England's data with disaster
It’s possible to feel sorry for Chris Silverwood, a leaf trapped in a tornado. Even when he said there were “positives” to take from England’s soul-grating defeat in Melbourne, such gibberish could almost be excused on the basis that the phrase is practically mandatory among England coaches at such times. What was more damning was when he was asked if the players were responding to his methods and he replied that he thought they were. Sadly, that’s probably the problem.
Two years in the job, Silverwood obviously can’t be blamed for the endemic structural failures™ of English cricket. The depressing thing is looking at who has been in charge of developing players during this sorry period leading up to when the Test team’s batting techniques melted into puddles of comedy. Andy Flower was the ECB’s Technical Director of Elite Coaching from 2014-2019 with specific responsibility for a Lions team Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope and Haseeb Hameed all played for. It’s also hard to square Flower’s justifiable prominence at the ECB with Rob Johnston’s excellent piece on how coaches at all levels have let the fundamentals be overtaken by the funky.
Flower obviously can’t control what local junior coaches bark, or rather now don’t bark, from behind the nets and nor was it his job to do so. But it seems odd someone as obsessed with technique and discipline as Flower has been present at Loughborough during this time when both qualities have so declined in general. It would be fascinating to hear him, as the architect of one of England’s most astounding triumphs, dissect what has now happened eleven years later. His claim when Silverwood took up the coach’s role that he would do a “terrific job” was obviously again something people have to say. It would be good to know if Flower, now out of the ECB set-up, genuinely meant it.
Even the actual positives in English cricket are laced with glumness. Mo Bobat was the ECB’s Player Identification Lead from 2016-2019 before taking up his current role as Performance Director for Men’s Cricket since 2019. At a time when accusations of jobs for the boys feature prominently, it should be noted that Bobat, a former PE teacher, has done the hard yards coming from outside international cricket. He is probably the personification of what England’s hierarchy needs more of, someone from a more diverse background who uses analytics as a means of shaping things. He was a driving force in England’s white ball planning leading up to the World Cup win. He is plainly a deep-thinking and intelligent man.
The problem is that there seems to be gaping yet unnoticed holes in the monitoring and coaching of development of players under his watch, too. The excellent Cricket Podcast highlighted how even a customary glance at Ollie Pope’s First Class stats have long revealed the vast difference between his ability against spin compared to pace. Pope himself is also self-aware and clued in. So how is it possible a player earmarked for so long as a bedrock of England’s middle order has not had such a fundamental weakness worked on, at least to the extent where he doesn’t look like he’s batting on hot coals, with a bit of coal, whenever Lyon has the ball in hand? More broadly, how does a tour happen where a seamer ends up bowling off-spin? Indeed, how does this chaos unfurl so seamlessly?
Again, it would be interesting to hear Bobat’s take on things as well as Silverwood’s. There is little point in public flagellation, but England fans are this time probably more bemused rather than angry at how it has come to this. A little explanation from those behind the scenes but high up the chain might not go amiss.
Another seemingly uplifting facet of the tour can also be unmasked as just more misery. The man who possibly bought the word “data” into the cricketing mainstream, Peter Moores, has since leaving the head coach job a second time quietly been winning trophies but also resurrecting careers. Alastair Cook made pains to namecheck him as important to England regaining the Ashes in 2015, citing his ability to develop players. England could probably do a lot worse than restore him to some sort of cricketer whisperer role in the set-up. The cloud to this silver lining is that Moores is the man who rebuilt Haseeb Hameed’s career at Nottingham. This isn’t meant as a trite jibe against either, or that putting back together a broken player so they become an efficient county performer again isn’t an achievement. It clearly is. But it highlights that even one of the most respected coaches in the game working intensely with one of the brightest young talents can still end up with them looking technically hapless at the absolute elite level.
Analytics has changed everything in cricket, even how journalists and pundits now have to talk and write about it. It’s because organisations like Cricviz and prominent individuals like Dan Weston can dispel hunches with numbers. Amateur video analysts on Twitter pick up technical quirks and faults before the professionals. Even the most brilliant writers have altered how they communicate the game. This feeds through to supporters as well. England’s might just about tolerate the underperformance in Australia with which they are very well acquainted. What they find unacceptable is being told how forensically planned this tour was over a period of years then seeing it turn into a murder scene. Platitudes about positives from a beleaguered coach are just not sufficient any more in the current age, if they ever were. The England set-up doesn’t just need to look at the data, it needs to front up and explain to supporters how they used it.