England's Ashes defeat: It’s time to rebuild cricket in this country
As a former ECB cricket coach and a Warwickshire cricket fan of many years, I am disappointed that England lost the Ashes at the earliest opportunity at the third test in Perth, Australia.
Today we can enjoy live coverage of events thanks to the superb technical advances in televised sport. One thing is harder to observe and analyse is what led up to this debacle.
For what its worth, I suggest players are categorised into ‘one-day or T20’ specialists too early in their careers.
County game statistics on batting and bowling are ignored in selection. Local clubs do not extend an inclusive welcome in their communities to everyone who wants to play cricket.
As with all sports, some years have a better vintage than others. Today England have no quick bowlers, mediocre spinners and few class batsmen but sometimes the team can still win. Not on this tour.
I hope the younger squad members will be given a chance to shine. We need to move on from defeat and build a new team. Basically we have two ‘demonstration matches’ left in the Ashes series.
We may as well win them or the start to 2018 will be very flat indeed for cricket followers.
Cllr Doug James
Walsall
