Post by hhsussex on May 6, 2015 8:30:10 GMT
An excellent article by Andy Bull in today's Guardian www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/may/05/jonathan-trott-early-retirement-england-cricket moves on from the re-selection and failure of Trott to look at the number of players, particularly England players, who have undergone, or are now undergoing extreme workloads. Swann and Prior are quoted as cases where the unrelenting, day in day out nature of competition, tour, practice and more competition exhausted and debilitated these players before the end of their natural prime.
Whoever is appointed as England Director of Cricket and whatever the limitations of their role, let's hope that their job doesn't entail having to make apologies for sub-standard performances, early retirements through injury and burn-outs caused by playing 17 Tests, 20 ODIs and at least 5T20s in a nine-month span. The contrast in cricket played is made between the workload of Dale Steyn and Jimmy Anderson over the last 8 years. In that time Steyn has been the leader of a fine attack, but has only had to bowl 72% of the overs Anderson bowled. Not quoted in the online article, but printed in the hardcopy version, are figures showing the number of matches played and the leading runscorers since Trotts's debut in 2009. Cook is at the top of the list with 5201 runs and Bell is high with 4237, but their runs came from 65 and 60 Tests respectively. The highest averages here, all with aggregates over 4000 runs, are Sangakkara 64.79 (from 46 matches), Amla 64.13 (45 matches) and de Villiers 62.27 (46 matches).
Do we need to play so many Tests? Is it a coincidence that South Africa play 25-30% fewer games and manage their resources to produce and continually enhance their side as No 1? Bull ends his article by saying that either matches need to be curt back or players need to be rotated, but that won't help to develop a No 1 side. South Africa don't have two or three Steyns to swop around, nor do de Villiers and Amla miss many Tests. If the need arises purely from the costs of maintaining what ECB do, then there is a challenge for Tom Harrison to look hard at his costs and consider what is essential for the long-term future of the English game, and whether revenue needs to come from additional Tests and ODIs or from driving harder bargains from a smaller number of games, and finding other ways of bringing in money. And he needs to do this with the support and involvement of his Director of Cricket, not to impose it as a fait accompli.
Whoever is appointed as England Director of Cricket and whatever the limitations of their role, let's hope that their job doesn't entail having to make apologies for sub-standard performances, early retirements through injury and burn-outs caused by playing 17 Tests, 20 ODIs and at least 5T20s in a nine-month span. The contrast in cricket played is made between the workload of Dale Steyn and Jimmy Anderson over the last 8 years. In that time Steyn has been the leader of a fine attack, but has only had to bowl 72% of the overs Anderson bowled. Not quoted in the online article, but printed in the hardcopy version, are figures showing the number of matches played and the leading runscorers since Trotts's debut in 2009. Cook is at the top of the list with 5201 runs and Bell is high with 4237, but their runs came from 65 and 60 Tests respectively. The highest averages here, all with aggregates over 4000 runs, are Sangakkara 64.79 (from 46 matches), Amla 64.13 (45 matches) and de Villiers 62.27 (46 matches).
Do we need to play so many Tests? Is it a coincidence that South Africa play 25-30% fewer games and manage their resources to produce and continually enhance their side as No 1? Bull ends his article by saying that either matches need to be curt back or players need to be rotated, but that won't help to develop a No 1 side. South Africa don't have two or three Steyns to swop around, nor do de Villiers and Amla miss many Tests. If the need arises purely from the costs of maintaining what ECB do, then there is a challenge for Tom Harrison to look hard at his costs and consider what is essential for the long-term future of the English game, and whether revenue needs to come from additional Tests and ODIs or from driving harder bargains from a smaller number of games, and finding other ways of bringing in money. And he needs to do this with the support and involvement of his Director of Cricket, not to impose it as a fait accompli.
