Test team management: time to ring some changes?

[DaveE]

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.

[Andy]

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).

[nat]

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>

[afinetickletoleg]

As Gary Player once said "the less I practice the luckier I get"!!

Or was it the other way round?

[Oldhasbeen]

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.

[Andy]

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.

[Andy]

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.

[afinetickletoleg]

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.

[Andy]

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??

[Mog]

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......?

[Perov]

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!

[Andy]

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.

[Mog]

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.

[nat]

...
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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'.