*Official* UK off-season 2009/10

[GIMH]

I wouldn't necessarily disagree that there are too many per se, it's more that I object to your idea that you should only spend where there is a guaranteed return. There is never a guaranteed return in sports anyway, but also just the general principle, in all sports you spend money developing youngsters, some of whom won't make it. That's all accounted for, you would expect that some of the players you spend on aren't going to make the grade, but there is no way you can be sure which ones.

 

[Richard]

My point is there is guranteed substantial defecit by this degree of spending. Not that you should only spend where you're guranteed of a return. If this 41-player package was instead a 20-player package it'd fall into the realm of acceptable guesswork investment; instead it falls into the realm of pointlessly throwing money down the drain.

 

[GIMH]

Fair enough, that's a bit different from, "I like to see ECB spending confined to areas that have obvious, palatable likely benefits." though

 

[Richard]

Nah, it isn't. TBF, I think you read a little more into it than was there, which is fair enough, as I know exactly what I meant by somewhat vague statements, while you didn't. I meant pretty much exactly the same thing by each statement, FTR.

 

[zaremba]

The players I mention have done dreadfully\poorly at all levels for which data is available.

Available to you. As I keep saying, I would expect the selectors to have better information available to them than you or I do. They have a wealth of sources which we don't have access to. We can only get so much of a view through the lens of cricinfo and cricket archive, and when you're dealing with very young players that view is very far from complete.

So you think more than 6-7 (at absolute best) of those names will enjoy substantial Test careers?

I've not particularly ventured an opinion on the point, I was merely commenting on your claim to "absolute certainty". Sometimes you can give the impression (whether deliberately or not, I have no idea) that you see no room for sane/informed disagreement with your pronouncements. When that happens, I feel duty-bound to pick you up on it.

Anyhow, if we got 6-7 substantial Test careers out of that lot, I wouldn't be all that disappointed tbh.

 

[zaremba]

If a player is going to be World-class it's almost always pretty obvious from an early age. None of those players in that list are remotely likely to be World-class; Test-class will be a hell of an achievement for most.

I'm not sure where "world-class" comes into this. Either we have wonderkids who are destined to be world-class or we don't. If we did, they would presumably be included in this squad. I'm not sure anyone's suggesting that world-class talent is being omitted.

All that we can hope this sort of scheme to achieve is to help to identify and then to develop players of potential international quality.

Besides which, standing where you are, you just don't know. Imagine if this were c1998 and Andrew Strauss were picked for this squad as a 21-year-old who had only made his First Class debut a few months before. You wouldn't have heard of him, or if you had you wouldn't have had any reason to think that he was a future Test-class opener, and you'd have written him off as a result, in just the same way that you're writing off the other 21-year-olds in this list. That sort of thought might just make you pause and reflect.

 

[superkingdave]

But if Andrew Strauss as a 21 year old, went out to play for a winter in Australia, that might have been a massive part of his development( I don't know whether he did, but he certainly did at some point).

By cosseting a player in a 'Team England' environment from an early age, when he hasn't really proven a lot, you run the risk of a) cutting him of from certain opportunities that might contribute to his cricketing developement and b) potentially giving him a false sense of his position/leading him to believe he has made it already/make him think everything will come to him this easy etc

Should just add that I really don't see the need for all these guys to be on some list. We have the U19's for the young guys who aren't necessarily into FC cricket yet, and we have the Lions/Academy for the players who have proven themselves at FC and look like they might be able to make the next step. We should, imo, be encouraging the players in between to spend their winters playing good cricket overseas.

 

[Goughy]

The 4 biggest complaints on the circuit about young players and the system around them are:-

1) They get county contacts and benefits (sponsored car etc) without actually having to produce and earn it at the first team level.

2) There is not enough time to invest in skills development and intensive coaching

3) They dont learn to develop the competitive edge and responsibility by being thrown in as an overseas club/grade pro and having to single handedly carry a team and its fortunes.

4) Their cricket development is not done through participating in meaningful games

Lengthy training camps help in 1 area and hinder in 3.Where the balance is can be debated.

Quite frankly 40+ players is far too many. That shows little to no selectorial skill. May as well give everyone an opportunity. Id happily bet that there would be little to no difference in the number of Test cricketers produced by the system if 20 players were selected as opposed to 50. Most would be dead wood and clearly so before the process began. Diminishing returns apply here.

Development groups should include young players that have produced early in their careers and those that are seen as rare talents. Selecting mediocre players on the chance they may bloom is pointless. In fact it does little more than dilute the resources and others not included would have as much chance of coming through.

It adds to the sense of entitlement and the appearance that existance is just as rewarding as production.

Selection for anything should be based on developing elite level athletes not just for anyone with a pulse on the chance they may one day suprise us. That is a terribly inefficient use of resouces and a recipe for low productivity.

 

[four_or_six]

These C-grade guys are just going on a camp, right? It's not as though they're getting a big salary from the ECB, or spending the whole winter training with them. Even if the end result is just to improve their skills so that country cricket is a higher standard, the ECB may feel that that is a good return on the money put in.

 

[zaremba]

Dav and Goughy, good posts. To be clear, I don't disagree that there are other ways to approach player development and I'm not necessarily saying that the ECB's approach is the best. All that I'm seeking to do is to question those who feel able to look at a list of names and write off young individuals on the grounds that "we've never heard of them".

 

[FBU]

I think it is too big a group as well.We should just have the 15 Lions players plus the Under 19s involved at Loughborough. The rest should develop at their county. We have the Test squad, ODI squad, Under 19s, Lions squad, EPP squad, Development squad, Fast Bowlers Programme players. 32 players will be going to SA for a training camp with the 4 players not playing in the ODIS. I wonder if this new idea was Buchanan's as he was consulted earlier in the year about the Centre of Excellence as he called it. Probably his idea as well the Ashes squad went to Flanders.

When Rod Marsh started the Academy he said he would be happy if one player a year went on to play for England, well some of them went in and out again. Players who played Tests in bold. Some players were chosen for more than one tour so not included in the list for the following year.

2001 - Bell, Wagh, Kenway, Peng, Key, Wood, Wallace, Tremlett, Swann, Schofield, Kirby, SJones, Harmison, Strauss, Flintoff, Tudor, Shah, Sidebottom
2002 - Ali, Batty, Blackwell, Hogg, Muchall, Panesar, Read, Stevens, Troughton, Clarke, Anderson, Wagg
2003 - Newman, Napier, Pietersen, Mahmood, Prior, Tredwell, ESmith, Lumb, Shafayat, Francis, Kadir Ali, Khalid, Gidman
2004 - Solanki, Harrison, Lewis, Powell, Franks, Dawson, Cook
2005 - Joyce, Yardy, SDavies, Dalrymple, Wright, Bopara, Broad, Footitt, TSmith, Plunkett
2006 - Onions
2007 - Bresnan, Carberry, Compton, Jefferson, Khan, Loudon, Rashid,
2008 - Trott, Hildreth, Richardson, Denly, Foster, Shreck
2009 - MDavies, Moore, Morgan, Patel, Ambrose, Dawson, Joseph

Test players who did not go through the Academy/Lions although some of them might have gone on the A tours before the Academy was formed.
Trescothick, Vaughan, Hoggard, Ward, Afzaal, Ormond, Silverwood, McGrath, Bicknell, Collingwood, Johnson, Saggers, GJones, Udal, Pattinson.

Players from the present Test squad who didn't go through the Academy in bold
Cook, Strauss, Trott, Pietersen, Bell, Collingwood, Prior, Broad, Swann, Plunkett, Anderson, Onions, Sidebottom, Davies, Rashid, Wright

 

[Richard]

Available to you.

By "available" I mean "available to the wider public".

As I keep saying, I would expect the selectors to have better information available to them than you or I do. They have a wealth of sources which we don't have access to. We can only get so much of a view through the lens of cricinfo and cricket archive, and when you're dealing with very young players that view is very far from complete.

It depends on how young young is. If it's 17-18, yes. If it's 21-22 (and some are older even than that), I don't think so. I'd venture to suggest that a player who hasn't even ripped it up at Second XI level (and\or has failed completely at first-team) by that age has essentially no chance of ever being an international cricketer of substance.

Once you get all that far into your 20s, age-group county cricket and club level stuff - for which data isn't widely available - becomes extremely slim in relevance.

I rarely if ever venture an opinion on a player's long-term prospects before they reach the age of 20 and if you can find an example of me doing so then please do.

I've not particularly ventured an opinion on the point, I was merely commenting on your claim to "absolute certainty". Sometimes you can give the impression (whether deliberately or not, I have no idea) that you see no room for sane/informed disagreement with your pronouncements. When that happens, I feel duty-bound to pick you up on it.

I can be absolutely certain that most of those players will not have substantial Test careers. Apart from anything else, it isn't possible for more than 11 players of the same generation to have a substantial Test career.

If you comment on this, you've ventured an opinion on whether there's any point in giving a training camp to as many as 41 players - thus either agreeing or disagreeing with me.

Anyhow, if we got 6-7 substantial Test careers out of that lot, I wouldn't be all that disappointed tbh.

Nor me - but I think such an estimate is extremely optimistic. And as Kev says, you'd be every bit as likely to achieve that by picking 20 players as 40.

 

[Richard]

I'm not sure where "world-class" comes into this.

If you only throw money at guaranteed successes then it's pretty obvious you'll make a loss in the end. If you invest in ten players, and one of them turns out to be world-class, it was almost certainly worth it.

..............

Either we have wonderkids who are destined to be world-class or we don't. If we did, they would presumably be included in this squad. I'm not sure anyone's suggesting that world-class talent is being omitted.

They're not. The suggestion is that an investment in 10 turning-out 1 World-class is worth it. Well, that's neither here nor there TBH to what I was saying.

All that we can hope this sort of scheme to achieve is to help to identify and then to develop players of potential international quality.

Besides which, standing where you are, you just don't know. Imagine if this were c1998 and Andrew Strauss were picked for this squad as a 21-year-old who had only made his First Class debut a few months before. You wouldn't have heard of him, or if you had you wouldn't have had any reason to think that he was a future Test-class opener, and you'd have written him off as a result, in just the same way that you're writing off the other 21-year-olds in this list. That sort of thought might just make you pause and reflect.

Strauss was something of a late developer. And I'd have said of him the same sort of thing I've said of Meaker and Blake - which is precious little. If I've not heard much or anything about a player I don't tend to venture an opinion on them.

 

[Goughy]

These C-grade guys are just going on a camp, right? It's not as though they're getting a big salary from the ECB, or spending the whole winter training with them. Even if the end result is just to improve their skills so that country cricket is a higher standard, the ECB may feel that that is a good return on the money put in.

Improving County players may be a 'positive' outcome but I dont think that this what the process is designed to do.

Also I (and the Counties) would argue that development of County pros is the responsibility of the County the player represents. They each have their own system in place. One of the primary ways to hurt the development of a player is to have 2 or more different coaches (especially one or two working for a short time only) work with the same player. Having the England system work with players with little chance of playing for England also introduces the political aspect of why the National system is interfering with domestic teams. This could be abused to favor certain Counties.

The idea of improving average County cricketers may be a noble aim but I dont think that is the current plan. I think player improvement is under the umbrella of the County that pays the wages of the player.

If the ECB wanted to develop and improve young average County pros then give grants to Counties to improve their coaching and facilites but allow them to coach their employees in the way they judge to be best.

 

[Goughy]

A player development system could be pretty simple in my opinion.

You have 3 levels. U19s, A Team and National team. If selected there is preparation can coaching camps to ready the player for the challanges of the games that will be played for that team.

Short term camps with no aim to prepare for a specific tour have little value in my opinion. You have to practice, prepare and then implement those changes immediately.

This should then be run in conjunction with an ECB officer who helps find winter cricket (where there is a great deal of responsibility on a player to perform) for all PCA members that wants to do so.

So often ignored in player development is the need to be self motivated, proactive and for the player to take personal responsibility for their own development. A sense of false accomplishment and entitlement bred by certain programs does far more damage than they help. Hungry players are ambitious players and ambitious players dont need to have their hand held.

(typed v. quickly, apologies for any grammar and sp. mistakes)

 

[zaremba]

If I've not heard much or anything about a player I don't tend to venture an opinion on them.

Carter? Jones?

 

[Richard]

I consider I've studied, and watched, enough about both to do so. If you are willing to challenge my ascertation that neither are remotely likely to ever be worthy Test players, go ahead.

 

[zaremba]

I'll challenge your use of the word ascertation, but if you've watched them play and studied their careers then I certainly wouldn't challenge your judgment.

Having said which, I don't understand why, when I twice asked if you'd watched them play, you didn't say that you had.

 

[CricketGuy007]

Does it really matter if you are bristish or not to play cricket in UK? Our cricket in UK will only improve if we start playing with better players! We need to look at what other countries are doing and try and follow there foot steps! English cricket will not progress if we dont give our youngsters a chance to blossom. Please give me your opinion on this?

Kollpak players? Will this make a difference to English cricket?

 

[Richard]

I'll challenge your use of the word ascertation, but if you've watched them play and studied their careers then I certainly wouldn't challenge your judgment.

Assertion would perhaps be a better word than ascertation, I'll admit that.

Having said which, I don't understand why, when I twice asked if you'd watched them play, you didn't say that you had.

I haven't watched them extensively on a regular basis or anything, but I have seen their bowling actions and watched them on an in-match basis once or twice, enabling - in combination with the figures widely available - some judgement on such matters as accuracy, basic wicket-taking skill and speed.