expectation that unless FC cricket is played in perfect weather, over perfectly neutral pitches is post facto reasoning. And not very convincing to me personally.

International cricket is different from a lot of other sport in the sense there's no churn of talent. ENG could have two solid opener and they'd simply clog that position up for a decade potentially. What signal does that send to players downstream? Lack of churn means talent flow will never be even.

 

[wpdavid]

International cricket is different from a lot of other sport in the sense there's no churn of talent. ENG could have two solid opener and they'd simply clog that position up for a decade potentially. What signal does that send to players downstream? Lack of churn means talent flow will never be even.

True, but a more detailed look paints the same picture From 2000 to 2006, England gave test debuts to four guys who went on to have decent careers at the top of the order: Trescothick, Vaughan, Strauss and Cook. Since Strauss retired in 2012 and Cook called it a day in 2018, we've tried rather a lot (forgive me for not even trying to list them) who haven't been up to scratch.

 

[SteveNZ]

This is the smartest post ITT. Everything is suddenly a huge problem as soon as things go wrong. But in 2011 (or whenever England were doing pretty good) county cricket wasn't a huge problem.

County cricket being of a lower standard than some other domestic comps because of 18 teams has always been a thing. Focus on white ball batting in England over the last decade is the main culprit here

To me (and I agree with you), it's also the fact that they haven't been smart about the way they've done it. They're growing, and accentuating, muscle hitters who do so with poor shape. There's not a base of solid technique to build this T20 ability from. I haven't been in England for near on 20 years but I imagine young players are coming up trying to clear the hip and belt holy **** out of it, hoping to catch a selectors' eye. Whereas they should be building a foundation of technique that they can adapt their games from.

That's what the greats (ABV, Kane, Kohli, Rohit, Babar, Warner) do. That's why they're still in demand for T20 franchises and in the top 10 of the ICC Test rankings. The way England do it, they'll never have anyone who can do both.

 

[grecian]

Central Contracts were a great idea, as was 4 day cricket, but in the end we take them too far, and need to get more Internationals playing the 4 day game. Yet with 100s of franchises I don't see what can be changed. If you tell all central contracts that they must just play red-ball, then you are going to lose a lot of players.

3 day cricket just meant that bowlers, pitches were bad, and actually long innings weren't played, and having plenty of great Fast bowlers from abroad in those conditions was carnage, England bats were averaging about 30 going into Tests.

I would love a relaxation of away players to be honest, nowadays, would give a real bite to County cricket to have a lot of class Test players who can't get into T20 franchises. About 3 per team would do.

 

[Manee]

I think there is an extent to which it feels, not impossible, but very difficult to prepare for the step-up to Test cricket. India's pace attack, when firing, offers absolutely no respite for the batsmen and it is just not realistic to expect a county team to have such a quality sustained assault. Same for pretty much all countries atm - where do you rest against Boult, Jamieson, Southee and Wagner - or against Cummins, Hazlewood, Lyon and Starc (where the recent weakest link bowls at 150kph) or even full-fit England who could boast three or four of Anderson, Broad, Jofra, Robinson, Wood. I think even A Team attacks would feel a huge step down from this, hence the huge amount of runs that Shaw and Agarwal were able to pile up, in their run up to India selection.

I think this is where people who are very successful domestically do struggle. It may not be that domestic attacks are poor (they aren't) or pitches are easy (as discussed, often not) - just that there is a much higher quality of bowling in Test cricket. What was interesting to see is how Rohit got so many runs off Sam Curran in the first innings whereas he was going fairly slowly until then - because there just wasn't anything to score off. KL Rahul was striking at around 20 and no one can accuse him, or that innings, of being particularly negative.

Re: techniques - I think it is a good point that it really feels that the likes of Nasser and Athers did agonise over the "correct" techniques and would try to adapt these to limited overs. These days, it feels the limited overs techniques are being applied to the Test format. Sir Alistair Cook once spoke in an interview about how Test batting was straightforward for him because he had two attacking shots only, the flick and the cut. Potentially, on occasion you would see the defensive forward push down the ground. This made decision-making for him far more straight-forward.

This being said - I think England could well come back in this series as India fatigue and I think there is a global decline in Test batting around the world.