In wake of a series loss in India where he saw his teammates and himself undergoing a serious trial by Indian spinners, England skipper Joe Root has suggested sweeping changes in the structure of the English County Cricket.
The changes, Root believes, will bring a significant change in the attitude and mindset of players who are rising through the ranks of County Cricket and are on tier way to represent England on the international stage.
He advocated the preparation of pitches less conducive to pace bowling and the uses of surfaces that will allow all players to have a chance with the ball and also bat. He said curators should focus on preparing pitches that can allow players to play well and extend games to four days where spinners can also come into the picture.
He went on to say that producing such pitches, will allow players to bat on flatter surfaces after oppositions’ score of 450 runs or more while spinners will learn to bowl in different conditions in the first and second innings where the level of help off the pitch will vary significantly.
"I do think that there are areas of county cricket that can be improved - quite easily as well. They need to find ways of making games last four days, giving spinners the opportunity to bowl and learning to bowl at different stages of the game. They need to learn to hold the game in the first innings if it's not spinning and things are not in your favour so they can give the seamers some respite. Then they need to be able to attack and to really deal with that pressure of trying to bowl a side out,” Root said in the post-match conference after a series loss to India.
"It's not just spin, it's seam as well, and the batting group. For example, you want guys to come into this environment of Test cricket and have that knowledge of what it's like to go out in the second innings and know the opposition have 450 on the board.
"They need to be able to ignore that scoreboard pressure, put it to the back of their mind and get a score. And to go beyond another team's score to make sure you're massively in the game when it comes to the second innings.
"It's the same with the seamers. You want them to have a range of skills that can exploit flat wickets. Can they change their angles round? Can they go up and down the gears in terms of pace? Have they got a five-over spell in terms of short-pitched bowling?"
Apart from the nature of pitches, Root also advocated the change in the system of awarding points in County Cricket. Currently, teams get a whole 16 points for each outright win, while a draw fetches them mere five points.
Such a gulf in rewards tempt county teams into producing pitches that produce results, but Root sees it differently and believes that this aspect of the game does not allow batsmen or bowler into growing skills to bat or bowl for long hours. He insisted that a draw must be made appealing for county teams if England have to develop pacers who can bowl long spells on flat pitches, and batsmen who will be hungrier for runs having accustomed to spending long hours at the crease in domestic cricket.
"If draws are more appealing, because of the amount of points on offer, it might improve our situation slightly. They're all the things that will improve the game and Test cricket for England in the long run if the games go longer,” Root added.
This is not the first instance when Root has openly said about the sweeping changes the county cricket needs to make in order to produce prepared talents for English cricket. Earlier last year, Root advocated the use of Kookaburra balls—which all other countries, except England use in Test cricket.
England use Duke balls in their home conditions and it has a pronounced seam that does not get lots for a long period fo time and assist seamers in extracting swing in the air and seam movement off the pitch. Root said that bowling with Kookaburra balls, which lose the hard seam very early, will enable England seamers with an opportunity to learn on overseas tours where they will be needed to bowl with older balls without a pronounced seam.
“I would like to see a few big changes in county cricket to benefit the Test team. There are things we won't be able to change, like when the games are going to be played. That is going to be a struggle with the Hundred coming in and T20 Blast not moving. But things like using the Kookaburra ball for half a season. It is a flat seam, does not stay as hard for as long, so our bowlers get used to bowling with something that does not do as much. Batters get used to that style of cricket, which can be slow and attritional at times,” Root had said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
England lost the four-match Test series against India although they had made a great start to the series defeating India in the first Test. India replied with three strong performances from spinners on surfaces conducive to spin bowling as England batsmen could not cope with the spinning balls from the hands of Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel.