Structural change for English red ball cricket

It's not as simple as people would have you believe!

Ahead of this week’s fourth Test, England have already lost The Ashes. In fact, they’ve barely won a session as they’ve succumbed to three defeats and find themselves 3-0 down in a best of five.

To call them defeats would be something of an understatement. Perhaps humiliations, thrashings or non-contests would be more appropriate, and if the matches were boxing bouts, they’d have been called off way before the final stages.

Naturally, the UK media and supporters haven’t taken reacted particularly positively to England’s abject failure to at least compete to some extent in the series, and there’s been a complete post-mortem already held in the press, and on social media. Journalists, ex-players and fans all have their viewpoints, often extremely similar, and so I thought it was time to throw my two pennyworth in as well while offering a markedly different point of view.

* Thanks so much to everyone who has bought me a coffee. It is much appreciated! *

From a human perspective, most media criticism has gone the way of head coach Chris Silverwood with a little less towards captain Joe Root. Some at the ECB have also come under fire, for various reasons. Let’s get this area out of the way to start with.

While I don’t think Silverwood and Root have covered themselves in any sort of glory either this year or in The Ashes with what looks like extremely questionable decision-making (be it team selection or overall strategy), it’s usually a mistake to blame one person for the failure of a team - it usually extends far wider than that. Of course, with Silverwood having a greater level of power than many former England coaches - being head selector as well following the easing out of Ed Smith - he must come under scrutiny, and he certainly has. I’ve been vocal about how I don’t like the head coach being head selector in the past, and I haven’t changed my viewpoint there. However, in my view, there are others to blame here too and that should not be forgotten.

Moving on from individuals, much media criticism has settled on the structure of English red ball cricket, and the remainder of this article will be looking at this area and discussing the changes I would make.

The majority of the media have focused on the scheduling of red ball matches, but I’m extremely unconvinced about this argument, which has the potential to be rather biased. In my view, at least, it is pretty convenient that this also suits many of the media’s agenda that ‘red ball is best’ and must be prioritised. The problem is, red ball cricket, while being the traditional pinnacle of cricket, is generally far less viable commercially than white ball cricket. Would these journalists who advocate more red ball cricket, or different scheduling of red ball cricket, write pieces which generated a financial loss for themselves just because of tradition, or because they write for a great newspaper? Of course they wouldn’t.

The way I see things, you can play red ball cricket in June, July, August, September, or any month that you want in any country that you want but it won’t change much. It’s also vital to avoid keeping falling into a trap of being in 2/4 year cycles making various ill-thought out changes whenever England lose The Ashes. Furthermore, I’m sceptical of allowing Joe Root a significant voice in the change given that 1) his decision-making has often been questionable as captain, and 2) the captain wouldn’t drive structural change in most other sports. Can you imagine Harry Kane doing the same in football if England struggled in the World Cup? Of course not. In my view, the bigger picture is being completely ignored.

This bigger picture is something which I haven’t seen discussed in any media article, or really on social media at all - incentives for player development. Tim Wigmore is the only journalist who I’ve seen to even mention incentives, and his article in The Telegraph focused more on player pay, which is a hugely relevant point - but I want to move in a slightly related but different direction: Incentives for counties.

First of all, I want to make a clear point. Whatever structural change you adopt, this is a long term strategy. This stuff takes time, and often plenty of it! England can’t rip up the script if they struggle in the next Ashes, or the next time they go to Australia. There has to be a definitive, logical strategy adopted for the long term, or we will go in a non-stop circle of demanding structural change every two years.

So, back to incentives for counties. The key for England to succeed in Test cricket is to create greater incentives for counties to develop players good enough to play for the national team. The problem is that being a successful county and developing players for England isn’t far from a mutually exclusive proposition. Are counties supposed to do everything in their power to be successful on the pitch, or act as feeder clubs for England? I suspect you’d get a variety of answers if you asked people running counties.

At the moment, there’s a battery of 75-80mph county bowlers taking a load of County Championship wickets because they thrive in English conditions, but who would be largely unsuitable to stepping up to Test cricket. A lot of these players are aged towards or over 30 years of age as well, which creates a further problem given that the overwhelming majority of players who England give debuts to are aged 27 or below.

What incentive is there for counties to ditch the veteran medium pacers and develop 90+ mph merchants who will probably be pretty raw to start with, and spray it around with short-term worse returns than these veteran medium pacers? There isn’t any. What incentive is there to produce red ball batting specialists even though their potential cost per appearance to counties is likely to be lower than all-format or white ball players (because they only play one format)? There isn’t any. As soon as you develop a player good enough to play for England, a county pretty much loses them for the rest of their careers. So what’s the point, apart from professional pride?

This is the structural change which England need to adopt, and adopt it fast. England should ignore the often biased media hyperbole about the times of the year which matches are played in, and instead, work out a coherent plan to reward counties for developing the players which adhere to the skillsets they need for long-term success.

It’s not going to be cheap, though. Maybe something like the ECB giving a county £200,000 when a player makes their Test debut, £1m after 10 Tests, £2m after 25 Tests, etc, but it’s a real incentive for counties to produce players suitable for the England team, as opposed to picking a load of players who will almost certainly never play for the national team.

I’d also look at England giving counties incentives for picking a certain number of players aged 25 or below. We know England rarely give debuts to players aged over 27 years of age, so incentivising counties to play more young players makes complete sense to me.

The final financial structural change I’d like to see implemented is transfer fees for players. If you look at developing young players from a football perspective, there are clear incentives for teams to develop players good enough to play international football.

Firstly, they get to keep the player all the time (rarely do football teams lose players to their international team, because there generally isn’t a fixture clash) and also, they benefit from the increase in the player’s market value. Developing an England international could be worth £50m+, and a competent Premier League player in excess of £10m, so there’s clear rewards for doing so. Of course, the fees won’t be as exorbitant in cricket, but if the smaller counties knew that they could get say, £100,000+ when they sell a player to a big Test match ground county, it would start to be an incentive to develop players as financial assets. A more coherently structured loan system where higher division teams loan players to lower division teams (see structures below) would make a lot of sense.

Moving on from finances, I want to have a bit of a look at divisional structures and overseas players. I like the idea mooted by some in the media of three divisions of six teams, and England should be picking the lion’s share of their players from the top division - Division One - just like the football team do from the Premier League. In football, England rarely pick players from the Championship, because it’s obviously a lower standard. Division One cricket should be tough cricket - the absolute pinnacle of domestic cricket worldwide. I also have no issues with six minor counties joining the structure to create a Division Four - after all, the last county admitted to the system, Durham, have produced the likes of Ben Stokes and Mark Wood out of the current squad. Two up, two down each season from each division.

I would also increase the number of overseas players per team, to probably a maximum of four. This is likely to be pretty controversial, but hear me out. When England were performing well in Tests earlier this century, the game was full of Kolpak players who increased the standard of domestic competition. Now that Kolpak doesn’t exist, more England qualified players are now playing domestic cricket. While that (in theory at least, in practice less so) increases the number of players England can pick from, it also dilutes quality more than, say, a decade ago. A high number of overseas players would ensure that the standard is extremely high and an English player thriving in Division One would have come through a very thorough test in the best finishing school in domestic cricket worldwide.

Finally, seasonal structure. Moving the 50 over competition to April would be an easy compromise to placate those who are calling for red ball cricket to not be played at the end of the season, while during The Hundred there could be a four-region red ball domestic competition with the best of the best red ball players not selected for The Hundred competing - again giving huge incentives for success to ensure that tournament is taken as seriously as possible by the players selected. Again, that would be something of a finishing school in domestic cricket, with the standard not dissimilar to international cricket.

I realise that I’ve raised a lot of points here, so I thought to end this piece, I’d summarise my thoughts below for the structural changes I believe are needed in English cricket for the Test team to thrive:-

• Times of year which red ball cricket is played in is pretty irrelevant but could move the 50 over competition to April

• England must work out a coherent plan to incentivise counties to develop the players which adhere to the skillsets they need for long-term success

• England should also consider giving counties strong incentives for picking a certain number of players aged 25 or below

• Implementation of transfer fees and a structured loan market in English domestic cricket

• Four divisions of six teams including six new Minor Counties in Division Four, with promotion & relegation from each division

• Increase number of overseas players per team to improve the standard

• Best of the Best red ball tournament to be played during The Hundred

* Thanks so much to everyone who has bought me a coffee. It is much appreciated! *