Jan 20
Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove claims Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope and Co have gone backwards in Exams — {link}
Rod Bransgrove has laid the blame for England’s Ashes catastrophe squarely on the door of the ECB and the batting coaches who oversaw the tour.
Hampshire’s chairman believes the county sport shouldn’t be the scapegoat for the calamity and that it handed England a gaggle of excellent batsmen who’ve gone downhill throughout the worldwide set-up.
Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Agnew have known as for the dismantling of the County Championship in response to England’s failings Down Underneath, however Bransgrove believes there isn’t a probability of that taking place. As an alternative, he thinks the ECB have to look nearer to house.
Hampshire chairman Rod Bransgrove (left) says the blame for England’s Ashes catastrophe in Australia is with the ECB, in defence of the County Championship schedule
‘It’s all the time just about the identical — a couple of heads roll, there’s a brand new plan for English cricket, a evaluate of the home sport and we find yourself doing all the identical stuff once more,’ he informed Sportsmail.
‘The actual fact is that among the gamers that home cricket has produced for England, together with the likes of Zak Crawley, Joe Root and Ollie Pope, all these folks began nicely once we first handed them to England. In reality, a few of them spectacularly so.
‘Their performances have dropped off since they’ve been with England. I don’t assume it’s truthful responsible the county sport for that as a result of most of them received’t be allowed to play county cricket. One thing goes flawed within the machine above home cricket.
‘While you fail at one thing, you attempt to discover a cause which isn’t you — you all the time attempt to discover some exterior cause why you couldn’t carry out at your optimum stage.’
There have been requires coach Chris Silverwood’s head, Ashley Giles, managing director of the England crew, is beneath strain and the way forward for Root as captain may even be mentioned.
However the principle focus has been on the home sport and whether or not it’s able to producing high- high quality batsmen. The very existence of the 18 top notch counties can also be up for debate.
Bransgrove referred to Zak Crawley as proof gamers have ‘dropped off’ within the England fold
‘The ECB have so much on their plate proper now,’ stated Bransgrove. ‘The very first thing is, there’s not even a query of whether or not there needs to be 18 counties as a result of the 18 counties predominantly personal the ECB. The 18 counties produce all of the wealth for the ECB by offering gamers and grounds.
‘The problem isn’t whether or not there needs to be fewer counties, that’s a fallacy. The problem is, ought to all counties have precisely the identical alternative as one another originally of yearly, no matter how they carried out the earlier yr?
‘Or can we begin to settle for a real meritocracy within the sport and create a construction which offers us with good England red-ball cricketers and sees the perfect play the perfect on the high finish?
‘I want to see three divisions of six groups within the County Championship, all taking part in 10 matches a yr, 5 at house and 5 away — that’s completely sufficient to search out England gamers and make the video games necessary and critical.
‘You might have one crew up and one crew down from every division. If you happen to play an excessive amount of then the video games don’t turn into necessary any extra.
Bransgrove additionally claimed that Ollie Pope’s stage has drifted since he has been in Take a look at cricket
‘Slot them across the Take a look at matches too, so gamers can play county cricket to prepare for worldwide cricket. They’re not going to prepare for an Ashes tour by taking part in within the nets.
‘Think about Scunthorpe saying they need the identical probability to win the Premier League as Manchester Metropolis. You possibly can say, “OK, nevertheless it’s going to take you a great few years from the place you at the moment are”.
‘The beauty of soccer is that they’ve accepted that meritocracy counts. Everybody matches of their order and everyone seems to be there combating for promotion and for relegation.’
After taking place with out a lot as a whimper in Australia, the battle for cricket’s home future is nicely and really on.
