How to succeed in county cricket

Using my experiences to understand what it takes...

In my last mailbag I received the question below which I committed to answering in an upcoming post, so here it is…

This is a fascinating question because I’ve been in several positions where I’ve had the opportunity to pitch some resemblance of the answer to teams. Even with the sales of teams in The Hundred (non-host counties are expected to benefit from a £16m-£21m one-off payment), it would still be difficult to ‘spend loads of money’ because it appears that there will be specific guidelines on how this money can be spent, with a real deterrence towards short-term player salaries.

Sustainable, long-term strategies and processes required

Instead, my pitch has had greater focus towards sustainable longer-term strategies and processes because unless the likes of Essex or Somerset (generally the closest challengers to Surrey over the last five years) get lucky and slightly outperform the sum of their parts, or Surrey have a bad year, beating Surrey to the County Championship in year one of a project is basically impossible for any other team.

Because of the length of county contracts and the lack of a transfer market which makes it both very difficult to recruit players or to move existing players on, even a bigger county such as Warwickshire, Lancashire or Nottinghamshire would need a 3-5 year plan. It’s completely unrealistic to think that things will change quicker than that.

Chatting about my experiences in county cricket actually gives pretty good insight into the answer to this question, with a number of clear recurring themes. One clear theme is having an evidence-based identity and vision, and another is the disruptive effect of staff changes.

Generally I’ve worked for some of the more financially challenged teams in County Cricket. While I’ve done a bit of consulting for various counties, primarily I’ve worked with Leicestershire (2020-end of 2022 season) and Kent (end of 2022 season-pre-Blast in May 2024).

The Leicestershire project was about an extreme a version of the above project as it could be. At the time, arguably the most financially challenged of all counties and results-wise in the few years before 2020, also the most challenged. It would have been a minimum 5-year project to even get to a level to compete in Division One, and this was communicated at the time.

Creating an identity and vision

At Leicestershire, the 2020 and 2021 seasons were about creating a more attacking, aggressive, identity (for example, in 2019 before I joined, I identified that they had a number of the lowest boundary % hitting batters in the T20 Blast), and revamping what was a playing squad of which a good few were clearly below the required standard to go on that journey.

Previously in the 2010s at Leicestershire, they’d often gone down the road of recruiting declining veteran players who were - let’s be blunt - looking for one last payday to boost their retirement pot. Not many had worked out well, particularly when considering the higher salaries which veteran players often come with. In addition, very few players had graduated through the Leicestershire academy to play first-team cricket.

Identifying young talent from rival counties

My vision was rather different. As regular readers may remember, I’ve written before about ‘blocked’ players at other counties - players who are good enough to play first-team cricket but who have too many positional rivals, often with big reputations and pay packets. Leicestershire at this time also had a one-way relationship with Nottinghamshire, the bigger county down the road, with some of their best players having moved to Notts to further their ambitions. My view was that one-way relationship needed to change. At the time, Notts had a lot of blocked players and my view was that Leicestershire could exploit this situation and give opportunities to young talent at Notts who were lacking game time.

During my time there, working with head coach Paul Nixon, Leicestershire did sign several young players from Notts. One was Sol Budinger, and the other was on loan, Joey Evison, who ended up joining me at Kent. There were probably a few other opportunities as well during this 2020-2022 time period, with several other talented young players such as Lyndon James and Liam Patterson-White clearly good enough for Division Two cricket immediately and with great scope to improve to a Division One level.

Using detailed data to assist recruitment

It’s tough to sign all your targets, and not all of them work out - although with overseas players signed such as Josh Inglis, Naveen-ul-Haq, Wiaan Mulder and Marcus Harris, Paul Nixon and I as a combination had a pretty good success rate. Although he eventually became unavailable at short-notice, we also signed Rahmanullah Gurbaz several years before he turned into an IPL regular. Generally we’d work on a ‘double-tick’ method where both the data and Nico’s cricketing eye would have to be in favour of signing a player. It worked very well.

Several other players blocked at bigger counties were Rishi Patel at Leicestershire and Tom Scriven at Hampshire. Detailed assessment of their data (and I’m not talking basic data) at second-team level showed that they were clearly good enough to be above-average players at Division Two level in red ball cricket, with scope to improve and be good contributors in other formats as well. Now they are two of Leicestershire’s most prominent players.

I’d like to think that the squad at Leicestershire when I left was considerably better than when I joined. Results did improve quite markedly in that time, particularly in white ball cricket.

Consistent application of vision and identity

Without going into too much detail or naming names, the reasons why I left both Leicestershire and Kent have alignment with the second highlighted point from earlier - the disruptive effect of staff changes. Both had considerable staff turnover during the latter part of my time at both teams and it’s probably fair to say that my perception of those staff changes was that it wasn’t all positive.

My influence at both teams probably waned slightly in the last season that I was at each club, and my belief is that the staff turnover had an effect on that. People came into the clubs and had different ideas to those who had been replaced, and that can be problematic when your views align more with those people who have been replaced.

These experiences show quite how difficult it is in county cricket to both establish and then see through a long-term vision. Establishing the vision isn’t easy, but it’s a lot easier than seeing it through. Realistically, the person in charge of implementing the vision should have a long-term contract illustrating a considerable level of trust from board members.

Avoiding short-termism

My view is that there is a lot of short-termism in county cricket, and it’s totally understandable that this is the case when you consider that many coaches aren’t paid huge sums of money and the ability to pay their mortgage relies on them winning matches. Ideally, they’d be in a position to not be under such short-term pressure, in order to give younger players opportunities and adopting longer-term approaches with strategy.

It is my belief that this short-termism is a structural problem in county cricket that doesn’t help the England team at all. However, it actually could turn into a competitive advantage for smarter teams who take that longer-term approach.

Younger players should be more cost-effective than veterans, have a high level of hunger to improve their careers, to impress coaches, and loyalty driven by opportunities driven. Supporters also want to see young talent, particularly home-grown players do well.

On this note, it was pleasing to see Sussex follow through with this model and earn promotion in 2024 - huge credit to them. When I was at Leicester I used to report the average age of each county each week and Sussex were always the youngest, with Leicestershire usually the second-youngest.

What are other areas which counties can improve on?

Having covered long-term vision, identity, data-driven recruitment and squad construction and consistency of these processes, I want to finish by highlighting a number of ‘quick wins’ which counties can make.

Communication - both among the coaches and players, plus to the supporters. While supporters should never influence strategy decisions, they do have a right to know why decisions have been made. Many county coaches and DoCs are neither present on social media or give regular interviews to their club accounts or on podcasts.

Management Accountability - A county with robust, evidence-based processes with a high degree of accountability would have a big advantage over the rest. It’s ok for decisions not to work out positively, but the people making the decisions should be able to articulate with evidence as to why those decisions were taken.

Preparation - regular management meetings prior to matches and tournaments happen far less than they should. They don’t have to be long, but spending 30 minutes chatting among a group will yield far more expected value than a coach spending 30 minutes in a net with a player.

Analysis - I have heard enough evidence from people working at various counties that this is often considered a necessity that a county must adhere to due to the county partnership agreement, as opposed to being something which the club actually wants to use to help decision-making. Many teams just consider their analyst to be someone who codes their games.

Realistically, counties analysis should stem from age-group cricket to first-team cricket. It will enable teams to make efficient, evidence-based decisions on resource allocation from a young stage of a player’s career, and understand the strengths and weaknesses of each player and player pool in the process.

Player Analysis - I get a lot of players from various counties asking me questions about their own game. The most common request I receive is ‘can you write me a scouting report on myself’. Most players want to know more about their own game but the lack of analysis provision at counties means that their learning is constrained.

I always ask these players if they get this level of support at their county, and I’ve never met a player who has said yes. If a player doesn’t even know their own game, what chance do they have of performing at their peak level on a consistent basis?

Academy - When I was at both Leicestershire and Kent, I did a deep dive into academy player production. At the time I did the analysis, I found that the last player Leicestershire produced from their academy was Zak Chappell, who was quickly signed by Notts after playing just 13 matches in the County Championship, and just one full T20 season. The last capped bowler Kent produced from their academy was Matt Coles, who was capped in 2012.

These two counties are far from unique. There are counties who haven’t produced an England player for around 20 years. Does a counties academy spending produce an adequate return on investment? If not, why not? Who is asking that difficult question?

Financial Wastage - When talking with counties, I often hear the phrase ‘we can’t afford to do it’. Actually, when it comes to some of the above areas, such as high level analysis, I’d suggest that they can’t afford not to do it.

For example, the two players who play the least number of appearances in a county’s squad produces far less expected value than spending that money on an analysis department.

Further, a lot of the ‘quick wins’ above are either free or cost very little, such as communication and better preparation.

To adapt a quote from Moneyball - ‘If we try to play like Surrey [in scouting meetings], we will lose to Surrey out there [the pitch].

Essentially, counties need to work out how to get greater ROI from £1 that they spend compared to the ROI from £1 that Surrey spend. It’s the only way that they can be challenged over the long-term.

Anyone interested in discussing how I can help their organisation with strategic management, data-driven analysis and long-term planning can get in touch at sportsanalyticsadvantage@gmail.com.