The Ashes: England's hopes have been sacrificed on T20 altar - Martyn Moxon
After England’s Ashes defeat was blamed on such factors as a lack of genuine pace bowlers, a world-class spinner and batsmen capable of scoring big hundreds, Moxon said that debt-ridden clubs are putting T20 first to guarantee survival.
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Hide AdWith the traditional Test match breeding ground of the County Championship squeezed more into April and September, clearing the way for more lucrative T20, it means that pitches and weather conditions are less likely to produce the sort of players that could have made the difference to captain Joe Root, while clubs have less motivation to provide for Test cricket.
“The problem with English cricket is that there are so many conflicts,” said Moxon. “There are conflicts of interest between county and international cricket, and it’s so difficult to solve them.
“Realistically, how many counties now can genuinely look to produce Test cricketers because of the financial situation?
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Hide Ad“Counties are in debt, so we have to play the cricket that’s going to bring in the revenue to keep us all afloat, and we all know that the type of cricket that brings in the revenue is T20.
“We have to maximise revenue from that and it’s been identified that the best time of year to play that is when we’re now playing it.
“The importance that a certain number of counties place on T20, that’s the priority, not red-ball cricket.
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Hide Ad“It automatically reduces the number of counties that are potentially looking to produce red-ball cricketers and investing time in developing red-ball cricketers, because it doesn’t bring you any revenue.”
Yorkshire have produced more Test players than any other county in recent times and insist that their top priority – for all that they crave T20 and one-day success – is the Championship.
Their history and tradition is based on it and their membership prizes it, but other clubs – perhaps with smaller resources and catchment areas – see T20 not only as a financial lifeline but also as their best chance of silverware.
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Hide Ad“There isn’t an easy solution,” added Moxon. “We need to play T20 when we do because of finance, which means we’re playing Championship cricket in April and September predominantly, which is the time of year when your traditional English seamers dominate.
“But it’s a different type of cricket and a different type of cricketer required to winning in Australia as opposed to winning in England, for example, just as Australia have found when they’ve come to England.
“We’ve given them a bit of a hammering here lately with their batsmen not being able to play the moving ball and all that stuff, so it’s kind of no different, and it’s pretty obvious that conditions lend themselves to the type of cricketers that each country produces.”
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Hide AdDespite the marginalisation of the Championship and the thirst for T20, Moxon believes England are producing fast bowlers.
English pitches are slower than those in Australia and have less bounce, favouring practitioners of lesser speed who can hit the seam, but he does accept that the cupboard is bare.
“We have some fast bowlers, but Steven Finn and Mark Wood haven’t been available and Ben Stokes for that matter hasn’t been available, so I don’t think it’s a case of we don’t produce them,” he said.
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Hide Ad“The problem is keeping them fit, as Australia have found, and they’ve spent a lot of time and been very careful in making sure that Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc were fit and ready for this series, wrapping them in cotton wool.
“One thing we could do potentially for future Ashes series away is plan like they’ve done in advance a bit more carefully. That might mean keeping players out of one-day cricket, but if we want to produce fast bowlers and spinners we’ve got to identify what type of cricket they’re going to play because the skills and mindsets needed are so different now – more so than ever in the history of the game – that very few players can thrive in all formats.”
England want the best of all worlds – to be Test No 1 and white-ball champions – but the conflicting interests are never far away.
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Hide Ad“The players want to be involved in these money-spinning T20 competitions as well,” said Moxon.
“They want to play in the IPL and so on, and it’s only going to get worse because of the new tournament that’s coming in 2020.
“Also, the problem you’ve got with developing fast bowlers to play Test cricket, for example, might conflict with what a county might want when they’re playing for them.
“If you bowl fast in a T20 game, for instance, but you’re not very accurate, you could go round the park, so it’s a very difficult balance to strike.”