The Ashes 2021/22

golfaddick said:

Addick Addict said:

Addick Addict said:

lolwray said:

Ashes excuse bingo 

The hundred 
County cricket 
Preparation 
Selection 
Bubble 
Management 
Captaincy 

 
County cricket and the scheduling (for which The Hundred has some impact) is the main reason. You can prepare as much as you like but, if the players aren't good enough, it really doesn't matter.

Australian cricketers not only play Sheffield Shield but also turn out for their clubs for two day 90 overs a side matches. Our batsmen rarely play County Championship let alone club cricket and when they do, it is against the Duke ball in seam friendly condition with most of the matches in April/May/September that suit the likes of Darren Stevens bowling at 70mph

Who is going to argue that the ECB's priorities are now:

1.The Hundred
2. Vitality Blast
3. County Championship
4. Royal London

Who is going to argue that, from a financial perspective and given the bribe from the ECB with regards to The Hundred , the priorities of the Counties are:

1. The Hundred
2. Vitality Blast
3. Royal London
4. County Championship

On the basis of that, who is going to ague that white ball training is given priority by both England and the Counties over red ball from age group teams through to the First Team? And for that matter selection too. The chances of a batsman who plays straight but who can't score at over a run a ball getting a contract are absolutely minimal.

Below is a link to an article, published in the last 24 hours, in which Paul Farbrace and Toby Radford make it abundantly clear what they believe the issues are. Namely technique and temperament. It talks of "lazy" coaches at junior level who either do not possess the knowledge to coach correct technique or don't want to do so because they want to be their friend and make it interesting. Equally, the suggestion is that the talk in youth circles is not playing for England but which franchise they might get a contract with:

https://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/120396/englands-test-batting-at-rock-bottom-with-deep-rooted-issue

The age group county cricketer who has a good, solid technique is now being overlooked by some counties for the ones who can switch hit, ramp and smash a ball over cow. Who wants a red ball player only after all? White ball only for sure. But red ball only, no chance,

Wasn't Farbrace in charge recently. Sorry, but blaming coaches lower down the food chain is a low blow. Selectors & management choose which players will play  & so should be held accountable if a player's technique or temperament is not up to it. 

He was assistant England coach, The issue is that players in this country are getting by to a certain level with poor technique - see ball/hit ball comes to mind, Once they get to a certain age it becomes almost impossible for them to correct bad habits. And we don't have enough who can play straight to select from.

Imagine you've played golf from the age of 11 or 12 but you've habitually hooked the ball. If you don't  do anything to try and correct that 'til you're 18 or 19 then the chances are that you won't become a scratch golfer. You can still hit the ball and will probably have found ways to compensate for hooking it but, every so often, you will revert to type and the ball will end up out of bounds, Because it is so ingrained. Now picture the batsman who can smash a cricket ball at 80mph on a good deck but then comes across the bowler who has the skillset to expose your weakness at 90mph. And unlike golf It only takes one ball to do the damage.

I will tell you this as fact. Seb has been in and around the Kent set up for eight years. He's never had a technical session at Kent. He's had  advice when he might not have played a ball as well as he could have done but that is all. When it actually comes to sorting out any technical issues that is not done by county coaches. So if they aren't doing that to say a 14 year old, why would the England coach be expected to try and sort a 25 year old who has always batted with the bat coming down from gully because that's his way of accessing the leg side when it comes to scoring runs?

The difference between our kids and say their Indian counterparts is that the latter group are drilled for hours upon and very often by their dads. They don't have the distraction of other sports like football so do it all year round. India also has a much bigger pool to pick from anyway. It's a given that they won't have major technical flaws by the time they reach State age group cricket.

Don't believe me? Then ask yourself why in the last nine years we've used 20 different openers. 

Today's failure for Labushagne brings his overall average down massively. To 60.40 which is between 24 and 32 better than all our team bar Root. And it's more than 10 better than him.