"People are looking for lads who can bowl accurately when we should be looking for athletes who can fling the ball down the other end, even if they are as erratic as anything."
Sunday 24 December 2017 08:36, UK
"We don't have that extra pace."
England assistant coach Paul Farbrace summed up the gaping hole in his side's bowling attack pretty succinctly after Steve Smith and Mitchell Marsh pummelled it in Perth on Saturday.
Australia seamer Mitchell Starc then showed how speed can kill on Sunday when he smashed James Vince's off-stump with a 90mph ripsnorter.
So, why are England not producing quicks and how can they change that? Former Kent batsman and Sky Sports Cricket expert Rob Key reveals his blueprint…
FOCUS ON FAST AT YOUTH LEVEL
County cricket does not suit fast bowlers, Steve Finn has come out and said it, but I think you have to look before that, because it's not like every county has a lot of fast bowlers in their squad and are only not playing them because the ball is nipping around on green tops.
You have to look at age-group cricket, where I think we go about it the wrong way. People are looking for lads who can bowl accurately when we should be looking for athletes who can fling the ball down the other end, even if they are as erratic as anything.
That way you encourage them, get them into your system early and help them get fitter, stronger and quicker. At that age, we shouldn't be preoccupied with winning games of cricket - your remit should be to find something exceptional.
If you have pace, and potentially height as well, you can become more accurate but if you haven't got the speed to start with, it's hard then to find it. Kent, for example, have lots of medium-pace bowlers who do very well in age-group cricket but then don't get anywhere beyond that - I can't remember the last time Kent produced an out-and-out quick bowler.
PRODUCE BETTER COUNTY PITCHES
Do we want to be strong at home where it seams and swings around and the ball does more than any other, or do we want to produce cricketers who can play on flat pitches?
It's no surprise to me that Craig Overton has looked at home in Test cricket in Australia because he plays for Somerset at Taunton, which is the flattest pitch on the county circuit. He has learnt to bowl on the sort of tracks he will face away from home in international cricket.
This game in Perth has been compulsive viewing because pace is in the game - courage has had to come into a batsman's armoury which is not always the case. Slow pitches are the death of cricket, you want to see fast, bouncy ones, which will force counties to look for pace. We have to create an environment where having pace is a must.
I watched one day of Kent's four-day cricket last year, against Leicestershire, and I reckon 75 per cent of the balls were bowled with the keeper stood up to the stumps. If those bowlers are successful, then there is no necessity for counties to go looking for faster bowlers.
MIRROR INTERNATIONAL CRICKET
The heavy roller has been taken out of county cricket - I thought that was a poor move. In Tests, the medium pacers might have a chance on the first day but then they are out of the game once the heavy roller comes into play and you are then looking to your taller, faster bowlers and your spinners to do something.
I remember a game we did live on Sky before an Ashes series, Essex versus England. Essex's pitches used to be green seamers, perfect for David Masters, at 68mph, but England didn't want one of those, they wanted a flat one.
The best two bowlers were guys who couldn't get a game normally in four-day cricket, Tymal Mills and Tom Craddock.
Craddock, a leg-spinner, got five wickets and Mills, who now can't play four-day cricket due to his back condition, impressed as well. Those are the pitches we want, ones that will give something to the quicks and spinners and help them take the next step.
SCHEDULING AND MONEY
The county cricket scheduling is a nightmare with different formats to fit in!
In a perfect world you'd have less four-day cricket - I've always been keen on a three-division system. I've also always thought that 10 games was enough and that could help these guys keep their pace up, though it wouldn't be as much of a grind if they were playing on faster pitches.
Money is also a factor. My daughter has just got into youth cricket and it is going to cost us the best part of £1,500 this winter and summer, so you've to make it accessible to everyone. Some of these fast bowlers were are so desperately seeking will come from underprivileged backgrounds.
If the costs are too high, then you will miss out on a whole demographic of people. You need everyone to be able to have a go.
Then, perhaps in somewhere like inner-London, you might unearth a quick bowler who might otherwise go off to football, basketball, rugby or whatever. We have to cast the net as wide as possible.
CUT LOUGHBOROUGH SOME SLACK
I don't think you can blame the guys at the ECB Performance Centre in Loughborough too much for our lack of pacemen as I have always seen that place as more of a finishing school, it's down to the counties to unearth the talent and then Loughborough to hone it.
"I don’t think you can blame the guys at the ECB Performance Centre in Loughborough too much. People aren't going there bowling 90mph and coming out bowling 82."
There will be the odd success story and the odd failure from the Performance Center but it's not like we've got hundreds of quicks going there. People aren't going there bowling 90mph and coming out bowling 82.
Counties are rewarded for bringing through players but there should be a premium for the type of players you nurture and, right now, that's fast bowlers.
There is a decent battery of young, quick lads around at the moment - George Garton at Sussex, Jamie Overton at Somerset, Josh Tongue at Worcestershire and, someone I hear is the quickest of the lot, Tom Barber at Middlesex. They might go for runs but also have wicket-taking ability.
Starc is like that - and you'd take him all day long!
