[ad_1]
Nothing gets the juices flowing like a good old debate about selection. Everyone has an opinion. And everybody tends to think that they’re right and absolutely everyone else is wrong. It boils the blood and turns even mild-mannered people into a Geoff Boycott or Fred Truman at the drop of a hat. “Not five ruddy seamers again”!
Selection is a particularly thorny issue in cricket. There might be the odd debate in football about whether to employ a back four or a back five, and rugby connoisseurs will always argue about the best balance in midfield or in the back row, but cricket is unique due to the importance of genuine all-rounders and / or keepers who can bat. Woe betide the side that goes into a Test with too much batting and too little bowling – or in England’s recent history too much bowling of the wrong kind and too few batsmen who can actually bat.
Selecting a team that can score enough runs whilst fielding a ‘balanced’ attack with pace, swing, seam and spin isn’t an easy challenge. And then there’s the perennial debate about whether to pick five or four bowlers. I’ve personally always been in the five bowlers camp but I’ve got friends that I (begrudgingly) respect who swear blind that 4 specialist bowlers is more than enough because the 5th bowler rarely bowls enough anyway to justify his place. Tell that to Simon Jones. Ahem.
It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that England cricket selectors tend to get it in the neck more than most. And some of them have ridiculed as much as England football managers over the years. Back in the 1980s, the cricket media all but picked the team . But since then we’ve had the good (Geoff Miller), the bad (Fraser and Newell), the eccentric (Ed Smith), and the outright bonkers (Ted Dexter). And some of us still hold grudges against them that go back years. David Graveney, for example, mostly did a decent job but I’ll never forgive him for selecting Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen over Graham Thorpe in 2005 (they should’ve left out Bell). I don’t care that it’s since been revealed that Duncan Fletcher made this decision. Graveney’s name is still mud in the Morgan household.
Despite this, however, I’d still absolutely love to be a selector myself. Being paid to watch cricket, and not even have to write a report at the end of the day, would be living the dream. Enduring the misplaced wrath of thousands of England supporters when we lose 6-0 to Australia in a five match series would therefore be a price I’d happily pay. Although – I must admit – that the rise of T20 (a third form of the game), Covid bubbles, and a packed schedule that necessitates more rest and rotation makes the job harder than ever.
So what’s the recipe to selection success? Everyone has their theories. Some believe that you simply pick the most talented players available, irrespective of format, and trust their ability to figure things out. This is the philosophy that saw Jos Buttler amass 57 Test caps . One the other hand, some believe that cricket (especially Test cricket) requires specialist skills and you don’t need to be particularly good at all formats to excel in one of them. See Alastair Cook’s 161 Test caps.
Personally, however, I think selectors should keep an open mind rather than subscribe to one particular methodology. It’s perfectly possible for players to excel in all formats – just look at New Zealand’s current XI – or struggle in Test matches but light it up in T20s like Jason Roy. At the end of the day, most players have their foibles or idiosyncrasies and it’s up to the selectors to figure out what works best. This obviously involves some trial and error.
The one thing that can help selectors, however, and increase their chances of identifying players who can step up to international cricket, is researching a player’s character. Are they strong mentally? Do they work hard? Do they know what success takes? After all , Test cricket in particular is 50% mental. It’s why the aforementioned Cook scored 8,500 more runs than the aforementioned Buttler despite being less ‘talented’.
I’ve always been a big believer that selectors should choose hard-working players who are mentally tough – mostly due to my intolerance of flaky dismissals. That’s why I was pleased to come across this interview with cricketing legend, and new West Indies head selector , Desmond Haynes on Betway Insider. He gave the following answer when asked what he’s looking for in players:
“You look at the character of the players, you look at the way they’re committed to training and cricket in general … players should always try to be knowledgeable about the game, try to seek information, try to pick the brains of some of the legends and some of the senior players … they should understand the game and be students of the game”.
I thought this response was really interesting. Rather than just repeating the usual clichés about picking “street fighters” who “won’t back down from a challenge” it was instructive to hear a former (brilliant) batsman stressing how important it is to be a student of the game. One wonders whether this is where England have gone so wrong in recent years. After all, how times have our batsmen got out to poor shots that show a complete misunderstanding of the match situation?
It was also interesting to hear Haynes’s view on the usefulness of statistics – a topic we’ve obviously talked about many times on TFT. The data available to selectors is quite mindboggling these days. So much so, in fact, that we’ve wondered whether England have suffered from paralysis from over-analysis. Here’s what Haynes makes of it all:
“It’s good to find out about their stats, though, because if they have struggled against spin or the swinging ball, or whatever the case may be, I obviously have to also take that into consideration … statistics are important, but as I said to you before, it’s about identifying the talent and looking at the person. I always go back to the character”
This seems pretty sensible to me. Use statistics but don’t overuse them. Segmenting data is obviously important, too. An overall career average can actually be a bit misleading. It’s when a player scores runs and against who that really matters.
Overall, however, I do wonder whether it’s possible to analyse selection too much. It is, after all, an art rather than a science. For example, can statistics or any pre-determined methodology determine precisely how many chances to give a particular player ? A selector might think that glory for his pet-project is just around the corner for years. But there’s no guarantee that it will ever come. Meanwhile, certain picks may be given a far shorter rope but succeed straight away against all expectations.
My overall feeling, therefore, is that selection is part science, part gut feel, and, if we’re being honest, part luck. However, selectors can increase their chances of success by delving into a player’s character and using statistics judiciously to see if there’s evidence to support their hunches. I’m sure that Duncan Fletcher, for example, knew a fair bit about Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan when he plucked them from relative obscurity despite underwhelming county records.
But even if a selector does all the right things, and is therefore far more qualified than any armchair critic to pick the right squads, we should probably still accept that his chances of selecting numerous duds are still pretty high. Why? Let me give you an example from another sport.
The 32 NFL franchises put enormous resources into college scouting before the annual draft. They use more data than ever before, employ numerous scouts, watch exhaustive amounts of film on prospects, electronically track every movement a player makes on the field, interview candidates at length , dig extensively into their character by talking to current coaches and teammates, and even have their own algorithms designed to predict which players will become future stars. And yet as many as 20% of first round draft selections turn out to be ‘busts’. And over 70% of players chosen in the 6th round or later fail to make it in the pros.
So good luck, Desmond. And good luck to whoever succeeds Chris Silverwood. You’re going to need it.
James Morgan
Related
[ad_2]
Source link
