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But hang on a minute.
ReplyDeleteI can well understand that for a player like Jos, with the touring commitments, IPL and other franchise cricket, this might make sense. In reality he has hardly played county cricket in the last 5 years.
For the vast majority of other cricketers it doesn’t.
The season is currently about 24 weeks long. County cricket consumes about 30% of that time (14 games - 50-56 days).
So trimming that by 4 matches so that it consumes about 23-25% of that time (10 matches meaning 35-40Days) cannot address “the issue”.
All these arguments blur the issue. If the intention is to get better England test performances, why play less county cricket and more white ball cricket. That’s like training for a marathon by doing 100m sprints.
JimG.
Yes, JimG I just don’t get it either TBH. We’ve beaten and drawn series against Australia when the season has been just as hectic. As you say, if the likes of Bairstow, Stokes and Buttler are suffering ‘burnout’ its got nothing to do with the domestic County schedule as they play so little of it anyway. They want the best of both worlds playing International cricket for England and then hairing off to play white ball franchise series’ also when it suits them.
ReplyDeleteWould they really prefer it pre-central contracts when Gough and Caddick had played for their Counties all season and then fitting in the Test Series’ along the way also, whilst McGrath, Gillespie and Co, were nicely rested. Mike Atherton, when England Captain, rightly argued to Lord Maclaurin the value and need for centrally contracted players to the ECB and rightly so, they got it a good few years ago and now they are properly rested, stay in top Hotels all over the world and are very handsomely rewarded for the privilege. This is the sole reason both Broad&Anderson have such brilliant Test careers and played so many Test Matches
As you rightly state Jim, this does not apply to the overwhelming majority of professional cricketers on the County ‘treadmill’
Yes, our record over the years in Australia is poor. We don’t produce top quality spinners in our English conditions as a rule, but their record in English conditions is not too flash either despite them playing less games in their Sheffield Shield. If playing less games guaranteed better quality players around the globe, Stuart Broad would not be taking 8-15 against one of the, supposedly, better batting line ups i the game i say and they wouldn’t lose or draw an Ashes series over here.
If being well rested was a barometer to quality, then Jake Ball and Zak Chappell must be the greatest bowlers ever.
DeleteSeriously though, no one in any of the England squads should be able to claim that they play too much cricket Internationally or in this country domestically. The frenetic schedules for individuals only happen when they sign themselves up for extra curricular T20 tournaments and then it's for them to decide if the financial rewards are worth the added workload (if playing cricket is considered working for a living - they don't know how lucky they are IMHO). More centrally contracted players would help manage those that can't say no to every franchise that comes knocking but that would require the counties to employ more players, expanding the game.
Kevin peitersen ( always good to watch but always full of verbal diarrhoea) played the too “much cricket/ burnout card. “Then up popped the IPL and he was cured.
ReplyDeleteThe fact of the matter is, what ever job you do , you start at the bottom and work your way up. Remuneration is often low to start with, the rewards and the status come later on.foxy .