As previously noted by one or two members, the pitches in England make it difficult for quality young players to prosper. Players like Darrens Stevens and Masters and Keith Barker are/were always near the top of the wickets column. Imagine them bowling to Smith at Perth or Kohli in Mumbai - carnage. The dukes ball also comes into play although when trialled in the Sheffield shield it proved less effective on hard pitches
We need good batting pitches in the CC - for the first two days at least - where pace makes a difference. Tom Helm and George Garton should be encouraged to go 90mph+ not left out of the teams for 80mph line and lengthers.
These hard pitches will also encourage the likes of Joe Clarke and Liam Livingstone to play their shots not simply survive
At the moment the CC is producing players that prosper in English conditions along with probably NZ and maybe SA. In the rest of the world we look clueless.
Keith Barker's a decent bowler to be fair! Pitches are starting to go the right way I think, hopefully it carries on that way. Unless it's spoilt by the CC being played in April/September.
Moaning about lack of talent is a bit premature, there's plenty of prospects out there. Problem for us at the moment is they're mostly young and inexperienced - Livingstone, Clarke, Helm, Tongue, Hameed, Bess, the Parkinsons, Foakes, Norwell, Duckett, Lawrence, Sam Curran etc etc etc. Some of them will come good, but as Hameed showed it might not be yet! As for 18 counties, come on... never stopped us producing talent in the past. Cutting down on counties to produce more talent is up there with taking the game off terrestrial TV to find new audiences in the pantheon of great cricket admin ideas.
Author
Topic: Ashes 2017-18 (Read 407112 times)