A good old ramble on England

[sussexpob]

I recently had an email conversation with a close friend that drifted from the usual “haven’t seen you in a while, how is the kids” talk, into a full debate about the relative merits of the political parties in the upcoming UK election. He is Liberal Democrat voter, so it was a surprise when he made the point that he disapproved with contemporary negative assessments of Tony Blair, and current criticism of Dave Cameron. His opinion, he explained, was based on the fact that both were “of their time”, that both may have now “past their time”, but that the former point should not be retroactively forgotten. Sometimes contemporary decisions cannot be adequately judged with hindsight.

You might be wondering what this has to do with cricket, but his words, even if I disagreed with them, underlined that with any form of management or leadership, the correct formula to succeed is never static; leadership should be effected by a whole host of temporal or variable factors that govern not only the need for certain qualities of leadership, but the success of varying styles and ideologies that are applied. Something that works for one group of players, a company or even a nation may not work in other times or with other people, so great leaders appreciate the need for flexibility and a constant need to reinvent themselves. Even the biggest and strongest empires in history have fallen when they become resistive to changes and progression.

Duncan Fletcher was one coach to recognise this, in fact he once stated that ideas lose currency so quickly in modern day cricket, any player who retired would be completely out of touch six months later. Fletcher’s way bred success in the short to medium term, taking a back seat to allow his teams to express themselves. Under Hussain England were combative and passionate, under Vaughan they were more reserved and calculating in their approach. In the background, Fletcher was a tinkerer, working with players on a personable basis, seeing himself as a technical coach and reacting to the failures of players by working with them to correct their faults. The solution fit the problem as it were, and it worked.

Yet, in the way that a climber may expend all his energy getting up the top of the mountain, Fletcher had no plan to get down safely when England reached their peak under him. Fletcher’s limitations suddenly became obvious; loyalty to a core group of players, the ignorance of longer term goals, and his “gut feeling” selection policy suddenly raged out of control to disastrous effect. What had once worked for the world’s worst test side with a sole focus on measuring tangible and instantaneous improvements collapsed very suddenly when asked to forge a plan that cycled success against the very best, and Fletcher’s insistence on letting his captain fill much of the duty of team management led to his job floating away like his teams World Cup bid, and his drunken talisman, on an out of control pedalo!!! His strengths of his left field picks ended with test caps to Saj Mahmood and other rather undeserving players. A bit more control was needed, and a fresh pair of eyes. That wasn’t adequately solved by Moores Mrk I, who lacked any cohesion in his stint and lost his job quickly.

Flower came to England cricket at the time of relative feast in comparison to Fletcher’s baptism, yet in a way his reign was a more extreme replay of Fletcher. The main reason for this was the dogmatic ideologies that Flower stuck to like Fletcher, even if these ideologies were different. While Flower’s dictatorial, pedantic style was in contrast to the tinkerer Fletcher, his outlook was every bit as unsustainable. England needed structure and a bit more “stick then carrot” to shake off the political fallout of the KP v Moores issues, but the emerging primacy of T20 cricket, the financial rewards for playing it, and endless amounts of touring was always going to take its demands on the physical and mental toll of the team. Cricket has changed with T20, not least because it adds more cricket into the calendar, and being in a toxic, high pressure siege mentality environment with a leadership group focused on strictness, rigidity and unquestioning loyalty was simply never going to work all that long. England turned into a side playing with fear, a fear seemingly generated by “the Click” of senior players who made the test side an almost “no parking here” place for new talent. The team stagnated and withered at least 2 years before it received the most cruel of death blows.

England need only to learn the lesson of their most recent Ashes tormentors to see that Flower’s style was way past its sell by date by the last Ashes series. Australia were going nowhere with a similar strict disciplinarian in Mickey Arthur, who suspended four players for the laughable excuse of not doing their homework. Their successes in recent times have been a result of a far more laid back approach, with an architect by the name of “Boff” leading the way. Far from managing players diets and assessing body mass indexes, Lehmann has treaded his squads like responsible adult individuals, does not take himself too seriously, and is well liked because of this. People buy into people, and far from his laid back approach leading to laid back performance from its teams, it has spurred them onto work harder, to achieve new levels of performance based on focusing responsibility towards the player.

Lehmann’s Australia are a side that play without fear as a result, who play with fire, belief and motivation. Lehmann has reminded his players how to have fun, and that is what fuels them to work harder. It’s no co-incidence that Steve Waugh, possibly Australia’s greatest leader, was called in during the World Cup to give a team speech reminding the players to “enjoy the game” and that the big games was what they lived for, and “enjoying them” is how to cope with the pressure of playing in them; it’s probably no co-incidence either that Australia looked at their best progressively as the matches got harder in the World Cup, an measure of the freedom in expression that the squad lives and breathes inside as its culture.

Lehmann’s methods make contemporary sense; they are of the time, understanding of the pressure of the sport. In contrast, England have regularly looked mentally and physically cooked arriving to big series or tournaments. The mechanical and overbearing juggernaut of England seem only successful in wasting precious energy on the most unimportant of blurbs, and is no surprise they are failing in a professional world where time, more importantly rest time, is becoming ever more important. Its most noticeable in a bowling attack that has lost all of its pace and zip, and who no longer seem able to swing the ball.

Peter Moores put the icing on the cake with his lengthy assessment of England’s recent destruction to New Zealand, but in his endless assault of language, there was no meaning, no clarity to his words. As he bumbled through several paragraphs of reasons, he not once came up with a cohesive explanation to the simplest of questions. It highlighted an uncertainty and fogginess in thinking that has certainly be noticed in a practical sense with current squad selection policies, the teams tactical approach, and the goals and direction of the squad.

Post Ashes fallout, it is clear that England became preoccupied with blame management as opposed to learning positive lessons to move forward. Instead of realising that Flower’s outdated method was wrong, its mechanics and sensibilities are being continually revalidated by Moores, a man lacking the sufficient political currency from his previous failures in the job to be anything but a yes man to his ECB peers. Far from being a change for the good, the only change made was to seemingly protect a failing, outdated and sacked former coaches ideas, a job made easy by hiring a replacement coach who seems well aware that his first tenure means he has little opportunity to further his career past county cricket without taking a rather suicidal and straight jacketed role in the England setup now, and who is therefore stripped off any real capital he might have to instigate change.

The ECB couldn’t even muster up the courage to use the word “sacked” to the coach that had just overseen the worst series in England’s test history, arguably one of English sports biggest off-field embarrassments, and seemingly only let the coach “leave” begrudgingly despite a mountain of reasons pilling up on a continued basis, and several others took a step upwards as a result. It defies belief that, in any sport at any level, the reward for national embarrassment would be more money and a better job. A key question is, why would the ECB be so interested in maintain the status quo and these failing individuals? The truth is, Flower’s dictatorial approach combined with press scapegoating of players like KP was effective in nipping many problems that the ECB faced in the bud from changes to the world of cricket. Giles Clarke for one wouldn’t have been able to enact his pillaging of world cricket had he bought the bullet, and others jobs only exist because of the overblown machine that England setup has become.

It remains to be seen how long the ECB can side with Moores. After his post -New Zealand essay of empty nonsensical words, his follow up performance against Bangladesh will surely work its way to the history of dumbest sporting quotes. It goes without saying, if the coach of your national team didn’t think that 275 was possible on a pitch which played rather well, and has to look at reams of paper to understand why, then it is clear he is well out of his depth, and the situation should be corrected instantly. Yet even with recent failures, Moores serves a purpose to his masters, and so long as he does, he won’t be replaced until the position becomes absolutely untenable.

Being out of their depth is sadly seemingly another of England’s problems. Colin Graves may come to be a cricketing god in the country, but his first interjection into the teams affairs was a rather pathetic attempt to reopen the Kevin Pietersen affair by opening the door to his return; only, he didn’t know how it would happen, when it would happen, but it would need a sit down….. one he wasn’t prepared to have because he didn’t have the time. His selector, a clear understudy, then waded in with a contradictory statement of insubordination, while Graves changed tact and instead decided to spend his time calling a fellow test side “mediocre” and rather overly confidently for a side with a rather terrible recent past and an untested team, decided anything but a blasting of the West Indies was unacceptable. If his intentions were to isolate himself with a foreign board, come across as arrogant, piss off all the people under him who made a firm decision to ignore KP, and confuse both the player in question and the general public, then he did indeed succeed with full colours. If he was meant to enamour any positivity, then he certainly missed the mark.

If I had to hypothesise, then I would think that Graves was marking territory for his decision making power, but in doing so has not shown much decorum or deft of political touch to appease a rather tired, snappy and down-right angry English cricketing public. If there is one thing Graves needs to destroy as a culture, it the battle of ego’s that feeds the setup with negativity. Ego’s that seem to feast on ignorant and desperate self-preservation. Whichever way you fall on the spectrum of KP v World, Matt Prior/Stuart Broad/Kevin Pietersen/Jimmy Anderson and whichever brand of cheese I have failed to list should have been worrying about their techniques and declining returns, rather than pissing the bed and pointing fingers at other people. Downton and the other back office clowns should have been less focused on destroying their scapegoat and ensuring their own blameworthiness was forgotten, and should have made the right decisions which I think, generally accepted, we can assume were never the intention.

This leads us finally to maybe the biggest ego of all, Captain Cook, the leadership master who over seen a total meltdown of performance on a personal and team level, yet still has the nerve to in some way insinuate that his leadership skills were missed in Australia for the World Cup. No one obviously told Cook that the cult of personality he was showered with by the ECB hacks post-Ashes was anything but the empty propaganda it was supposed to be. Incredibly, having lead England to 5-0 drubbings away, his batting form plummeting, and his uninspiring ODI tactical leadership, he some how had the audacity and egotism to in someway link that as a main reason for the teams failure. In short, this is simply unforgivable, and Cook should not keep the test captaincy as a result. If the slim chance that Moores England can work under the ECB master plan, the last thing the teams needs is for their Test Captain to spout self-serving nonsense to the press. It’s almost hard to believe that such a premium was placed on the importance of the team only a short while ago, when it seems the unbounding result of placing the team first was in fact the masking of self-interest.

Its hardly like the England camp are at the moment a happy, fully functional unit. It seems quite a lot of senior players, spread across all formats, are looking rather over the hill…. Bowling short of pace, batting with little confidence. Its no great surprise, after all even the players must know that their coach is doomed, his boss is doomed, and others in the setup are doomed in the long run. England are in a transitional trap of their own making, unable to make the changes needed for political and protectionist reasons. I still wouldn’t even rule out the fact that so little change has been instigated is down to the imminent return of the ECB’s saviour, Andy Flower, with Moores only there to keep his seat warm while the storm clouds clear over the last Ashes debacle.

I am perfectly fine supporting an England team that is unsuccessful, but I am not confident that England are even striving to improve amidst all of this nonsense. It seems to have become a stubborn battle of chess that long reached stalemate, but where no one wants to back down. The ECB are damaging the link between the fans and their stakeholders, and before people start turning off, they need to do something about it.

Flower era of the dark arts has passed, its time for a fresh change in all up the spectrum!

[mikesiva]

An interesting article, SP....

IMHO, Lehmann's methods could only work in Australia, because Australia has the right structure for such methods. A good coach can only be a success in a good system. Australia has a smaller population than India, Pakistan and England, so they make sure that they maximise on sporting potential in their country. The money is channelled in the right avenues, and every potential sports man or woman is given the chance as a boy or girl to reach his or her potential, through a good school system that seeks to identify sporting talent, and guide them down the right path.

The West Indies have their own problems with cricket, too numerous to mention. But suffice it to say that Jamaica has an excellent school system for sprinting, where potential world-class sprinters are identified at the primary school level, and developed through a high school system that borders on semi-professionalism, so that by the time these sprinters are ready to make their debut on the world stage, they're more than ready. Jamaican athletics is doing everything right that West Indies cricket is doing wrong....

Similarly, I think England has a class problem with regards to cricket. About 40% of England cricketers used to go to private school (curiously called public school). When you consider that only seven per cent of England's population goes to private school, that means that the talent pool is already being narrowed. There are a lot of state schools where cricket is not being played at all, state schools that are full of cricket-mad Asian kids, for example, who are being missed by the England system.

Until England develops a system that utilises all the available talent at their disposal, then we all will be playing second fiddle to the Australia-India nexus....

[Arthur Crabtree]

Ha! I'm glad someone agrees with me on Colin Graves. I thought I was crazy. He's been behaving like Norman Wisdom, caught in the gaze of a pretty shop assistant.

Duncan Fletcher was flexible enough to take a team of under-performers (Gough, Caddick, Nas, Athers...) and turn them into a side that could win in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. And then he took a generation of younger players (Vaughan, Tres, Freddie, Harmi...) and helped them to wins in South Africa and against one of the great Australia teams. But don't forget he came out of County cricket. After his Ashes win, just about a whole team was lost to injury or the yips. It may be that Fletcher was just too cut off from his supply line by 2006. He had brought a team with him after the Hussain era. And winning in Australia against their team of 06-7 wasn't feasible.

Flower was given his copy of Moneyball by Data-Peter, and what worked for a while proved unsustainable. Results make it easy to argue that it was the way to go for a while. I wonder if a system that might work on club sport might be harder to maintain in international sport (unless you are looking at brief peaks, like Olympics) because you can trade in and out players and look to boost talented underachievers. Eventually Flower's team was driven off the edge of a cliff. He was able to transform a side, for a while, as Fletcher did, but he wasn't able to make a new one as did his compatriot.

I think pitches in England may be a factor in the dearth of fast bowlers. Pitches are getting slower (the Trent Bridge track of last year). Give them surfaces that don't help, quick bowlers will just try something else.

Interesting and persuasive theory on Clarke's retention ensuring the failing hierarchy below him.

Good insightful, well written piece. Wouldn't look out of place in a cricket magazine.

[Making_Splinters]

England just need to stop focusing on the buisness of cricket and get back to focusing on the cricket itself.

[rich1uk]

the start of that kinda agrees with something I said about flower and his methods awhile ago

at the time flower took over his style of micro-management was needed , putting in place that professional structure and organisation to the group of players he took over was necessary and it worked in the short term

problem was instead of recognising when the structure was working and relaxing it as the team grew and became familiar with that style he seemingly continued the levels of micro-management into other areas and soon it became counter-productive imo

I get the impression he tried to adopt a similar style that dave brailsford had for british cycling and the marginal gains style, the theory being if you can make lots of little improvements In every area then they would make the difference in the odd second here and there which in turn made the differences between silvers and golds. an example I remember being talked about was how important sleep was for the cyclists in recovery from fatigue and that when travelling around and sleeping in unfamiliar environments it affected sleep patterns. so to help with that they started taking the same type of pillows and bedding around that the cyclists used at home to try and create as comfortable an environment as possible.

my problem was that type of strategy of marginal gains works in cycling where physical strength, endurance and recovery are the key factors, whereas in cricket whilst they are important, basic skillsets are the key and that marginal gains approach is of limited value in improving skills

[Making_Splinters]

If you look at Cook's recent comments about the World Cup, that tells you all you need to know about the atmosphere that has been fostered within the England side.