English Cricket
My Manifesto
I’ve been meaning to write an article on English cricket and its structure for a while, so yesterday I reached out to my followers on Twitter for suggestions for an article focusing on it. The response was overwhelming, with so many good questions! Because of this, I’m going to make it a bit of a Q&A and cover a lot of the questions asked - so let’s get cracking!
* Thanks so much to everyone who has bought me a coffee. It is much appreciated! *
Subject Area 1 - Bad Decision-Making
Un-named current franchise player via WhatsApp: “Why are there so many dumb decisions made over and over again?”
I can promise on my life to readers that this is a genuine question but of course I’m not going to name the player who messaged me with it.
In my view the reason why there are so many bad decisions being made by teams is obvious - there are a lot of people in roles of huge influence and who make critical decisions who simply aren’t qualified to do the job at hand.
Should a TV pundit head up the ECB? I actually don’t mind the Rob Key appointment compared to others who were linked with the job, but it’s a legitimate question. However, would we see Gary Neville run the FA? I doubt it. I’d like to see a commentator on TV with administration ambitions gain experience by being involved with running a county or franchise team first.
Should ex-players get given jobs based on who they are? There’s certainly a culture still in many places of ‘jobs for the boys’ and the dangerous assumption that a great player will become a great coach.
Would you let the best shelf stacker in a supermarket become CEO? Of course you wouldn’t - even though they’ll know where everything is in the shop better than anyone.
I could write a list of people in jobs who don’t look remotely qualified for them, and it wouldn’t be pretty. How much of the ‘Peter Principle’ - where people are promoted to their highest level of incompetence - is in action as well?
There are a few current/ex players doing it right though. For example, I saw that Luke Wright is doing educational courses which presumably is to prepare him for a future managerial/administrative career, while Ian Bell has been travelling the world gaining experience as an assistant coach in various environments to prepare him for future roles too. I hugely applaud these guys for taking this approach.
Finally towards this question, I also think that more of a voice should be given to analysts and strategists. A lot of readers might not know this but, to give an example relevant to myself, that despite having strong influence on recruitment at various teams, I don’t have much (if any) say in team selection. Given that the two areas should go hand in hand, I’m not sure that makes much logical sense.
Subject Area 2 - County Structure
AB: “If England had won a couple matches in the Ashes, would anyone have questioned the county system?”
Srinivas “What changes are required in Eng first class cricket to make England Test team very good again?”
These are great questions, somewhat related, and to give a short answer to AB’s question, my opinion is I don't think so. It’s pretty evident to me that any notable changes to the English structure are likely to be the result of a knee-jerk reaction to a heavy Ashes defeat (and a miserable year or so in general for the England Test team).
Now, if the England Test team had played to their maximum level of expectation, made no tactical or selection errors and still been beaten heavily, then you might be more reasonably entitled to consider wholesale changes to be necessary - but I think England’s results have been as a result of both not being good enough and inept decision-making at various levels. Not being good enough can also simply be just cyclical, as well.
Anyway, as I’ve written about before, any change in my view should focus on the creation of three divisions of six teams, enable a transfer system so that the Div 1 teams can acquire the best players and then England pick from Div 1 (rather like England do with the Premier League in football). Send your young players on loan to Div 3 teams rather than playing 2nd team cricket, etc - look at the football industry for guidance with the structure, basically.
James McCaghrey: “In the current divisions what averages would be needed to expect to average 35 in tests. Before it was around 45 in div 1 and around 50 in div 2. For example I suspect the current div 2 teams and pitches mean even a 50 average wouldn't be enough.”
I have a model which works this stuff out but I haven’t updated it of late, but I do think it’s a critical area which the England selectors should consider - along with many others from a ‘value added’ data perspective. Again, it all comes back to understanding the difference in standards between the various divisions - would the England football team pick a striker who scored 25 in a season in the Championship? Highly unlikely. But they would be very interested in a Premier League striker scoring 20 in a season.
Satwik: “The influence of overseas cricketers on the revival of county cricket.”
Kelly Smuts: “What effect has Brexit had on the County game? Ie. No more Kolpaks”
Again, two fairly related questions. I’m of the belief that Kolpak players, while reducing the player pool which England could choose from, increased standards markedly in previous years. Teams are allowed one more overseas player now Kolpak’s aren’t permitted, but frequently don’t even use them. This has arguably led to a dilution of quality which isn’t positive for the national team.
Playing with high quality senior players, and understanding how they go about their business, would accelerate the development of young players. Given this, if Kolpak’s are no longer permitted, I’m keen to increase the overseas player quota for each team. Three or four per team would raise the standards in a big way, in my view. It would decrease the domestic player pool (unless the system was expanded to four divisions of six, which I don’t mind either), but the players who would lose out would be highly unlikely to play for England in the first place.
Subject Area 3 - Finances in County Cricket
Sarah: “How do we save the county game for all counties or is it impossible now with all the different comps?”
Prashant Vaidya: “How county championship can attract more money? How can it be more competitive?”
In response to Sarah’s question, I think it’s very possible, but more needs to be done to attract younger viewers towards four-day cricket. Wouldn’t it be good if kids got free tickets to four-day matches and then got to play on the outfield during breaks? Maybe even getting ad-hoc coaching from unselected squad players during this time? A transfer system, like I advocated above, would also be a good marketing ploy - deadline day and transfer speculation would be fun! I also think that the county game would benefit from a daily/weekly highlights show on Sky, similar to Match of the Day. We just need to take it into the 21st Century and market it better to the next generation of supporters.
Ultimately as well, there needs to be an answer to the question which I don’t think has ever been answered - do counties exist solely as businesses to be strong performers on and off the pitch, or do they exist simply to be a feeder system for England? I think the two objectives are largely mutually exclusive, yet I think most counties wouldn’t even be able to answer the question themselves.
I think this, and previous answers, pretty much covers Prashant’s question as well.
Subject Area 4 - Player Development
Neil Pemberthy: “I’d be interested in your thoughts on balancing young player development with short term success.”
I think the answer is different at national team and county level. At national team, we’ve seen players often get given England debuts before they are likely to be ready from a statistical perspective. Whenever this is questioned, the examples of Vaughan and Trescothick are trotted out, but if you’re using examples from 20 years ago with no further examples since to make your point, then it’s hardly a compelling argument!
What I worry about here is two fold - firstly, if a player averages 35 in county cricket against county level pacers over the last couple of seasons, I’m not sure what qualifies anyone to think that they will be able to succeed against Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Shaheen Afridi or Jasprit Bumrah. It’s totally illogical. Secondly, I worry that exposure to Test cricket before a player is ready will also damage their confidence, and endanger their long-term development.
Having said that, I’m more fine with young player development and taking a longer route to success in county cricket. Firstly, in my view, there’s a market inefficiency in this area from a recruitment perspective. Furthermore, if you’re a team close to the bottom of Division Two, you may as well put your faith in young players who can come with you on the journey and who may well be good enough to play at a higher level, as opposed to focusing on the ‘quick fix’ of picking journeyman veterans who won’t.
Subject Area 5 - My application to become England head selector
Dan Collins: “I think a draft of your application to be the England head selector would be ample Dan. Actually, pretend you’ve just got the gig, let’s look at red ball only for now; what are the processes, roles and selection criteria you’re looking to implement from the get go? Go!”
What a question! This is a role which I’d be extremely interested in, when the time is right. I’m 43 years old - my ambitions hugely extend past being a recruitment & strategy analyst and I’m very keen to eventually move into this type of role, or General Manager/Director of Cricket when the right opportunity at the right time comes along.
From a selection perspective, I think most of you will be aware that I couldn’t care less about reputation, even less, politics. So that would go out of the window immediately. It also probably won’t surprise many readers to hear that I’d be taking a stronger data-driven approach, as opposed to what was described to me as England's current ‘data-informed’ approach. My interpretation of ‘data-informed’ is that data is used when it suits them, and hunches are used when it suits them. I’d say goodbye to that immediately as well.
As for the process, roles and selection criteria - tricky to discuss in the public domain (I need to keep some things under my hat to try and wow in an interview!) but I’d be focusing on:-
Using county cricket and Division 1 in particular as strong preparation for international cricket, ideally in the structure which I outlined previously in this post. No longer would a guy average 30 in county cricket and get picked on hunches - I’d say to a player, come back to me when you score 1000 runs in a season in Div 1 and then we’ll talk.
Value added metrics. I use a lot of these in current recruitment decisions so can’t really discuss them in depth, but they work pretty well. A Premier League football team would be delighted with 50% success in recruitment, and in my experience, these value added metrics work far more consistently than that.
Picking players who work in the given conditions. Could there be a situation where a bowler like Sam Cook, who is extremely consistent at hitting a good area, is used for Tests in England, while someone with express pace like Mark Wood, is used for overseas Tests? Quite possibly. Which batters have the metrics which indicate potential success at Test level, based on the benchmarks from successful batters at Test level? Stuff like that, but again, very data-focused.
Not be scared about picking format specialists. England seem to like picking players capable of playing in both white-ball formats, for example - yet the drivers for success and dynamics for each format are markedly different, and further diverging. The days of a three-format player, given the divergence in required skillsets and huge workload on players, is likely to come to a close also.
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed answering the questions!
Feel free to leave me a comment below with your thoughts.