The mystery for me is Pope. Bradmanesque when playing at The Oval, yet has really disappointed in an England shirt
It's not a technical issue either, but more a mental one?
As I inferred above, The Oval is a road and Pope isn't unique in plundering runs there. I do believe though that he is a class player but, as I said a while ago, he needs move up the order. Not only is he hiding at 6 but he's not learning anything. Coming in at that position, he will, following the fall of two more wickets, be batting with the tail. Once we get into that position and Wood, Robinson, Leach, Anderson etc etc are at the other end, the job no longer becomes about occupying the crease but about how many runs he can score before they are all out.
It's not as if he's been stranded with the tail when he's been getting out though. In the games he played in, Buttler was at 7 and Woakes 8, so decent enough players to not need a desperate slog
It's the way he's been getting out to Lyon which was most concerning, he seemed to have a complete brain fart against the spinner
Libby will be ignored like Daryl Mitchell before him cos he plays for Worcs. Haines has a very good shot - him and Yates could be opening for England pretty soon, provided they show better than Burns. Slater plays for Notts so he'll probably leapfrog them cos Notts. Hain will always be a fuckin Aussie and a fifty merchant but they'll probably pick him soon. Bohannon is next in line imo, he actually looks pretty decent
Why is Libby being at worcs an issue? Isn't Ali at worcs? Not being flippant, I don't know enough about county cricket to see why this would happen.
England men's head coach Chris Silverwood will miss the fourth Ashes Test in Sydney after being forced to isolate for 10 days.
He must isolate after a family member as part of England's touring party in Australia tested positive for Covid-19.
The fourth Ashes Test starts in Sydney on Wednesday, 5 January 2022.
England have recorded seven positive cases - three support staff and four family members - since a PCR testing regime began on Monday 27 December.
Silverwood and his family will have to isolate in Melbourne where England suffered their latest defeat as they went 3-0 down on the way to losing the Ashes.
England will have a fourth round of PCR tests on Thursday before they, along with Australia, are scheduled to fly to Sydney on a chartered flight the following morning.
England men's head coach Chris Silverwood will miss the fourth Ashes Test in Sydney after being forced to isolate for 10 days.
He must isolate after a family member as part of England's touring party in Australia tested positive for Covid-19.
The fourth Ashes Test starts in Sydney on Wednesday, 5 January 2022.
England have recorded seven positive cases - three support staff and four family members - since a PCR testing regime began on Monday 27 December.
Silverwood and his family will have to isolate in Melbourne where England suffered their latest defeat as they went 3-0 down on the way to losing the Ashes.
England will have a fourth round of PCR tests on Thursday before they, along with Australia, are scheduled to fly to Sydney on a chartered flight the following morning.
14 days of County Championship cricket played 1st June to 31st August One win from nine Tests played post 1st June - lost at home to New Zealand, lost at home to India and losing 3-0 in Australia
We have gone away from the basics in our coaching. We have moved away from grooving technique. Coaching in England has become lazy. I don’t mean people are not bothered, but they are encouraging batters to play big shots and hit it round the ground. They want to be the batsman’s friend and I’ve been as guilty of that as anyone.
It is easy to say ‘well played’ as a coach when that happens in practice instead of saying, ‘Come on, the best players in the world have got the best techniques which means you’ve got to keep your bat as straight as you can when you pick it up’. Coaches should be saying, ‘Rather than whack every ball, let’s have a session where you defend every one’.
Even in the England set-up I saw too many batsmen the day before a Test when it was doing a bit trying to play too many shots or walking out of the net and saying, ‘I don’t want to face our bowlers today. It’s doing too much. I just want some under-arms.’ It used to frustrate us. How are they going to get better if they do that?
Those figures are misleading though as the number of draws in cricket has drastically reduced in recent years (thanks to faster cricket, better drainage, floodlights etc) so Root for example has lots of wins as Captain, but also masses of defeats
Also some of the other Test sides have also declined over the last few years. The West Indies and Sri Lanka are both a shadow of the Test sides they used to be
We have gone away from the basics in our coaching. We have moved away from grooving technique. Coaching in England has become lazy. I don’t mean people are not bothered, but they are encouraging batters to play big shots and hit it round the ground. They want to be the batsman’s friend and I’ve been as guilty of that as anyone.
It is easy to say ‘well played’ as a coach when that happens in practice instead of saying, ‘Come on, the best players in the world have got the best techniques which means you’ve got to keep your bat as straight as you can when you pick it up’. Coaches should be saying, ‘Rather than whack every ball, let’s have a session where you defend every one’.
Even in the England set-up I saw too many batsmen the day before a Test when it was doing a bit trying to play too many shots or walking out of the net and saying, ‘I don’t want to face our bowlers today. It’s doing too much. I just want some under-arms.’ It used to frustrate us. How are they going to get better if they do that?
This is spot on ... except ... as I mentioned in my earlier post, the modern audience doesn't want to see that.
I don't care that tickets for Test matches are hard to come by and expensive. That is no indicator that Test cricket is in good shape ... it simply reflects the fact that cricket at top level is still an experience and will bring in those who enjoy an occasion. And, if the future is dependent on those who follow the game on social media etc ... well, enough said.
Attendances at County Championship games are typically a few thousand at best. The pinnacle of the game is now a minority sport ... and encouraging defensive batting will not bring in the money. So, it won't happen.
We have gone away from the basics in our coaching. We have moved away from grooving technique. Coaching in England has become lazy. I don’t mean people are not bothered, but they are encouraging batters to play big shots and hit it round the ground. They want to be the batsman’s friend and I’ve been as guilty of that as anyone.
It is easy to say ‘well played’ as a coach when that happens in practice instead of saying, ‘Come on, the best players in the world have got the best techniques which means you’ve got to keep your bat as straight as you can when you pick it up’. Coaches should be saying, ‘Rather than whack every ball, let’s have a session where you defend every one’.
Even in the England set-up I saw too many batsmen the day before a Test when it was doing a bit trying to play too many shots or walking out of the net and saying, ‘I don’t want to face our bowlers today. It’s doing too much. I just want some under-arms.’ It used to frustrate us. How are they going to get better if they do that?
This is spot on ... except ... as I mentioned in my earlier post, the modern audience doesn't want to see that.
I don't care that tickets for Test matches are hard to come by and expensive. That is no indicator that Test cricket is in good shape ... it simply reflects the fact that cricket at top level is still an experience and will bring in those who enjoy an occasion. And, if the future is dependent on those who follow the game on social media etc ... well, enough said.
Attendances at County Championship games are typically a few thousand at best. The pinnacle of the game is now a minority sport ... and encouraging defensive batting will not bring in the money. So, it won't happen.
A good ball is a good ball whether it is red or white ball. If the bat doesn't come down straight then there is every chance the batsman will get cleaned up anyway. And the more that disregard to technique feeds into our game the more we will see players getting out for next to nothing in T20s too. With more and more video evidence available and analysis, it doesn't take much for teams to work out that a batsman leaves a whole the size of the Mersey Tunnel between bat and pad when driving.
The ECB, rather than throwing money at just white ball, needs to subsidise the County Championship if they want Test cricket to survive. If they have no wish to then they have to be honest about it rather than paying lip service to it or, worse, deliberately ensuring its demise by scheduling fixtures in the most unpleasant viewing conditions of the year i.e. March/April/May/September/October
There is seven days in a week - why not play 4 day games have a day off - have 3 x t20 teams turn up at a ground like finals day and play each other - have a day off . Have a two week block for the hundred using the finals day idea - 3 matches in a day.
That fits everything in.
I do think that there are too many very very average county cricketers - I would cut them down to 8 teams and make it a meaningful competition
Those figures are misleading though as the number of draws in cricket has drastically reduced in recent years (thanks to faster cricket, better drainage, floodlights etc) so Root for example has lots of wins as Captain, but also masses of defeats
Also some of the other Test sides have also declined over the last few years. The West Indies and Sri Lanka are both a shadow of the Test sides they used to be
Yes, they may be misleading. But they add context to another set of misleading statistics that show only the number of scheduled first class cricket matches played by one county over an arbitrarily selected set of dates, presumably to show a direct correlation between those numbers and the success of the England Test team. The facts support exactly the opposite case: when there are fewer scheduled county matches in the middle of the season, the England team does demonstrably better.
I wouldn't suggest that's anything other than correlation, as opposed to causation, however. The recent decline of the England Test team (that is, this year performing very badly against the three best teams in the world) goes far beyond the number of days' first class cricket they've played in June, July and August this year.
(I wish it were that simple. If the success of the test team were solely down to the numbers of days of first class cricket they play in June, July and August, we'd be 3-0 up against Australia, not 3-0 down).
One of the many reasons that the England team is doing badly is their preparation for the Ashes tour, which has been awful. One of the reasons for that is that they have played too little first class cricket this calendar year. (It's obvious, and doesn't need repeating quite so frequently as it has been). One of the reasons for that is preparation for white-ball cricket and, in particular, the T20 World Cup. That was won by Australia, of course. So, maybe white-ball cricket isn't the main reason for Test failure that many people seem to think it is.
Maybe we're losing because, among other things, we're actually not very good. And expecting us to regain the Ashes in Australia for the first time in about fifty years was always wildly optimistic.
It's just my view. And, until we hear Pat Cummins say, on record, that the main reason Australia have thrashed us is that Derbyshire didn't play enough games in July, I'll remain inclined to think the starting point of our failures is that the players aren't very good, rather than they've not had enough chance to score easy runs against medium pacers six months ago.
I think England Test players should not just play more red ball cricket, but better red ball cricket. But that's a huge step too far for many people, because it would mean a rethink as to whether the county championship can ever be fit for purpose.
Central contracted players are in danger of becoming complacent, covid or no, they can become isolated from the 'real world', let their skill levels drop and take their place for granted. Also, and I have bashed on about this for years, I won't use the word SECT, BUT, and excuse the perhaps over dramatic wording, spending a great deal of time with the same people generates two probable emotions, quasi love and quasi animosity .. the senior players/sect leaders lol, will make sure that those attracting too much animosity are 'decontracted' a s a p and those who are 'loved' become very hard to cast out, even when their talents and skill no longer really merit a place in the set .. very hard to see a great mate of long standing 'sacked' and lose a GREAT DEAL of money as well as losinbg the aura of an 'England Test player'.
I suspect that over time all the management, coaching and medical staff become 'sect members' and this closed shop allows them all, players included of course, to become introverted, stale and out of touch as well as making it very difficult to let in 'new blood' and when changes ARE made, they all too often are made too late or the wrong decisions are taken.
All of you who have been long term members of close knit clubs and societies will know exactly what I am driving at
We have gone away from the basics in our coaching. We have moved away from grooving technique. Coaching in England has become lazy. I don’t mean people are not bothered, but they are encouraging batters to play big shots and hit it round the ground. They want to be the batsman’s friend and I’ve been as guilty of that as anyone.
It is easy to say ‘well played’ as a coach when that happens in practice instead of saying, ‘Come on, the best players in the world have got the best techniques which means you’ve got to keep your bat as straight as you can when you pick it up’. Coaches should be saying, ‘Rather than whack every ball, let’s have a session where you defend every one’.
Even in the England set-up I saw too many batsmen the day before a Test when it was doing a bit trying to play too many shots or walking out of the net and saying, ‘I don’t want to face our bowlers today. It’s doing too much. I just want some under-arms.’ It used to frustrate us. How are they going to get better if they do that?
This is spot on ... except ... as I mentioned in my earlier post, the modern audience doesn't want to see that.
I don't care that tickets for Test matches are hard to come by and expensive. That is no indicator that Test cricket is in good shape ... it simply reflects the fact that cricket at top level is still an experience and will bring in those who enjoy an occasion. And, if the future is dependent on those who follow the game on social media etc ... well, enough said.
Attendances at County Championship games are typically a few thousand at best. The pinnacle of the game is now a minority sport ... and encouraging defensive batting will not bring in the money. So, it won't happen.
A good ball is a good ball whether it is red or white ball. If the bat doesn't come down straight then there is every chance the batsman will get cleaned up anyway. And the more that disregard to technique feeds into our game the more we will see players getting out for next to nothing in T20s too. With more and more video evidence available and analysis, it doesn't take much for teams to work out that a batsman leaves a whole the size of the Mersey Tunnel between bat and pad when driving.
The ECB, rather than throwing money at just white ball, needs to subsidise the County Championship if they want Test cricket to survive. If they have no wish to then they have to be honest about it rather than paying lip service to it or, worse, deliberately ensuring its demise by scheduling fixtures in the most unpleasant viewing conditions of the year i.e. March/April/May/September/October
Correct. But this is much less relevant in the T20 game than it is in Test cricket.
Poor batting technique will be exposed and will be costly in the longer form of the game. You won't score anything of significance with a poor technique.
But in T20 ... a few wild swings will come off and everyone is happy that you scored your 20 or 30 off eight balls. You're not expected to bat for several hours.
As I said, different games. Pool v Snooker. And the crowd wants Pool.
I take Lincsaddick's point about central contracts too, but it still misses the fundamental issue for me. Classic longer-form cricket is a dying game. The schools don't play it, the majority of spectators don't appreciate it ... and it takes too long. Five days? You can go on holiday in that time.
So, classic technique is no longer needed. Just get some broad shouldered lump to club the ball into the hospitality tent and everyone is having fun. We can marvel at his 'levers' and strike rate of over 200 (for about eight balls) and then we are still home in time for 'The Wheel'.
We have gone away from the basics in our coaching. We have moved away from grooving technique. Coaching in England has become lazy. I don’t mean people are not bothered, but they are encouraging batters to play big shots and hit it round the ground. They want to be the batsman’s friend and I’ve been as guilty of that as anyone.
It is easy to say ‘well played’ as a coach when that happens in practice instead of saying, ‘Come on, the best players in the world have got the best techniques which means you’ve got to keep your bat as straight as you can when you pick it up’. Coaches should be saying, ‘Rather than whack every ball, let’s have a session where you defend every one’.
Even in the England set-up I saw too many batsmen the day before a Test when it was doing a bit trying to play too many shots or walking out of the net and saying, ‘I don’t want to face our bowlers today. It’s doing too much. I just want some under-arms.’ It used to frustrate us. How are they going to get better if they do that?
This is spot on ... except ... as I mentioned in my earlier post, the modern audience doesn't want to see that.
I don't care that tickets for Test matches are hard to come by and expensive. That is no indicator that Test cricket is in good shape ... it simply reflects the fact that cricket at top level is still an experience and will bring in those who enjoy an occasion. And, if the future is dependent on those who follow the game on social media etc ... well, enough said.
Attendances at County Championship games are typically a few thousand at best. The pinnacle of the game is now a minority sport ... and encouraging defensive batting will not bring in the money. So, it won't happen.
A good ball is a good ball whether it is red or white ball. If the bat doesn't come down straight then there is every chance the batsman will get cleaned up anyway. And the more that disregard to technique feeds into our game the more we will see players getting out for next to nothing in T20s too. With more and more video evidence available and analysis, it doesn't take much for teams to work out that a batsman leaves a whole the size of the Mersey Tunnel between bat and pad when driving.
The ECB, rather than throwing money at just white ball, needs to subsidise the County Championship if they want Test cricket to survive. If they have no wish to then they have to be honest about it rather than paying lip service to it or, worse, deliberately ensuring its demise by scheduling fixtures in the most unpleasant viewing conditions of the year i.e. March/April/May/September/October
Correct. But this is much less relevant in the T20 game than it is in Test cricket.
Poor batting technique will be exposed and will be costly in the longer form of the game. You won't score anything of significance with a poor technique.
But in T20 ... a few wild swings will come off and everyone is happy that you scored your 20 or 30 off eight balls. You're not expected to bat for several hours.
As I said, different games. Pool v Snooker. And the crowd wants Pool.
I take Lincsaddick's point about central contracts too, but it still misses the fundamental issue for me. Classic longer-form cricket is a dying game. The schools don't play it, the majority of spectators don't appreciate it ... and it takes too long. Five days? You can go on holiday in that time.
So, classic technique is no longer needed. Just get some broad shouldered lump to club the ball into the hospitality tent and everyone is having fun. We can marvel at his 'levers' and strike rate of over 200 (for about eight balls) and then we are still home in time for 'The Wheel'.
There is a bit of a misconception here. The easiest way to stop a team from scoring runs is by taking wickets. Three wickets down in the Power Play and your chances of winning the game are massively diminished. Whereas say five years ago batsmen could blindly swing from the hip in international T20, the plans that bowlers now bowl to, make things that much harder as do poor overworked decks.
Kumar Sangakkara rarely went on a run of low scores in any form of the game. Jonny Bairstow, by comparison, struggled all last summer in T20 and this form continued into the World Cup (140 runs for 9 times out at an average of 15.55). Eoin Morgan's form has been absolutely horrendous for the whole of 2021 - 16.67 for England and 11.08 in the IPL from a total of 26 innings.
Those two have been around long enough and if things finished for them tomorrow then they can, at least, reflect on what has been a fairly decent career. But let's look at someone who was lauded just a couple of years ago as the future of England's T20 side - Tom Banton. He's never been a First Class batsman (22.91 from 38 innings) but this is a lad who used to smash opening bowling to pieces. He cannot buy two consecutive innings now - so much so that, despite that terrific start to his career, his T20 international average sits at 22.77 and his overall domestic T20 average has plummeted to 23.75 from 69 innings - in December he played for the Stars in the Lanka Premier League and averaged 13.92 at a strike rate of 107.92. So we are talking, on average, 14 off 13 balls per innings. Hardly exciting is it? It may just be that the analysts have worked out exactly what Banton's scoring areas and shots are and are now not feeding his addiction.
The difference between Sangakkara and the other three is that he is a traditional batsman who used his skillset to find gaps and to hit over the top when necessary. If he under performed in a few innings he could look at how he got out and any technical issues could be reviewed but he always had a track to revert to. When your whole style is based on "see ball/hit ball", how do you resolve things when things do start to go wrong? Telling yourself to watch the ball more probably won't work in itself.
My own son has suffered for being more a red ball batsman. He knows that he has to improve his white ball hitting which is what he is trying to work on with both the DLCA and his Club in Australia. His respective batting coaches, Greg Blewett and Carl Hooper, have both emphasised to him is that, if you time the ball naturally and the bat comes down straight, it is a hell of a lot easier to layer those shots on top of the orthodox ones because, very often, the latter ones are just an extension of the former.
It is also sad to report that I heard a County coach say recently that any batsman over the age of 15 who could not hit 360 and score at more than a run a ball would be dropped. When asked, by all accounts, what about the development of future opening red ball batsmen, the reply was a shrug of the shoulders. If coaches do carry on down this road we will produce a lot of "here today, gone tomorrow" players. And mediocre cricket with it.
If that happens then we will have a conveyor belt of one or two season wonders. Supporters who go along for a pint and a laugh will still be happy to do so. But true fans of the game itself, in any form, will be left short changed. A bit like watching Charlton most of the time under the regime. No affinity from the fans with the players and poor football to match. That is not a recipe for the long term future of the game of cricket. And it might also lead to the England side failing in all formats. Because it is not how cricket it coached in the likes of India, Pakistan, Australia or New Zealand. If your national side fails then people will not follow the sport and migrate to watching something else,
What exactly is Root supposed to say, "we are dogshit and I blame it all on my teammates and also the ECB for ruining the game"?
I know Boycott would probably have said that, but then he also was convicted for domestic abuse so, to use his own language, I "dont give a toss" what the old bastard has to say these days.
Not keeping his mouth shut . The bloke had nothing good to say about anyone but himself
That's because he was quite good at the very things which England are struggling with now.
So criticism is not allowed even if correct? Hmmm.
Criticism is fine as long as he praises when we do the right thing. Boycott has never been comfortable praising English cricketers because he thinks he was the best which is quite clearly not true. If only Boycott knew how to be a team player during his time half as much as Root does then i'd have a little respect for what he says. He just comes across as a bitter old man and the reason for that is , because he is.
Comments
It's the way he's been getting out to Lyon which was most concerning, he seemed to have a complete brain fart against the spinner
14 days of County Championship cricket played 1st June to 31st August
One win from nine Tests played post 1st June - lost at home to New Zealand, lost at home to India and losing 3-0 in Australia
From Paul Farbrace:
We have gone away from the basics in our coaching. We have moved away from grooving technique. Coaching in England has become lazy. I don’t mean people are not bothered, but they are encouraging batters to play big shots and hit it round the ground. They want to be the batsman’s friend and I’ve been as guilty of that as anyone.
It is easy to say ‘well played’ as a coach when that happens in practice instead of saying, ‘Come on, the best players in the world have got the best techniques which means you’ve got to keep your bat as straight as you can when you pick it up’. Coaches should be saying, ‘Rather than whack every ball, let’s have a session where you defend every one’.
Even in the England set-up I saw too many batsmen the day before a Test when it was doing a bit trying to play too many shots or walking out of the net and saying, ‘I don’t want to face our bowlers today. It’s doing too much. I just want some under-arms.’ It used to frustrate us. How are they going to get better if they do that?
Also some of the other Test sides have also declined over the last few years. The West Indies and Sri Lanka are both a shadow of the Test sides they used to be
This is spot on ... except ... as I mentioned in my earlier post, the modern audience doesn't want to see that.
I don't care that tickets for Test matches are hard to come by and expensive. That is no indicator that Test cricket is in good shape ... it simply reflects the fact that cricket at top level is still an experience and will bring in those who enjoy an occasion. And, if the future is dependent on those who follow the game on social media etc ... well, enough said.
Attendances at County Championship games are typically a few thousand at best. The pinnacle of the game is now a minority sport ... and encouraging defensive batting will not bring in the money. So, it won't happen.
The ECB, rather than throwing money at just white ball, needs to subsidise the County Championship if they want Test cricket to survive. If they have no wish to then they have to be honest about it rather than paying lip service to it or, worse, deliberately ensuring its demise by scheduling fixtures in the most unpleasant viewing conditions of the year i.e. March/April/May/September/October
I do think that there are too many very very average county cricketers - I would cut them down to 8 teams and make it a meaningful competition
I wouldn't suggest that's anything other than correlation, as opposed to causation, however. The recent decline of the England Test team (that is, this year performing very badly against the three best teams in the world) goes far beyond the number of days' first class cricket they've played in June, July and August this year.
(I wish it were that simple. If the success of the test team were solely down to the numbers of days of first class cricket they play in June, July and August, we'd be 3-0 up against Australia, not 3-0 down).
One of the many reasons that the England team is doing badly is their preparation for the Ashes tour, which has been awful. One of the reasons for that is that they have played too little first class cricket this calendar year. (It's obvious, and doesn't need repeating quite so frequently as it has been). One of the reasons for that is preparation for white-ball cricket and, in particular, the T20 World Cup. That was won by Australia, of course. So, maybe white-ball cricket isn't the main reason for Test failure that many people seem to think it is.
Maybe we're losing because, among other things, we're actually not very good. And expecting us to regain the Ashes in Australia for the first time in about fifty years was always wildly optimistic.
It's just my view. And, until we hear Pat Cummins say, on record, that the main reason Australia have thrashed us is that Derbyshire didn't play enough games in July, I'll remain inclined to think the starting point of our failures is that the players aren't very good, rather than they've not had enough chance to score easy runs against medium pacers six months ago.
I think England Test players should not just play more red ball cricket, but better red ball cricket. But that's a huge step too far for many people, because it would mean a rethink as to whether the county championship can ever be fit for purpose.
I suspect that over time all the management, coaching and medical staff become 'sect members' and this closed shop allows them all, players included of course, to become introverted, stale and out of touch as well as making it very difficult to let in 'new blood' and when changes ARE made, they all too often are made too late or the wrong decisions are taken.
All of you who have been long term members of close knit clubs and societies will know exactly what I am driving at
Poor batting technique will be exposed and will be costly in the longer form of the game. You won't score anything of significance with a poor technique.
But in T20 ... a few wild swings will come off and everyone is happy that you scored your 20 or 30 off eight balls. You're not expected to bat for several hours.
As I said, different games. Pool v Snooker. And the crowd wants Pool.
I take Lincsaddick's point about central contracts too, but it still misses the fundamental issue for me. Classic longer-form cricket is a dying game. The schools don't play it, the majority of spectators don't appreciate it ... and it takes too long. Five days? You can go on holiday in that time.
So, classic technique is no longer needed. Just get some broad shouldered lump to club the ball into the hospitality tent and everyone is having fun. We can marvel at his 'levers' and strike rate of over 200 (for about eight balls) and then we are still home in time for 'The Wheel'.
Geoffrey Boycott accuses Joe Root of living in 'cuckoo land' (msn.com)
Kumar Sangakkara rarely went on a run of low scores in any form of the game. Jonny Bairstow, by comparison, struggled all last summer in T20 and this form continued into the World Cup (140 runs for 9 times out at an average of 15.55). Eoin Morgan's form has been absolutely horrendous for the whole of 2021 - 16.67 for England and 11.08 in the IPL from a total of 26 innings.
Those two have been around long enough and if things finished for them tomorrow then they can, at least, reflect on what has been a fairly decent career. But let's look at someone who was lauded just a couple of years ago as the future of England's T20 side - Tom Banton. He's never been a First Class batsman (22.91 from 38 innings) but this is a lad who used to smash opening bowling to pieces. He cannot buy two consecutive innings now - so much so that, despite that terrific start to his career, his T20 international average sits at 22.77 and his overall domestic T20 average has plummeted to 23.75 from 69 innings - in December he played for the Stars in the Lanka Premier League and averaged 13.92 at a strike rate of 107.92. So we are talking, on average, 14 off 13 balls per innings. Hardly exciting is it? It may just be that the analysts have worked out exactly what Banton's scoring areas and shots are and are now not feeding his addiction.
The difference between Sangakkara and the other three is that he is a traditional batsman who used his skillset to find gaps and to hit over the top when necessary. If he under performed in a few innings he could look at how he got out and any technical issues could be reviewed but he always had a track to revert to. When your whole style is based on "see ball/hit ball", how do you resolve things when things do start to go wrong? Telling yourself to watch the ball more probably won't work in itself.
My own son has suffered for being more a red ball batsman. He knows that he has to improve his white ball hitting which is what he is trying to work on with both the DLCA and his Club in Australia. His respective batting coaches, Greg Blewett and Carl Hooper, have both emphasised to him is that, if you time the ball naturally and the bat comes down straight, it is a hell of a lot easier to layer those shots on top of the orthodox ones because, very often, the latter ones are just an extension of the former.
It is also sad to report that I heard a County coach say recently that any batsman over the age of 15 who could not hit 360 and score at more than a run a ball would be dropped. When asked, by all accounts, what about the development of future opening red ball batsmen, the reply was a shrug of the shoulders. If coaches do carry on down this road we will produce a lot of "here today, gone tomorrow" players. And mediocre cricket with it.
If that happens then we will have a conveyor belt of one or two season wonders. Supporters who go along for a pint and a laugh will still be happy to do so. But true fans of the game itself, in any form, will be left short changed. A bit like watching Charlton most of the time under the regime. No affinity from the fans with the players and poor football to match. That is not a recipe for the long term future of the game of cricket. And it might also lead to the England side failing in all formats. Because it is not how cricket it coached in the likes of India, Pakistan, Australia or New Zealand. If your national side fails then people will not follow the sport and migrate to watching something else,
Not keeping his mouth shut . The bloke had nothing good to say about anyone but himself
I know Boycott would probably have said that, but then he also was convicted for domestic abuse so, to use his own language, I "dont give a toss" what the old bastard has to say these days.
So criticism is not allowed even if correct? Hmmm.