Bob Willis calls on counties to produce a greater pool of talent for England as he answers your queries.
More home-grown talent needed if England are to improve, says Bob
The English domestic season may be drawing to a close but the cricket continues to come thick and fast on
Sky Sports.
On Sunday, I'm off to South Africa ahead of the start of the ICC Champions Trophy so now seems to be as good as ever to answer some of your questions.
As usual, there are plenty of issues to wade through ranging from England's dire one-day form to the latest developments in county cricket including the Professional Cricket Association's recent survey of players' views, which made fascinating reading.
Thanks for all your questions and keep them coming, either by emailing in or filling in the feedback form below...
Burnout issue
Hi Bob, why do England always go into 'freefall' when they win the Ashes? We have only had them 3 weeks and already the one day side has been crushed and heading for a 7-0 thrashing. Ravi Bopara is mentally disintegrated. the captain is saying "no need to panic" and the coach is declining interviews. Strauss, Collingwood, Anderson, Swann, and Prior all look knackered! And after this they have got to get themselves up for the Champions Trophy! When is someone at the top going to have the sense to say enough is enough. From after the ICC trophy they should pick separate squads for one day and tests as its the only sensible way to go to avoid "burn out" and lost series. Either you play one form of the game or the other but not both! Why not do something different as mixing the squads just doesn't work. Will, Horsham
BOB REPLIES: Well, Will, player burnout is an issue - Giles Clark and Andy Flower have admitted as much. The guys are very well paid and have to play a lot of cricket but they can't raise a gallop at the moment. I don't have much sympathy with them even though they've had two sets of back-to-back Ashes Test matches this summer. It is now possible to play cricket virtually 12 months a year but if they were able to resist the IPL then they would have some rest periods, wouldn't they? Several Australians and Stuart Broad decided to go down that road and that should be a message to England. Andrew Flintoff's and Kevin Pietersen's injuries were either caused or exacerbated by their IPL appearances when they should have been resting after the tour of the West Indies. I'd like the players' contracts to be more appearance and performance related, rather than just a huge, flat fee for having a central contract.
As for separate squads, I don't think it's a runner. The fact of the matter is that England don't have enough good international players to put together two squads. This one-day side is inadequate and Test players like Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott clearly need to be in this 50-over party, while Ravi Bopara, Owais Shah and Eoin Morgan may have to drop out of it.
Gambhir's great
Bob - love your column and just wanted to get your thoughts on who would be your ICC cricketer of the year? I think Andrew Strauss along with Mitchell Johnson. As in the Ashes, there's only one winner there in my book! And what about Graham Onions for emerging player of the year? Terry Noble, Wigan
BOB REPLIES: Terry, I'm pleased to say I'm one of the judges so you've come to the right man! The voting period finished near enough on the last day of the Ashes series so Andrew Strauss' cause won't be tarnished by the recent one-day shambles, although of course his own NatWest Series performances have been reasonable. Strauss makes a strong case after an impressive year of Test cricket and the same could be said of Mitchell Johnson after his performances earlier in the year against South Africa, but despite the number of wickets he took in the Ashes I'm sure the standard of his displays this summer will count against him.
Gautam Gambhir has had a virtually faultless year for India. He's forced his way into that team of celebrities, if you like, and been a revelation and hardly put a foot wrong so I would make him a very strong contender. I'd like to see the Indians concentrating more on Test cricket and once the IPL becomes part of their fabric that India can be persuaded to emphasis Test cricket and return it to the traditional venues because I think they would get better support there than they would in the outposts. I think they have 27 international venues - we've got too many with nine, so you can see how difficult it must be to keep everybody happy.
I'm a big fan of Graham Onions but I would doubt whether he will win the emerging player award. Ben Hilfenhaus had a marvellous Ashes series and I would put him in front of Peter Siddle and Jesse Ryder. My order would be: Hilfenhaus, Onions, Siddle and Ryder.
Money trap
Hi Bob, As a seasoned county fan of a certain vintage, I can't say I'm surprised by the recent PCA report showing only 11 per cent of players have faith in the ECB's leadership so full credit to Vikram Solanki for putting his neck on the block. What do you make of the PCA's call for a Professional Game Board and also, why do you think so many players - a staggering 83 per cent - want the 50-over format retained at domestic level? Must admit, that did surprise me a bit. Graham Forest, Preston
BOB REPLIES: Graham, the Professional Game Board is the worst name I've ever heard! It sounds like a poker school to me! The PCA are in a little bit of a cleft stick, because they have a major say in the commercial aspects of the England team and earn them an awful lot of money but the rest of the membership are somewhat neglected. But once again the ECB votes for 40-over cricket, while the ECB's cricket committee and the players vote for 50-over cricket. It's always the financial men who win the day, so we just go around in circles and we arrive back in 1969 starting a 40-over Sunday League again. Why they want 21 teams, I cannot imagine when 18 is far too many. The reason England have never been the best team in the world is because of the burgeoning drain on the resources of the 18 counties and when you see teams like Somerset and Northampton with more than half of their players unqualified for England, I don't see what service that is to England cricket at all.
Home comforts
Well done to Durham on winning the championship but Bob - what do you think of the lack of home-grown players? It's surely an indictment on development in this country? Terry
BOB REPLIES: I agree with you, Terry. Winning back-to-back titles is a fantastic achievement. I've never been a fan of the bonus point system. Winning matches should be the only criteria and before this week's round of matches Durham have won five more than Somerset, so they are very worth champions. Yes, too many of that team for my liking didn't learn their cricket in this country but at least Durham have provided three England fast bowlers in the last three or four years so they are doing the job there.
In the end, it comes down to the same old conflict: is county cricket there to produce the best England team it can? I think the answer to that should be yes, but the counties don't see it like that. They see it as a self-centred, parochial, members club where they use the England team's resources and finances to put on too much cricket for their small memberships.
Pear-shaped
I'm totally disheartened about the current Worcestershire exodus, Bob. Steven Davies, Gareth Batty - now Kabir Ali could be going. Soon there will be pretty much no-one left! I keep hearing that there will be a salary cap in the domestic game next year. Do you think it will help clubs like mine or are we going to see more a football-style transfer system coming into play where the richest clubs get all the best players? Stuart, by email
BOB REPLIES: I don't think we will end up with a transfer system although we probably should have one in one shape or another. Counties do need to be compensated for producing players for first-class cricket and England. It's absurd that the counties don't get, for example, £250,000 a year for producing an England cricketer - then the other counties would be encouraged to produce players of their own. At present there isn't a big enough incentive.
The downside to salary caps is that people always seem to get around them. They've bandied the figure of £1.8m around but some of the smaller counties won't get anywhere near that. In short, I don't think it is going to disadvantage some of the more wealthy clubs.
I think Surrey's behaviour has been appalling in this. Chris Adams and his management team are just cherry-picking established players, offering them twice their salary because of the mess Surrey are in. As a result you've got county players who clearly past their best who are on similar money to centrally-contracted players. I hear that Surrey are prepared to pay Steven Davies £150,000 per year which, if it's true, is completely ludicrous.
Mice and men
Dear Mr Willis, Don't you think that the Derbyshire Kit is the worst since New Zealand's in the early 1980's? Regards, Tom Nicholls
BOB REPLIES: Yes, Tom, it is a shocker isn't it? It's most definitely the worst I've seen since the 'field mice', as our manager Doug Insole used to call the boys in beige.
In the pink
Dear Mr Willis, I am just listening to your discussion on Sky with regard to the pink cricket ball. Just to let you know that, here in the Netherlands, we have just had our T20 finals day two weeks ago and a pink ball was used even though all matches were played during daytime. I watch cricket a lot all around the world (including the recent historic game of the Netherlands at Lords!) but also to my experienced eye the pink ball is much better to see and I would have thought that it is a great step forward. I thought this might be of interest to you. Kind regards, Steven Hartman
BOB REPLIES: Thanks for your email, Steven. It's not only the colour of the ball that is the issue, it's how it behaves. You want a cricket ball to wear, particularly if it is going to be used in day-night Test matches, what you don't want it to do is hopelessly lose it's colour, which is what the white ball does. That's the dilemma that the ICC has. If poor light and twilight the pink ball is better than the red or white ball, then let's bring it in quickly because far too much time is lost to bad light around the world needlessly. I don't recall too many people getting injured because they've been hit in bad light. These days the umpires take players off at a whim and I think that is wrong.
That said, I think the pink ball has got some way to go yet until it is ready. The MCC is doing more tests overseas to see how the harder, more abrasive wickets treat it. Another consideration which may be of interest is that the cameramen at cricket matches have a black and white viewfinder, so following the ball may prove tougher for them.
