The Times - UK (2022-03-15)

60 Tuesday March 15 2022 | the times

SportCricket

England have never been the No 1 team
across formats simultaneously. In the
past 40 years, the summit has been
climbed in Test cricket for about a
12-month period and in one-day
cricket only recently. Putting that right
was the ambition set out by Andrew
Strauss yesterday, in his position as act-
ing managing director of men’s cricket,
and in his role as an adviser to the ECB
board and chairman of the perform-
ance cricket committee.
At the heart of it will be the high-
performance review commissioned by
the ECB but driven initially by external
expertise. This will involve a three-
step process: first, principles of high
performance will be recommended
by a consultation group consisting of
cricketing and non-cricketing experts;
second, there will be a rigorous, system-
atic analysis of the best structures to
achieve those principles, and third,
the game will either accept whole, in
part or not at all, those recommenda-
tions.
We have been here before, to some
extent. Those who have been around
English cricket for long enough will
have lost count of the number of
reviews commissioned, now gathering
dust at Lord’s. Strauss, though, senses
the time is right; he senses an appetite
within the game for something bold
and radical, especially given how
quickly things are changing with the
advance of franchised competitions
the world over, and given how poor
England’s Test match performances
have been recently.

to dispense with a selection panel

too.

After Giles’s sacking, Tom Harrison

said pointedly that the men’s cricket

department was “not fit for purpose”.

The candidate for the MD role, the brief

says, must have demonstrable experi-

ence of dealing with “crisis manage-

ment”, something Giles will have

reflected on ruefully, after attempting

to deliver on performance objectives in

the middle of a pandemic.

Strauss launches

bold plan to be the

best in all formats

Strauss’s job is to appoint a chair of

this high-performance review, who will

then select a group of six to eight

individuals, from within cricket and

outside, one of whom is likely to be the

new managing director of men’s cricket.

The job advert for the MD role went

live on Monday, part of the remit for

which is “defining the vision and setting

the strategy for high performance in

cricket”.

The nub of the issue will be: how to

maintain the broad footprint of the

game, represented by the 18 counties,

while ensuring the competition

encourages best v best, thus improving

the quality and intensity of the compe-

tition?

It will be tricky to ensure enough

space in the calendar for a first-

class competition worthy of its name

and to balance the commercial de-

mands with the need to mirror excel-

lence in the three formats at inter-

national level.

Strauss has deliberately put some

time pressure on the process to ensure

it does not drift. He hopes to publish the

recommendations of the panel early in

the summer, allowing the game to

debate and deliver on these recommen-

dations by September, in time for

implementation in the summer of

2023. It is an ambitious framework,
      but worth the effort if it aligns the
      whole game behind some common
      objectives.
      “What is the scale of our ambition in
      England? I believe very strongly that
      we should be looking to be the best in
      the world in all formats,” Strauss said.
      “If the shop window is functioning well,
      the knock-on effects for the game
      as a whole are enormous. I sense an
      appetite for us to be bold in our
      approach; incremental tweaks are not
      going to give us the step change we are
      looking for.”
      Although this review is designed to

take into account all formats of the

game, a focus on first-class cricket is

sensible not just for England’s Test

team but their one-day teams as well.

Young players need an amount of high-

quality first-class cricket to learn the

fundamentals of the game, from which

they can then develop into one-

day specialists if preferred. A system

that prioritises only T20 cricket, say,

endangers its ability to produce top-

class players across disciplines in

future.

“The moment you turn your back on

Test cricket it becomes a self-fulfilling

prophecy,” Strauss said. “I would hate

England to do that. We’ve got the

strongest history and tradition around

Test cricket, our cricket-loving public

love watching us play Test cricket —

you only have to look at the number of

people out here [in the West Indies] to

support us. Our ambition has to be

driving Test cricket forward, and play-

ing in a way that is engaging and

exciting and makes people want to

watch it.”

Strauss indicated that England

hoped to have a head coach for the Test

team in place by June, before the first

Test of the summer, but this will be con-

tingent on the identification of the MD

first. It is highly likely, given the amount

of cricket that England play, that sepa-

rate specialist coaching teams will be

put in place for Test and limited-overs

cricket, something advocated here

some years ago.

“My perspective is that it’s time to go

down that route. We have unique

schedules in this country,” Strauss said.

“It is very hard to plan, prepare, play

and review for one coach doing all

formats. There are opportunities for us

to make some performance gains in

that respect. But again, that’ll be up to

the new director of cricket.”

There is a good chance the new

MD will reverse Ashley Giles’s decision

Mike Ather ton

Chief Cricket

Correspondent

Second Test

West Indies v England

Kensington Oval,

Bridgetown

Starts tomorrow, 2pm

TV: BT Sport 1

Radio: talkSPORT 2

England are facing a shock early
exit from the Women’s World Cup
after losing to South Africa by three
wickets, leaving their chances of
reaching the semi-finals hanging by a
thread.
The defending champions need to
win all four of their remaining group
matches to have a chance of progress-
ing, but even that may not be enough —
they will need other results to go their
way.
This was South Africa’s first win over
England at a World Cup in more than
20 years and was spearheaded by the
all-rounder Marizanne Kapp. She
picked up her first five-wicket haul in
her 13-year international career before
starring with the bat, scoring 32 from 42

Archer bowls in the nets in Barbados with his elbow still strapped heavily as he

England were, again, guilty of a poor

fielding display, missing a number of

key opportunities. The most costly was

the drop of Laura Wolvaardt, who, after

being dropped on four at backward

point by Beaumont, went on to make 77.

The powerful opener was the anchor of

South Africa’s chase, sharing half-cen-

tury partnerships with Tazmin Brits

and Suné Luus, and scoring freely off

both the seamers and spinners.

There was, at least, an improvement

in the extras column — England gave

away only eight wides in this match,

compared with the 44 they had conced-

ed in the previous two.

Credit must be given to South Africa,

though, for an impressive performance,

even though they are missing one of

their key all-rounders in Dane van

Niekerk. They will not have forgotten

the agonising way they were knocked

out in the semi-finals in 2017 and, if

anyone is going to get past the domi-

nant Australia, South Africa could well

be contenders.

Two of England’s remaining four

group matches will be far from easy:

their next two opponents are a strong

India side and the hosts, New Zealand,

and unless they start to put together

England on brink of shock exit after

dropped catches bring third defeat

balls to help her side chase down

England’s total of 235.

After defeats by Australia and West

Indies, England had made a change,

bringing in an extra bowling option in

the shape of the spinner Charlie Dean,

which meant that the struggling

Lauren Winfield-Hill was dropped and

Danni Wyatt moved up the order to

open. She did not last long, though,

becoming the first of Kapp’s victims

when she sliced to backward point for

four. Then Heather Knight, who is

getting used to being at the crease early,

was guilty of leaving her bat hanging

halfway between a leave and a shot and

chopped on to her stumps.

Nat Sciver, who scored a century in

England’s opener against Bangladesh,

fell for 16 from a freak dismissal as she

missed an attempted pull shot off a

length ball by Masabata Klaas — only

for the ball to deflect on to the back

of her bat and balloon to Lizelle Lee

at slip, leaving England 42 for three in

the 12th over and again needing a

rebuild.

Tammy Beaumont, who was the

player of the tourna-

ment in 2017, played

her part with a

well-executed 62,

and there was a half-

century for the wicket-

keeper, Amy Jones, who

had been having a quiet

tournament after strug-

gling throughout in the

Ashes earlier in the year.

Given the situation,

though, one or the other

needed to push on to three figures —

yet Beaumont fell in the 34th over, leg-

before to Klaas, and Jones soon depart-

ed having been run out, again by Kapp.

There were some vital lower-order

runs from Katherine Brunt, Sophia

Dunkley and Kate Cross, but all

three were outfoxed by Kapp’s

slower ball, all coming

through their shots too

early to miscue, and be

caught.

Nonetheless 235

appeared to be a

defendable score es-

pecially when South

Africa had been

reduced to 199 for six in

the 44th over, with wick-

ets shared among five

of England’s seven

bowlers.

Women’s World Cup
Elizabeth Ammon

Sophie Ecclestone shows her

frustration during the defeat