THE ASHES | MIKE ATHERTON
The Ashes: Ben Stokes as captain, Andrew Strauss in charge, no more kowtowing to IPL – my plan to reboot Test team
Mike Atherton on the changes needed in English cricket to produce a competitive side
Mike Atherton
Chief Cricket Correspondent
Thursday December 30 2021, 1.00pm, The Times
As English cricket goes through its once-a-generation self-flagellation, it is worth remembering that the England team are the 50-over world champions, the No 1-ranked T20 team, the second-ranked 50-over team and fourth-ranked Test team. English cricket is better supported than anywhere bar India. The game has much to recommend it, despite those who see it (wrongly) as an enclave of privilege.
That said, this gruesome Ashes series — the worst I have covered as a journalist — has come at a bad time, the sport having gone through a gruelling 12 months, with division and rancour seemingly everywhere. The anger felt by readers of this newspaper, and others, is because you care and because you feel it was coming, the administrators having taken their eye off the red-ball, first-class game.
Changes are afoot within the game’s governing body and debate rages over the structure of the professional game. Below that water line, the weeds become more tangled, and the question of whether the game is attracting talent from a broad enough base is a chapter, rather than a column, in itself.
That cricket can do better, there is no doubt. But there is a lot of misinformation around the state of the game at grassroots level and about private schools and other pathways. There are those, for example, who would see Joe Root as a product of the private-school system, even though he spent just two years at Worksop College, having been plucked from the state system on a scholarship as an already highly promising player.
Private schools don’t produce players (Worksop, I guarantee, would have had no significant influence on Root’s development), they piggy-back for marketing purposes on those already forged into good players through, usually, family, club and county club associations. The hurdles that make cricket a more difficult sport to take up and excel at notwithstanding (cost, space, complexity etc), the game is highly diverse at recreational and youth level. It can do better, but there is plenty to build on.
England and Wales Cricket Board
After the resignation of Ian Watmore, the ECB has had no chairman and has been rudderless. Headhunters have been engaged and an appointment of a new chairman is expected before the beginning of the English season. Richard Thompson, the chairman of Surrey, is favourite; Alan Dickinson, a non-executive director, is another name in the frame.
Ron Kalifa is heading the appointment committee, but if he could be persuaded to do the job, he would be a good candidate. Having sat on the ECB board for a while, he should know enough about the game now and has been a smart and experienced leader in business and ecommerce.
Beyond that, there is an urgent need for more playing experience on the ECB board, which is full of well-meaning, competent non-execs who know nothing about the sport. The Pakistan fiasco, when England pulled out of a tour which led to a winter of discontent, would not have happened had there been greater knowledge and feel — so important, this — for the game.
Andrew Strauss sits in a non-voting capacity and should be urgently co-opted, while being groomed for Tom Harrison’s job. Harrison is in the final stretch of a seven-year stint as chief executive, and is expected to leave within the next 12 months. Strauss is exceptionally capable and should be persuaded to take the job when Harrison goes. No one in English cricket is better qualified.
Leadership roles
Ashley Giles, the managing director, has made a number of strategic mistakes since taking over from Strauss and hasn’t got the big decisions right. Chris Silverwood, the head coach, has proved to be a poor appointment; untried and untested at this level. He was given an extraordinary amount of power, but is out of his depth.
Not splitting the roles between red ball and white ball was short-sighted and possibly reflected Giles’s own experience as a one-day coach with England. The formats are increasingly divergent and the schedules increasingly demanding, which necessitates splitting the roles.
Ed Smith was ousted as national selector, partly because he made himself unpopular with the playing group. At the moment there seems to be an absence of authority and an unwillingness to challenge the players. Smith, who is smart and a good, strategic thinker, would do that and would make a good replacement for Giles.
Coaching and selection
There is no way Silverwood will (or should) survive the Ashes, which should allow a reorganisation of the coaching and selecting responsibilities. Coaching national teams is not regarded as the plum job it once was, given the schedules, and many of the brightest and best prefer the franchise circuit.
Splitting the job between long-form and short-form cricket should allow England to choose from a greater talent pool, and should allow for coaches, in a very condensed and busy schedule, to rest and recharge in between engagements and plan more effectively for them.
Names? There are many, no doubt, with good credentials: Gary Kirsten, Andy Flower (again), Andrew McDonald, Greg Shipperd, Graham Ford, Jason Gillespie, Mahela Jayawardene, Paul Collingwood, Stephen Fleming, and Justin Langer may become available soon. The list could go on and on, but a pair of proven coaches with broad-based experience would be sought.
A tip? The best coaches often come with a teaching link somewhere in their background. To listen to Eddie Jones, England rugby union head coach, recently in a newspaper interview, and having interviewed him in the winter, was to witness curiosity, sparkle, energy and drive. All sadly lacking right now.
Captaincy
Joe Root has Harrison’s backing and the ECB will try to persuade Root to carry on after Sydney. They shouldn’t. Root has been a good England captain, and has always carried himself superbly and is an incredible ambassador for the sport, but having done the job for five years and having had three cracks at the Ashes, including two awful campaigns in Australia, it is time for someone else to have a go.
There have been so many errors here, from selection to strategy, that the captain has to bear personal responsibility. For all the discussion around systemic change, this could have been a much closer series had Root got things right on the field. These errors have made a good Australian side look much better than they are.
The options are limited, of course. But the lack of alternatives is the worst reason for keeping someone in a job. Ben Stokes is a viable alternative, having done an excellent job as a stand-in briefly in the summer. His bowling is starting to wind down, and, as he may not get into England’s best T20 side now, he can be given a breather during those matches.
Central contracts
Central contracts were the most important reason for England’s improvement in Test cricket around the turn of the century. It is right that players are well-remunerated and looked after. Right now, the balance has tilted too far to the value of the retainer contract, and away from playing time. Match fees should be raised and the retainer reduced.
The leading multi-format players are paid seven-figure sums, but, incredibly, the ECB washes its hands of them for two months of the year during the Indian Premier League. The players should be told that, while the ECB will be accommodating of the request to play in IPL, a 12-month contract is exactly that, and the granting of a no-objection certificate to play in IPL and other franchised competitions is contingent on it being in the best interests of the England team.
Players should not miss international duty to play in the IPL, nor be rested and rotated to allow them to play elsewhere. The carry-on during the winter, and at the start of the English summer, should not happen again.
County cricket
The schedule of professional cricket is the biggest headache of all and demands a fundamental philosophical question to be answered: is county cricket only there to produce international players? Or should it be valued for its own sake? The answer leads to two very different solutions.
A broad-based 18-county game, giving cricket oxygen in all corners of the land; set against a brutal, hard-edged, much reduced system, allowing for excellence, but reducing the visibility of the game in vast swathes of the country?
The history and tradition of 18 counties, set against the modern requirement for three formats (or four, in England’s crazy case), in a short summer calendar provides a Rubik’s cube-like challenge. There are no easy answers.
In a swipe, reducing the number of counties would allow for time, space and a logical summer schedule. But that would be so divisive; it would pitch the haves against have-nots, and how do you decide who would make the cut and who wouldn’t? I offer no easy solution to that.
The schedule is the most important thing to get right, though, with the need to accommodate cricketing excellence, commercial attractiveness and spectator experience and accessibility. Only a fool would think he has all the solutions, but, if deliverable should finally provide some stability for the poor spectator, for whom the game lurches from season to season with no rhyme nor reason.
Three formats are required not four, mirroring the international schedule: Test cricket; 50-over cricket and a short-form competition (T20 or 100-ball cricket, but not both). Aim: quality rather than quantity; production of excellence for Test and 50-over cricket; maximum exposure and spectator accessibility for short-form cricket.
50-over competition: Mid-April to mid-May, a coherent (probably regional) competition, played in a month block, with a mid-summer showpiece final at Lord’s.
Championship: Three divisions of six (if there is no political will to reduce the number of counties) with promotion and relegation for one team; ten matches played mid-May to mid-July. Establishment of North v South, or The Best v Rest first-class matches which along with any conclusion to the Championship, would complete the season in late August, early September following the conclusion of the short-form competition.
Short-form: Month-long competition, incorporating the best elements of this year’s Hundred. Condensed, concentrated talent; appointment to view; women’s matches to be aligned with men’s — the most successful part of the concept. To be played mid-July to end of August, coinciding with school holidays.
There would be so many problems to work through, and no doubt readers would pick holes straight away with anything anyone suggested, but something more coherent and sensible than now, something that allows the Test team to flourish as well as the one-day team, is essential. Doing nothing is not an option.
James Anderson became the latest to call for a “red-ball reset” in Melbourne on Thursday.
Ashes in Australia
England’s record in Australia is appalling, having won just six Tests here in the past 25 years. The infatuation with the Ashes can be damaging in itself and England should concentrate on producing a good Test team to be able to compete in all conditions, against all-comers. The World Test Championship should be a focus, too.
But, there is no doubt that specific attention must be given to winning in Australia. Lions Tests there are vital. If there is a push to use the Kookaburra ball in England, then it should be limited to the North v South, Best v Rest, Lions games that should be used as a bridge between the county and Test game.
Pitches, critically, must be of high quality to encourage excellence at home and abroad. Good pitches produce good bowlers — spin and pace — of the type that prosper at the highest level
and encourage batsmen to play long innings. Some thought should be given to employing groundsmen centrally and removing from the influence of county clubs, especially if promotion and relegation is in place.
What does English cricket need for its Test team to be successful? Three things, fundamentally: a steady supply of talent; a strong first-class competition to hone that talent, and allow the cream to rise to the top in a natural process, and a well led and coached international environment to make sure the cream stays fresh and good, and does not curdle.
