Essex Outfielder : The Unofficial Essex CCC Forum
Cricket => England Test => Topic started by: Oldhasbeen on December 30, 2013, 11:36:09 AM
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When you get stuffed 5-0, as we are surely about to, surely some heads must roll, and not just on the playing field?
Miller & Morris have already left, so what will Mssrs Whittaker & Downton's take on things be?
Andy Flower, rather to my surprise, has said he wants to carry on. Given his excellent record up until this series, he's got a good case; but given the abysmal, brainless showing of the England batting line-up, is it time for the great GG to call it a day?
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is it time for the great GG to call it a day?
That would mean him rocking up here again to hold Grayson's hand.
I'd let him remain with the England set up as Starjumps Czar.
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GG is/was my Essex hero but he was a useless captain and his coaching record is decidedly iffy. I suspect he is one of the guys who cannot communicate why he was so successful...other than natural ability.
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The Times has run stories for 2 days running abou tGG becoming "the scapegoat" for our failures. What about "taking responsibility" or "giving fresh blood a chance". GG is now 60 and maybe his day is gone?
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The mention of Miller going has prompted me to wonder what exactly he got his New Year Honour for? He was hardly the most dynamic of cricketers or Selectors & some of his explanations justifying selection/non selection of players were baffling to say the least!
He may well have done much unsung Charity work & if so fair enough but otherwise, why?...
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The mention of Miller going has prompted me to wonder what exactly he got his New Year Honour for? He was hardly the most dynamic of cricketers or Selectors & some of his explanations justifying selection/non selection of players were baffling to say the least!
He may well have done much unsung Charity work & if so fair enough but otherwise, why?...
Logic and the awarding of 'gongs' don't go together.
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The mention of Miller going has prompted me to wonder what exactly he got his New Year Honour for?
He may well have done much unsung Charity work & if so fair enough but otherwise, why?...
For his excellent Timing. Not his after dinner joking, but jumping ship without bringing the house down on him a la Mr Swann.
Seriously, still haven't heard why Miller left prematurely...
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The mention of Miller going has prompted me to wonder what exactly he got his New Year Honour for? He was hardly the most dynamic of cricketers or Selectors & some of his explanations justifying selection/non selection of players were baffling to say the least!
He may well have done much unsung Charity work & if so fair enough but otherwise, why?...
Very old joke:
OBE = "Other B*ggers Efforts"
Does that explain it?
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GG is/was my Essex hero but he was a useless captain and his coaching record is decidedly iffy. I suspect he is one of the guys who cannot communicate why he was so successful...other than natural ability.
Careful, we're not allowed to criticise coaches on here. GG was not completely useless as captain, he at least had a plan and worked hard. However, his inflexibility as skipper and coach has been reflected in the selection of his friends e.g. Larkins and the non-selection of those seen to have an 'attitude' I.e. don't conform to his fitness regime.
In many respects, this England debacle mirrors the ECCC experience. Dubious selections, a lack of innovation or logic in strategy and tactics. Cook should stand down. Nice but dim, more worried about his pregnant wife and buying his estate in Bedfordshire than whether to attack in the field?
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Cook should stand down. Nice but dim, more worried about his pregnant wife and buying his estate in Bedfordshire than whether to attack in the field?
Laughable.
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Sadly the four current 'supremos' of English cricket - Collier,Gooch, Flower and Cook- have one disturbing thing in common - they all have lengthy spells at Essex on their cv's !
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Cook should stand down. Nice but dim, more worried about his pregnant wife and buying his estate in Bedfordshire than whether to attack in the field?
Laughable.
Oh, and you think Cook's the next Mike Brearley or Nasser Hussain? Obviously he has strength of character to achieve as a player, but like Gooch or Boycott, what makes a good run scorer doesn't make a good captain.
Ironically, the above list seems to suggest an inverse relationship between runs and man management...
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Sadly the four current 'supremos' of English cricket - Collier,Gooch, Flower and Cook- have one disturbing thing in common - they all have lengthy spells at Essex on their cv's !
Certainly, Collier's reflex insistence that Flower will stay reflects the cosy attitude of Chelmsford. Not that AF should go immediately but I think this shambles requires a genuine reappraisal of all those involved. As Dobells points out, this suggests a cosmetic exercise will ensue.
I guess that Collier thought anything less than wholehearted support would be misinterpreted, although we all know in Football what follows a board's vote of confidence in a coach.
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Sadly Flower has to go. I say sadly because I thought England were on to something. Responsibility for this shambles (Schedule, players going missing, performance) must lie with the leadership. Cook should remain as Captain...in the hope that he will use this experience to improve.
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Sadly the four current 'supremos' of English cricket - Collier,Gooch, Flower and Cook- have one disturbing thing in common - they all have lengthy spells at Essex on their cv's !
Certainly, Collier's reflex insistence that Flower will stay reflects the cosy attitude of Chelmsford. Not that AF should go immediately but I think this shambles requires a genuine reappraisal of all those involved. As Dobells points out, this suggests a cosmetic exercise will ensue.
I guess that Collier thought anything less than wholehearted support would be misinterpreted, although we all know in Football what follows a board's vote of confidence in a coach.
Reading Johnathan Agnew's piece for the BBC Sport website today, then listening to his interview with Alistair Cook, is rather illuminating and all too similiar to those familiar with the attitude of No Change Essex over several decades.
He wrote;
"You can look at every aspect of this tour - the attitude of the players, the fact England arrived as favourites, the 82-page menu - and it all paints a picture of a team which has become far too insular.
That was illustrated when I put a question to captain Alastair Cook.
I asked whether the opinions of those outside of the team - those who have played cricket all their lives and have watched the game for years - were worth seeking, and he said no. He said essentially it was for those within the team to work out what has gone wrong. That is a worry to me and shows there is no real awareness of what is happening outside the team's bubble."
This derives straight form the insular little world of ECCC - from the corridors of CM2 0PG. Perhaps it is time that Cook, Flower...and Gooch, plus the England hierarchy started listening more to George Dobell (who is of course detested by ECCC), Michael Vaughan, Geoffrey Boycott and Aggers, etc. and a little less in belligerent defence of the ECCC "Essex Way" of East, Hilliard, Irani, Fletcher.
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I usually find Mog's contributions full of insight and common sense and while it's tempting to agree with his parallels between England and Essex, I think this time he's being a bit simplistic. For a start, it's some 30 years since Collier worked for Essex (in a fairly minor capacity I think) and he was actually there when the club was highly successful. Cook developed much of his cricket at school and I suspect owes less to the ECC structure than some people think. Flower was one of Essex's best overseas signings, and a major loss when he moved into the England setup so suddenly rather than perhaps having a spell on Essex's coaching staff. The reasons for England's implosion recently are more multi-faceted than this and imho they have more to do with the insane commercial greed of the ECB with its endless series and tours than any connections with Essex. After all, if Essex had just enjoyed 5 or 6 pretty good years, winning more games than they had lost and including a period as the best team in their competitive orbit, we would be less p***ed off than we are about things.
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Cook should stand down. Nice but dim, more worried about his pregnant wife and buying his estate in Bedfordshire than whether to attack in the field?
Laughable.
Oh, and you think Cook's the next Mike Brearley or Nasser Hussain? Obviously he has strength of character to achieve as a player, but like Gooch or Boycott, what makes a good run scorer doesn't make a good captain.
Ironically, the above list seems to suggest an inverse relationship between runs and man management...
He might not be the best captain in the world but why are you bringing his wife and home life in to the argument and suggesting that his mind is not on the game?
That is what is laughable about your criticism.
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Reading Johnathan Agnew's piece for the BBC Sport website today, then listening to his interview with Alistair Cook, is rather illuminating and all too similiar to those familiar with the attitude of No Change Essex over several decades.
He wrote;
"You can look at every aspect of this tour - the attitude of the players, the fact England arrived as favourites, the 82-page menu - and it all paints a picture of a team which has become far too insular.
That was illustrated when I put a question to captain Alastair Cook.
I asked whether the opinions of those outside of the team - those who have played cricket all their lives and have watched the game for years - were worth seeking, and he said no. He said essentially it was for those within the team to work out what has gone wrong. That is a worry to me and shows there is no real awareness of what is happening outside the team's bubble."
This derives straight form the insular little world of ECCC - from the corridors of CM2 0PG. Perhaps it is time that Cook, Flower...and Gooch, plus the England hierarchy started listening more to George Dobell (who is of course detested by ECCC), Michael Vaughan, Geoffrey Boycott and Aggers, etc. and a little less in belligerent defence of the ECCC "Essex Way" of East, Hilliard, Irani, Fletcher.
The thing is about seeking the opinions of those outside the team structure is who do you go to?
For example Greg Dyke has put together a FA commission but has received more criticism about who is not involved and who should be involved rather than praise for who is involved.
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The thing is about seeking the opinions of those outside the team structure is who do you go to?
For example Greg Dyke has put together a FA commission but has received more criticism about who is not involved and who should be involved rather than praise for who is involved.
Well, I'd suggest they simply read the newspapers and forums for once and they would get some good feedback. Discounting the nutters there are several common themes raised by most interested observers, namely;
1. Poor player selection. Most cricket-knowledgeable people knew that Tremlett is/was finished as an international bowler due to the cumulative effect of injuries. Rankin is a 'scknote' and Finn has been over-coached.
2. The tour schedule was poor. Too few tour games, both pre the 1st Test and during the Test series. More tour games would have allowed the batsmen in particular to find some form.
3. Cook is an under-cooked captain (pardon the pun).
The solutions should include;
4. A clearer line of responsibility rather than a collective one.
5. Centrally-contracted players *must* play more county games.
6. Cook (or an alternative) needs more captaincy experience. Either Cook becomes Essex captain or appoint someone else as England captain who is better suited.
There you go, I've sorted it. Now, where do I send my application for England coach?
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Oh, and you think Cook's the next Mike Brearley or Nasser Hussain? Obviously he has strength of character to achieve as a player, but like Gooch or Boycott, what makes a good run scorer doesn't make a good captain.
Ironically, the above list seems to suggest an inverse relationship between runs and man management...
He might not be the best captain in the world but why are you bringing his wife and home life in to the argument and suggesting that his mind is not on the game?
That is what is laughable about your criticism.
It explains why he seems to be mentally on another planet. Either do the job or take a sabbatical.
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5. Centrally-contracted players *must* play more county games.
6. Cook (or an alternative) needs more captaincy experience...
Absolutely. The two things go together. The almost total separation between the centrally contracted players and the county game means that there's no one in the England squad with much (or anything at all) in terms of captaincy experience.
If Cook had ever had captaincy experience at county level, it would either have improved his captaincy abilities, or alerted even the England management to the fact that he's a pretty terrible captain, who doesn't learn from his (and others') mistakes, which sadly seems to be the case.
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Clearly the potential banana skins for the modern era of Team England is that it comes to replicate the failings of the county sides that it has been designed to replace: cliques amongst players, an ever growing coaching gravy train of yes men, an unwillingness to look beyond the club for talent.
The development of Team England was not a misguided one. However, like all systems, it has the potential to work well or not. Partly, this is a product of those who actually operate it, particularly the trend towards homophily whereby birds of a feather reinforce their own partial view of how to recruit and train players towards a particular strategy, whether it is appropriate to context.
Micky Arthur's Business School Balls approach to coaching reflects how too often there is a lack of understanding that what interests or works for one may not for another, similarly Gooch's Evangelical belief in supreme physical fitness seems to have ground down the side to the point where players are walking away from the game and newcomers are no longer able to play their natural game. It would appear that Boof has the ability to mix levity with a seriousness to preparation - quelle surprise that once bemused players come back to form.
Whether this lasts once they meet proper opponents and/or players pick up injuries, we shall see, but Boofs luck in having Johnson finally get his health together and Mia Haddin's remission is a reward for ditching the Power Point and introducing 'joke of the day' contests...
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The problem is that Team England plays a lot of cricket over 12 months. Cook has faced more deliveries than anyone else in the international game, despite the low scores, so it is difficult to expect him to turn out regularly for ECCC without him ending up with mental issues. The counties rely upon flogging our Test/ODI sides around the world in order to generate their income.
Ironically, I think that one benefit of the likes of Swann retiring is that we replace them with more incremental contracts. Let's face it, there are no obvious replacements, so we need to cast the net wider and keep the young fish in the net for longer, allowing them to play as much county cricket as necessary to provide the experience they won't get on Performance Squad tours. My concern is that there is a tendency to talent spot and filter out a little too early: e.g. is Foakes really the natural successor to Prior?
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e.g. is Foakes really the natural successor to Prior?
Based on Foake's first class performances thus far, a more poignent question might be, is he really the natural successor to Foster, never mind Prior.
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I agree Andy with much of what you say but the fact remains that Cook did not pick up a bat in anger in a competitive match for three + months before the Australia tour and neither did many of the rest of the squad and this cannot be an ideal way to prepare.
In any event Willis has the solution in the Sunday press today. It is the structure of County cricket that's at fault and has led to this disaster. Get rid of a couple of counties and play less four day cricket on a regional basis. Yes. That should do it !
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If Cook had ever had captaincy experience at county level, it would either have improved his captaincy abilities, or alerted even the England management to the fact that he's a pretty terrible captain, who doesn't learn from his (and others') mistakes, which sadly seems to be the case.
We've been alerted to Fozzy's terrible captaincy for several years now.
He's still in place regardless.
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An Essex without Keith Fletcher and Graham Gooch would not have won any major honours.
We would be in the same place as a county like Somerset..........still without a first county championship success!
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This derives straight form the insular little world of ECCC - from the corridors of CM2 0PG. Perhaps it is time that Cook, Flower...and Gooch, plus the England hierarchy started listening more to George Dobell (who is of course detested by ECCC), Michael Vaughan, Geoffrey Boycott and Aggers, etc. and a little less in belligerent defence of the ECCC "Essex Way" of East, Hilliard, Irani, Fletcher.
Sad but true.
How about the ECCC inviting Aggers or Vaughan to join the selection panel- but at the cost of giving up the easy money they earn from Sky/BBC?
Might be interesting ....
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This derives straight form the insular little world of ECCC - from the corridors of CM2 0PG. Perhaps it is time that Cook, Flower...and Gooch, plus the England hierarchy started listening more to George Dobell (who is of course detested by ECCC), Michael Vaughan, Geoffrey Boycott and Aggers, etc. and a little less in belligerent defence of the ECCC "Essex Way" of East, Hilliard, Irani, Fletcher.
Sad but true.
How about the ECCC inviting Aggers or Vaughan to join the selection panel- but at the cost of giving up the easy money they earn from Sky/BBC?
Might be interesting ....
It would not be interesting at all. Like most on this board it is easier for them to criticise the decisions of others from the outside rather than putting themselves on the line and becoming part of the decision making process and putting themselves up to be shot at by others.
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Seems to me we are in the same position as we were when Nasser took over and we need someone with a similar passion to take over the side again.Need more of the street fighter type that will call a spade a shovel and impose themselves on the team and not just work from the manual but be more match wise.Who that is I have no idea as it seems even at county level the coach calls the shots.
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The thing is about seeking the opinions of those outside the team structure is who do you go to?
Michael Atherton said on Sky that he had once sought out Ian Chappell for some captaincy advice.
That was certainly proactive and proves that it can be done.
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An Essex without Keith Fletcher and Graham Gooch would not have won any major honours.
We would be in the same place as a county like Somerset..........still without a first county championship success!
Yes, undoubtedly, although don't forget that we brought in Denness (RIP) because we clowned around for nearly a decade throwing away opportunities to win trophies. The team KWR Fletcher inherited was Tonker's hard work don't forget.
Somerset did win many trophies for an unfashionable county. Too much cricket for Botham meant he cruised in the County Championship, then got upset when his ageing buddies got the push when the club wanted to move forward (a lesson for ECCC over the past decade).
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I agree Andy with much of what you say but the fact remains that Cook did not pick up a bat in anger in a competitive match for three + months before the Australia tour and neither did many of the rest of the squad and this cannot be an ideal way to prepare.
In any event Willis has the solution in the Sunday press today. It is the structure of County cricket that's at fault and has led to this disaster. Get rid of a couple of counties and play less four day cricket on a regional basis. Yes. That should do it !
<warning: sarcasm alert> Yes of course, don't all the top golfers reduce the amount of balls they hit in practice because less practice inevitably leads to more success. <end of sarcasm alert>
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As Gary Player once said "the less I practice the luckier I get"!!
Or was it the other way round?
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This derives straight form the insular little world of ECCC - from the corridors of CM2 0PG. Perhaps it is time that Cook, Flower...and Gooch, plus the England hierarchy started listening more to George Dobell (who is of course detested by ECCC), Michael Vaughan, Geoffrey Boycott and Aggers, etc. and a little less in belligerent defence of the ECCC "Essex Way" of East, Hilliard, Irani, Fletcher.
Sad but true.
How about the ECCC inviting Aggers or Vaughan to join the selection panel- but at the cost of giving up the easy money they earn from Sky/BBC?
Might be interesting ....
It would not be interesting at all. Like most on this board it is easier for them to criticise the decisions of others from the outside rather than putting themselves on the line and becoming part of the decision making process and putting themselves up to be shot at by others.
That was actually part of my point - their reactions would be interesting, hence the mention of "easy money".
I specified Aggers & Vaughan as they are amongst the most thoughtful & knowledgeable of the punters, and, in the unlikely scenario of them forfeiting the easy dosh, might add something to the section panel. Unlike most of the rent-a-gobs on Sky.
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Few of the ex-players in the media are worth reading. Stating the bleedin' obvious when a team does well/ bad doesn't take much international experience. Because they have to be 'controversial' to keep their jobs.
I know that it has been suggested that umpires are a good source - unlike county coaches, they have no particular club loyalties and they watch county players week-in, week-out. They usually have good 1st class experience themselves.
Problem is, if you look at the personnel in key positions, they come from the same county, they tend to have the same sort of personality, there just appears to be all the makings of Groupthink with no-one asking the different/ difficult questions.
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As Gary Player once said "the less I practice the luckier I get"!!
Or was it the other way round?
Do you mean match practice or on the practice course? Personally regional cricket won't take off - this is not India, it is either the county or the town which people identify with not arbitrary 'regions'. I also don't think there's too much cricket, maybe a little here or there but nothing drastic. It is all about ECB wanting pointless breaks in the peak season and the counties over-egging the T20 benefits.
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As Gary Player once said "the less I practice the luckier I get"!!
Or was it the other way round?
Do you mean match practice or on the practice course? Personally regional cricket won't take off - this is not India, it is either the county or the town which people identify with not arbitrary 'regions'. I also don't think there's too much cricket, maybe a little here or there but nothing drastic. It is all about ECB wanting pointless breaks in the peak season and the counties over-egging the T20 benefits.
If the aim of county cricket is really to produce players for the Enfland team then spread championship games throughout the season and, as much as possible, avoid clashes with test matches so that players can play in both. To achieve this cut the T20 as much as necessary to accomodate the championship games (although this will not go down well with the money men)
If ex-pros like Willis think that having regional teams will help then introduce at a level between county and international cricket. These regional teams could play each other once a season over 5 days on test match grounds if a formal competition is deemed necessary. There is no need to play home and away as they are representative teams so there is no home advantage as such. The England team will then only be selected from the regional teams and these regional teams could also provide the opposition for the touring teams. As tours are more concentrated now then 4/5 games for the tourists will be plenty when you look at the number of warm up games that England play on tour.
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Plenty of ex-pros think regional teams are the way forward - at least when we had 3 day matches and 3 one day competitions. Cutting the number of the latter and introducing 2 division cricket is sufficient to produce a nursery for Team England.
It's because Aussie have 6 State teams that they think regional is the best - of course, they weren't saying this when the national team was getting hammered by us and India.
Clearly there is relative dearth of Test talent in Aussie at the moment - the likes of Haddin and Clarke excepted - others like Bailey are Big Bash fodder. In fact, note how many Aussie batsmen were in county cricket during their boom years and you tell me county cricket is not able to develop Test cricketers?????
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I usually find Mog's contributions full of insight and common sense and while it's tempting to agree with his parallels between England and Essex, I think this time he's being a bit simplistic. For a start, it's some 30 years since Collier worked for Essex (in a fairly minor capacity I think) and he was actually there when the club was highly successful. Cook developed much of his cricket at school and I suspect owes less to the ECC structure than some people think. Flower was one of Essex's best overseas signings, and a major loss when he moved into the England setup so suddenly rather than perhaps having a spell on Essex's coaching staff. The reasons for England's implosion recently are more multi-faceted than this and imho they have more to do with the insane commercial greed of the ECB with its endless series and tours than any connections with Essex. After all, if Essex had just enjoyed 5 or 6 pretty good years, winning more games than they had lost and including a period as the best team in their competitive orbit, we would be less p***ed off than we are about things.
Appreciate your perspective on this, postman.
It just struck me whilst reading and then considering what Aggers had written....(and let's be honest, he's a pussycat compared to some who comment on Test match cricket for a living), of the concentration of mssrs; Cook, Flower and Gooch within 'Team England'.
It was the way the possibility of opening up and encouraging outside input and perhaps fresh opinion, was dealt with by Cook's denial that any were needed.
Personally, I believe AF would have made a refreshing and thoughtful change and antidote to the current head coach template at ECCC. But, he was known to have been unhappy at the egotism and empty-headed "approach" of Irani at that time, (hardly in isolation!) The England coaching role came at just the right time for him....and evidently at just the wrong time for Essex.
Whatever Cook's exposure to Essex, the fact is he was mentored by Gooch and would have absorbed some of the thinking of GG, (who, let's not forget was head coach for several years during RI's time). Meanwhile who knows what he learnt from Irani's 'style' of captaincy by numbers - handed down to him by the very same GG and Fletcher before him.
I just found it rather humourous to compare and contrast the two set-ups and draw parallels in their reaction to the media probing in response to failure, using defensiveness and denial of reality as the (well known to ECCC watchers) fall-back position and "justification". Maybe it's just a coincidence and a by-product of media training......? ;)
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Captaincy by numbers ... Fletcher?
Are you talking about Keith Fletcher, one of the most astute and knowledgable captains the county game has seen?
He knew the weak spots of all the opposition players, and his only weakness was a reluctance to use spin bowlers.
And for calling Eric Clapton Ernie Clapham!
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Fletch was astute in the context of 80s county cricket, but struggled in the dirty world of international cricket and changes in the county set-up.
Got a (unfair) reputation as being scared of pace. Allegedly, a KWR witticism upset Dennis Lillee in the first test in 1974, who was able to spin off Fletch's cap: before helmets, padding and bouncer restrictions, they had a right to be scared!
Problem was that without JK Lever to tie up one end, and the need for spin to help take 20 wickets in 4 day matches, the Fletcher strategy came undone.
Still, I'd even forgive Fletch's blasphemy. Shafted by posh boy chairmen of selectors, Yorkshire 'supremos' and foreign umpires.
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Captaincy by numbers ... Fletcher?
Are you talking about Keith Fletcher, one of the most astute and knowledgable captains the county game has seen?
He knew the weak spots of all the opposition players, and his only weakness was a reluctance to use spin bowlers.
Let me clarify, Perov. I was making reference to the 'captaincy by numbers' directions that both Fletcher and Gooch handed to Irani, during his ridiculously over-long tenure as skipper, in their consecutive periods as head coach with ECCC.
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Let me clarify, Perov. I was making reference to the 'captaincy by numbers' directions that both Fletcher and Gooch handed to Irani, during his ridiculously over-long tenure as skipper, in their consecutive periods as head coach with ECCC.
I'd guess that they thought Irani was only capable of understanding 'captaincy by numbers'.