Money-obsessed ECB is killing our ability to breed Test players

Ruling body does not care about long form of game and must take the blame for this debacle

There have been so many dire – that is to say, woefully unprofessional – England batting performances in the last couple of years that they tend, in the minds of those of us who follow Test cricket, to merge into each other. Nothing is certain in life but the rule that when one England player gets out three or four others (at least) seem rapidly to follow is now so well established that it has almost become part of the constitution.

The match that was put out of its misery with remarkable speed at Lord’s yesterday will, however, stick in the memory and distinguish itself painfully from the others. Yes, England had a dire winter – and, indeed, had dropped their guard somewhat in the last home series, against the West Indies in September last year – but that was because there is (we were told) a peculiar problem with them adapting to overseas conditions (a rule that applies as much to the subcontinent, the Cape and the Caribbean, it seems, as it does to the Antipodes). At home we know what we are doing, so beating the Pakistanis at Lord’s ought to be a foregone conclusion.

The difficulties Pakistan encountered in Malahide when playing the inaugural Test against Ireland made it all the more likely England would triumph. Yet it was not to be: indeed, in terms of England’s self-regard, it is as well we are not playing Ireland in the next few weeks, because only a fool would bet on our winning.

After every debacle it is solemnly promised by the England establishment that they will “go away and think deeply” about what has gone wrong and how to put it right. But they do not.

In his post-match interviews, Jonathan Agnew, the BBC’S cricket correspondent, suggested to Trevor Bayliss, the England coach, that many aspects of the side’s play were baffling. When “Aggers” cited the almost random field placings, Bayliss seemed unabashed and tried, limply, to defend such experimentalism. He sounded disengaged and without a clue of what he was trying to do.

This vacuity has a terrible impact on the whole team but on no one more than Joe Root, whose captaincy has become a cruel and unusual punishment for himself

It is as well we are not playing Ireland in the next weeks as only a fool would bet on our winning

and, indeed, the rest of us. Since Mike Brearley is not available, I can see no benefit in Root being replaced; but someone else must take responsibility for the implosion of the team’s confidence and their sheer inability to play long-form cricket. That person, or institution, is the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Poor old Root, to whom Agnew put the perceptive and sensible question about the side’s lack of first-class match practice compared with the Pakistanis’, replied that he thought it was not an issue: that most in the side had played two championship matches before the Test, and they had some well-structured practice sessions.

Yet there is no substitute for experience in the middle, where players can top up their batting, bowling and (not least) fielding skills in a properly competitive environment. And if anyone thinks two matches is sufficient preparation, that suggests a hold on reality or a complacency that is frighteningly overwhelming.

Five rounds of championship matches happened before the Test. One might have thought it was arranged thus to give players the chance to have thorough match practice and get into form before playing for England. However, the fixtures were arranged to feed the ECB’S obsession with money, and to clear high summer for yet more short-form competitions which, as the ECB seems to think, are designed largely for people who do not like cricket anyway.

The ECB simply does not care about long-form cricket. That England should suffer this memorable thrashing directly after the much-ridiculed announcement about a 100-ball competition was painfully appropriate. We know what the ECB’S priorities are: and the Lord’s result occurred because it is now clear what the ECB’S priorities are not.

The ludicrous stroke Ben Stokes got out to in England’s second innings exemplified what happens when players are focused on the short game. They cannot adapt to Test cricket. Jos Buttler talked of his return as something that delighted him, but which was almost incidental to the mighty game from which he had just come, the Indian Premier League.

The hearts, and minds, of too many of our men are not in long-form cricket. The public’s still are, though, as shown by the gate at Lord’s on the first three days. But if this goes on they will not be for much longer.

The ECB is killing the County Championship and as a result it is killing our ability to breed Test cricketers. Soon the empty houses around the world will be here too. The authorities have been warned: not just the ECB, where senior personnel changes and radical reform are vital, but also their stooges in the MCC, the owners of Lord’s, whose obeisance to the ECB’S ideas are signing the club’s death warrant.