On last night’s show following our revealing interview on the state of the game in England with Doug Steward from Hip Cricket, John Lee made an interesting observation on the development of players.
His view was that cricket has things back to front when it comes to bringing players through, and the more you think about it he could well be right.
Rather than introducing players to the game via T20 and the one day game, wouldn’t the game be better served making players play the longer version of the game first where they can establish a good technique and learn to build an innings? Then introduce them to the shorter versions of the game, where with a good technique they will be able to hit through the line of the ball effectively, and improvise occasionally.
Another point that was raised was how children are being restricted in the number of overs they are allowed to bowl. We are then surprised when they step up a level and suffer injuries. If you ensure that a young bowler’s technique is good, then the more he bowls the stronger he will become and the less likely he is to break down.
It would appear that the cotton-wool approach is in fact proving detrimental to the game and maybe some of the ways things were done in the past were not all bad.
