Attributes versus Average

Should this be England's approach across formats?

It is well publicised now that England, in Test cricket, have been prioritising ‘attributes over averages’ with selection.

This is a pretty basic way of looking at the decision, and I’m sure England will be looking at team construction and future planning in much more depth than these two areas, but it does illustrate a growing thought process towards understanding that Test cricket requires different skillsets to succeed than county cricket.

Recently I wrote about pace bowlers in county cricket and concluded that most pacers in county cricket who were robust enough to play virtually game in, game out, were generally county stalwarts who rely on hitting good lines and lengths on a consistent basis, as opposed to express pace, ‘x-factor’ pacers.

It’s still tricky to rely solely on attributes to select players for Test cricket, because Test cricket is much more difficult than county cricket and generally, it would be illogical to assume a player would be better against a higher calibre of opposition (yes, I’ve heard the Vaughan & Trescothick examples, but if you have to rely on examples from 25 years ago then it does undermine your argument somewhat).

However, all things considered, you can understand why England are currently potentially looking at the attributes possessed by individual players for selection in red ball cricket as much as a player’s performance in county cricket, because while some of the better county stalwarts would possibly do a job for England at home (speaking to some players, they also agree with this), against higher-level opposition and away from home, it would be more of a struggle.

Despite this cautious endorsement of England’s selection strategy in Tests, I’m less enthused by them taking the same approach with T20 selection, and I’ll explain why.

Essentially, the same skills are transferable between franchise T20 leagues and international cricket - if a player has the skillset to succeed in high-level leagues then there’s no reason why they shouldn’t do so in T20 internationals either - it’s not like Test versus county cricket where different attributes are required.

One of the services which I provide to teams is blueprints on ‘how to win’ in specific tournaments, or formats - evidence-based analysis on team construction and recruitment, understanding which types of players are likely to thrive in certain situations, and be undervalued in the marketplace. This is why I am so confident that the skills needed to succeed in franchise T20 are transferable to T20 internationals.

Furthermore, there’s a solid argument to suggest that the higher-quality franchise T20 leagues are of a better standard than international cricket. For example, very rarely will English bowlers get the luxury of bowling at batters from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan (Gurbaz excepted), Ireland, Zimbabwe, Scotland, Namibia, Netherlands or the UAE in franchise leagues, but they do have the opportunity to bowl at batters from these countries in either T20 World Cups or in bilateral series.

It’s not a lot different to football. For example, Harry Kane when playing in the Premier League or Bundesliga doesn’t get to play against part-timers like he often does in qualifying events for tournaments, so an international striker should have a really good goals per game record, better than they could manage domestically in high-quality leagues.

So, moving back to cricket, when England pick players in T20 squads based on attributes over ability, and pick some players who are yet to come close to dominating at Blast or Hundred level, I do think that their approach isn’t close to optimal for that format. There should be some unselected players feeling pretty hard done by right now, and in both red ball cricket and in T20, it’s understandable if some of these players lose the desire to play international cricket, or indeed, longer format cricket, and just look to maximise their income on the T20 circuit.