England ODI and Test approach

Just watched Strauss being interviewed by Nick Knight and as expected it was a generally soft piece of interviewing and Strauss was allowed to get away with, imho, a lot of platitudinous shite as well as some sloppy points of view.

For instance, Strauss on the topic of why England struggle to succeed in ODI/T20 stuff - he stated that our existing philosophy, unless presumably altered to his new philosophy, will be an ongoing impediment to our success in ODI/T20 arena. The existing problem is, in his words, that we have 'quite a big core of players playing in both formats (test and white ball game)...' and if we continue to adopt that approach then we will struggle to succeed.

His proposed solution to that, 'a smaller core groups of our best 3 or 4 players who play across the formats and more specialists (for red and white ball game respectively I guess)...'.

He then went on to state that he looks at Australia's model - best in all formats for a long time - and thinks that is the thing to emulate.

Puzzling - as Australia's recent WC winning team featured, by my count, 8 guys in the playing 11 who one would regard as proper test players (OK, 7 plus the walking sulking wicket that was Watto) or proper dual format players if you prefer to look at it that way. The only notional white ball only specialists in the final were Finch, Faulkner and Maxwell - and presumably they might at some point be given a proper look at the test arena.

So for all his talk of having a clear philosophy I'd suggest his thoughts are muddled at best - and contradictory at worst. Are we going for 3 dual players or doing an Australia? The two approaches are markedly different.

Also, haven't we done the white ball specialist thing before (numerous instances I'm sure) - and just found out that those guys were just shithouse. Your best players are pretty much your best players, irrespective of format.

I reckon if we pursue the 3 or 4 core duallist approach we'd be pretty much the only 'top tier' team to do that.

Will p'raps compile a longer response later, but an initial thought ...... for the long term health and fitness of our best players (particularly bowlers), we should seriously consider going down the specialist route for half the team.

I say that simply because of the amount of cricket we play, year in year out. It's been remarked upon in the past how some of our players have looked jaded at times (JA springs to mind), and there is little recovery time from niggling injuries.

May not have been such an issue a few years ago, but the trend is for back-to back matches with only 4 - 6 days in between.

Funny - I thought the Strausser's present mantra was that "our" players play too much cricket, but not enough "pressure cricket".

He'll say something different next week, LN2, don't fret.

Yeah, I saw the interview. There was nothing of substance and a lot of contradictions. It's a load of bollocks to pigeonhole players. I expect his mantra is borne out of our T20 success. It's all a bit whatever really, I still couldn't care less about the one day shite - as long as we do well in Tests. Which we aren't. Maybe the big talk about a tournament that's 4 years away should take a place on the back burner for oh... three years? I mean, ok, the champion's trophy is a shorter time away, but WGAF innit. I'd be much more alarmed about our powderpuff Test team

Lindsay no.2 wrote:Just watched Strauss being interviewed by Nick Knight and as expected it was a generally soft piece of interviewing and Strauss was allowed to get away with, imho, a lot of platitudinous shite as well as some sloppy points of view.

it worked while he was captain

must say Strauss remains one of the more odious ex cricketers around

As far as the one day team is concerned, List A stats seem to get constantly ignored. Let's look at Chris Woakes- He's ALWAYS had a dreadful List A record. Always. Yet England think that can miraculously change if they pick him in the ODI side. Playing an ODI in the Sub Continent and Middle East is vastly different to nibbling out batsmen on a green English seamer in late April.

He averages mid 30s with an economy rate close to 6 in List A cricket, and surprise surprise, his record is pretty similar in ODIs. What do they expect?

horace wrote:must say Strauss remains one of the more odious ex cricketers around

Kev, have you hacked the old Victorian's account? Own up for once, ffs.

Growler wrote:Will p'raps compile a longer response later, but an initial thought ...... for the long term health and fitness of our best players (particularly bowlers), we should seriously consider going down the specialist route for half the team.

I say that simply because of the amount of cricket we play, year in year out. It's been remarked upon in the past how some of our players have looked jaded at times (JA springs to mind), and there is little recovery time from niggling injuries.

May not have been such an issue a few years ago, but the trend is for back-to back matches with only 4 - 6 days in between.

The protection of our quick bowlers makes a lot of sense. It may have been you Growls or someone else in another thread that made the point about Anderson and Broad bowling masses more overs than any other bowler in world cricket over the past 2 or 3 years. Had a quick look at cricinfo and it is quite shocking how many more they've gotten through. Guess that's a combo of our consistently misfiring batting line-up as well as a lack of decent back-ups (although Wood could yet prove his long term worth here).

So maybe ODI team ought to be the proving ground for our test bowlers? Although that doesn't fit with part of Strauss's plan of treating white/red ball cricket equally and it doesn't really chime with other leading nations treatment of their test attacks, (Aus won WC with both Mitches and Hazlewood in the line-up, NZ used their main crew as did SA largely).

Your reply prompted me to dig deeper into the numbers, Lindsay. Yes, both myself and a couple of others (Monkey being one, I think) have mentioned JA and SB workloads.

It's not often I write a karticle,  but you're going to get one here. Don't expect treats like this every day.

Since Jan 2011 there have been a total of 197 test matches played. England have played by far the most - 57 of them. Australia is next on 51 matches in that time. Followed by S/L, India, Windies, Paksters, and UNZudders with 45, 44, 42, 41 and 40 matches respectively. SA have played a surprisingly few 35, Bangles 25 and Zimbots 14.

Add the one-day stuff on top and the workload is even higher. Consider also that since Swann called it a day we haven't had a spinner worthy of the description, our 3rd & 4th seamers can't hit a barn door with a cows arse, and that Sturat has been known to go MIA now and then, so Jimmy has to bury himself again and again. Too often in the situation of trying to defend about 280, which the opposition pass for 3 or 4 down then cut loose.

So yes, for me it's fine to use one day cricket to blood new players. Not only for technique, but also "big match temperament". Who can forget the look on poor Simon Kerrigans face on being thrown the ball, seeing Watto approaching a half century at close to a run a ball, and watching one Swann delivery smacked half-way up the seats the previous over. He couldn't have looked more afraid had he been facing a firing squad.

He'd been taking wickets for fun in CC, so justified a look at for England - but why not wait another week or two until the ODIs ? In the test first innings we bowled 128 overs ........ Kerrigan bowled 8. Swann 33, Sturat 31, Jimmy 30, and Woakes 24. Our two best bowlers had to bowl an extra 8 or so overs apiece. Had SC frozen so badly in an ODI, and bowled 2 really rubbish overs, Root & Trott could have picked up the other 8.

Likewise with Adam Lyth ...... No end of people on here said he should have made his debut in the West Indies - but no, lets sling him into the cauldron of the Ashes. Lyth, like Kerrigan has had his confidence torn to shreds, yet with different management at the start of their international careers - who knows, we may not still be searching for a spinner and an opener. Anyone absolutely certain they couldn't have been competent internationals by now ?

Finally, regarding your last paragraph, you're technically correct in what you say - but hardly comparing like with like. Yes, Hazelwood is a test player ........ With 98 fewer caps than JA and 75 behind SB. Mitch Starc only made his debut in 2011/12 season, and Mitch Johnson in 2007/08. MJ has bowled 2632 overs - in the same timescale Jimmy has bowled 3430 ...... Just shy of 800 more. No wonder he's bloody knackered !

NZ and SA having played so much less cricket, their bowlers can hardly moan about being flogged into the ground can they ? Had those three Aus bowlers had our attacks' bowling for the past two years, would they be so effective in the WC? Maybe - but equally maybe not. It may be considered "pigeonholing" certain players - but is that really such a crime? If people shine over a couple of years, promote them to tests and blood a youngster/reward an old pro/give someone a second chance a la Sidearse / Swann.

IMO, we are, at best an average test side (in spite of our deficiencies) and a complete dogshit ODI side. Making my idea official ECB international cricketer development policy for the next 4 or 5 years can't possibly make us worse in either format - and may just make us better in both.

Growler wrote:Your reply prompted me to dig deeper into the numbers, Lindsay. Yes, both myself and a couple of others (Monkey being one, I think) have mentioned JA and SB workloads.

It's not often I write a karticle,  but you're going to get one here. Don't expect treats like this every day.

Since Jan 2011 there have been a total of 197 test matches played. England have played by far the most - 57 of them. Australia is next on 51 matches in that time. Followed by S/L, India, Windies, Paksters, and UNZudders with 45, 44, 42, 41 and 40 matches respectively. SA have played a surprisingly few 35, Bangles 25 and Zimbots 14.

Add the one-day stuff on top and the workload is even higher. Consider also that since Swann called it a day we haven't had a spinner worthy of the description, our 3rd & 4th seamers can't hit a barn door with a cows arse, and that Sturat has been known to go MIA now and then, so Jimmy has to bury himself again and again. Too often in the situation of trying to defend about 280, which the opposition pass for 3 or 4 down then cut loose.

So yes, for me it's fine to use one day cricket to blood new players. Not only for technique, but also "big match temperament". Who can forget the look on poor Simon Kerrigans face on being thrown the ball, seeing Watto approaching a half century at close to a run a ball, and watching one Swann delivery smacked half-way up the seats the previous over. He couldn't have looked more afraid had he been facing a firing squad.

He'd been taking wickets for fun in CC, so justified a look at for England - but why not wait another week or two until the ODIs ? In the test first innings we bowled 128 overs ........ Kerrigan bowled 8. Swann 33, Sturat 31, Jimmy 30, and Woakes 24. Our two best bowlers had to bowl an extra 8 or so overs apiece. Had SC frozen so badly in an ODI, and bowled 2 really rubbish overs, Root & Trott could have picked up the other 8.

Likewise with Adam Lyth ...... No end of people on here said he should have made his debut in the West Indies - but no, lets sling him into the cauldron of the Ashes. Lyth, like Kerrigan has had his confidence torn to shreds, yet with different management at the start of their international careers - who knows, we may not still be searching for a spinner and an opener. Anyone absolutely certain they couldn't have been competent internationals by now ?

Finally, regarding your last paragraph, you're technically correct in what you say - but hardly comparing like with like. Yes, Hazelwood is a test player ........ With 98 fewer caps than JA and 75 behind SB. Mitch Starc only made his debut in 2011/12 season, and Mitch Johnson in 2007/08. MJ has bowled 2632 overs - in the same timescale Jimmy has bowled 3430 ...... Just shy of 800 more. No wonder he's bloody knackered !

NZ and SA having played so much less cricket, their bowlers can hardly moan about being flogged into the ground can they ? Had those three Aus bowlers had our attacks' bowling for the past two years, would they be so effective in the WC? Maybe - but equally maybe not. It may be considered "pigeonholing" certain players - but is that really such a crime? If people shine over a couple of years, promote them to tests and blood a youngster/reward an old pro/give someone a second chance a la Sidearse / Swann.

IMO, we are, at best an average test side (in spite of our deficiencies) and a complete dogshit ODI side. Making my idea official ECB international cricketer development policy for the next 4 or 5 years can't possibly make us worse in either format - and may just make us better in both.

Well, we play our best ODI cricket when we use ODI's as a place to blood youngsters anyway. 97-98, 2002, 2004-05, 2011-12.........we played some half-decent ODI cricket (albeit for very fleeting periods of time).

We only seem to get truly rubbish at ODIs when we start taking it seriously in the month or so before and during a World Cup. It's just not English to take ODIs seriously. That's why they're called JAMODIs......Quite frankly, the public does't really give a f*ck if we're losing meaningless ODIs when the next World Cup is four years away. It only annoys us when we're losing but England are TRYING to take the games utterly seriously.  

I'd have been more than happy if half of the test squad went home, and the likes of Bell-Drummond, Vince, Foakes, the Overtons, and the Currans were given a go. I think it's now well established that going on tour with the Lions is of absolutely no benefit to a young England player, and does nothing to prepare them for the big time.

Give them the experience of international cricket where quite frankly the results have no real importance. If we could find one, maybe two world class cricketers out of it, then it would be worthwhile.

If I were England I'd be snapping up the Currans sharpish before they've had enough TOWIE and remember they have hairy backs

I see Sam was actually born in Northampton. Ah yes sorry, you've already mentioned hairy backs......

We're more TOWIE here... More of a back, sack and crack followed up by a glitzy pejazzle type of people. Then get aggro about a load of trivial bullshit, in between haircuts

Has the reacharound fad died away?