England’s rebuild after dire Ashes tour following Joe Root’s scathing criticism

ECB chief executive Tom Harrison has admitted there is a “very clear” need for a “reset” following England ‘s 4-0 defeat to Australia in the Ashes.

England lost the series inside 12 days and their batting line-up regularly collapsed, with Joe Root ‘s side failing to reach 300 in ten attempts throughout the series.

Although England’s bowlers acquitted themselves much better than the batters, there are still lingering concerns.

James Anderson and Stuart Broad cannot keep going forever, Chris Woakes has failed to improve his overseas record, England clearly do not trust Jack Leach as their frontline spinner and concerns persist over Ollie Robinson’s endurance.

There was also a distinct lack of genuine pace. Mark Wood bowled brilliantly all series but was the only fit pacer, with Olly Stone and Jofra Archer dealing with long-term injury problems.

Wood himself has had his fair share of injury struggles and something clearly needs to be done to better protect those bowlers capable of consistently reaching 90mph+.

So what can be done? Well, Root has a clear of idea what the major issues are and laid bare his criticisms of first-class cricket in full following the final Ashes Test.

When asked what needs to change, Root said any success England have in Test cricket is “in spite of county cricket, not because of county cricket”.

The first issue Root highlighted was the standard of pitches in the domestic game, something which has long been a source of debate.

“What incentives in county cricket right now are there to open the batting?” Root questioned. “What incentives are there to be a spinner? And what incentives are there to bowl fast?

“There don’t seem to be many, whether you look at the first-innings average scores of 250 or whatever they are, how short the games last.

“Anyone that’s coming into this Test team at the minute is doing it in spite of county cricket, not because of county cricket. There are definitely things that need to change. You look at some of the young batters: when have they had the opportunity to go out with 450, 500 on the board and deal with scoreboard pressure?

“You don’t practice it in county cricket. The only time they’re exposed to it is in this environment. When have they had to go out to save a game against a turning ball in spinning conditions?

“They’ve never been exposed to it. And yet we’re expected to go to the subcontinent and win games against the best spinners in the world. We’re expected to come here and deal with pace and bounce when we might face one guy who bowls over 90mph a season.

“It’s a big thing for young guys to do without any experience or any exposure to it. So how can we encourage that? What changes can be made? We need to produce better wickets.”

“How are we going to do that? Hopefully by playing at a better time of the year. By flattening the seam on the ball. Maybe giving our seamers the opportunity to bowl with a Kookaburra ball.

“We could double the batting bonus points, too. There are a number of things that I think we can do quite quickly to give our guys a better opportunity to ready themselves for this environment.

“And obviously it will nullify running in and bowling at 70mph. It will encourage guys to try and create new angles, be either more consistent or find a different way of taking wickets, and it will give spinners an opportunity to bowl in the first half of the season.”

Root’s criticism of pitches has been echoed by the likes of Moeen Ali, Rob Key and Michael Atherton.

So, how can we ensure the standard of pitches is improved?

First of all, we can reduce the number of fixtures played and allow ground staff to curate better surfaces. Currently, each side plays a minimum of 15 games at home across all competitions during the season.

That number increases if a side makes the knockout stages of the One Day Cup or the T20 Blast or if they are one of the counties which hosts a Hundred franchise or England fixtures.

Although some games are played at outgrounds, that is still a lot of pitches that ground staff have to prepare and it is no wonder that the standard has come in for criticism.

Hampshire chair Rod Bransgrove has proposed a move to three divisions of six teams, with each county playing ten first-class games instead of the current 14, and that would be a smart move.

It would allow ground staff to create better pitches simply by decreasing the number they would need to prepare in the first place, but also provide enough game time for players to truly impress.

Another issue that needs to be addressed is the way the County Championship has been marginalised in favour of white-ball cricket.

Last season, the first round of County Championship fixtures took place in early April and the final first-class game, the Bob Willis Trophy Final, finished in October.

There was also just three rounds of fixtures played in June and July, with the peak summer months instead reserved for the One-Day Cup, T20 Blast and The Hundred.

The ECB have attempted to address the issue with more County Championship matches scheduled for June and July this year and that is a promising first step.

However, Atherton feels that a “shorter, more condensed, more high-quality competition” will allow players to “make that step up to Test cricket more easily” and the three division proposal could provide that.

“I just don’t think it’s strong and competitive enough right now for a lot of reasons,” Atherton told Sky Sports. “18 teams, talent spread quite thin, number of matches played at tricky times of the season.

“A shorter, more condensed, more high-quality competition would, in the end, allow the best players to come through and those best players should then be able to make that step up to Test cricket more easily.”

Moeen also feels there are simply too many games and that more should be played at the height of summer.

“I would actually reduce the games in Championship cricket, but I’d play them at the right time when the wickets are good, the sun is out,” he told BT Sport. “I think it will make a big difference.”

There are also clear issues with those in charge of English cricket. Harrison, the man who thinks there is a “very clear” need for a “reset”, has been the ECB’s chief executive for the past seven years.

Having overseen English cricket during that time it is clear he needs to go, not only due to England’s struggles on the field but also the off-field issues they are facing in the wake of the Azeem Rafiq racism scandal and the ECB’s lack of action.

Sir Andrew Strauss stepped down as England’s managing director in 2018 due to his wife’s battle with lung cancer, but during his stint in the role he helped spearhead the white-ball cricket reset which led to England’s 2019 World Cup win.

As someone with experience in an executive role and one who is greatly respected by the cricket community, Strauss needs to be back involved with English cricket in a position where he can effect real change.

Michael Vaughan has tipped him to become the new ECB chair, while Atherton believes he should replace Harrison.

Ashley Giles, who took over as England’s managing director after Strauss stepped down, is also under pressure.

His decision to get rid of a national selector and give head coach Chris Silverwood the role instead was a poor one and his insistence that England need one head coach to focus on all three formats also looks poor in hindsight and appears to be born from his own struggles as England white-ball coach between 2012 and 2014.

It seems clear that you cannot have the coach as chief selector and, given the amount of games England play, two coaches to focus on red and white ball cricket is an obvious move.

Both Giles and Silverwood should go, with the national selector role restored and the coaching role split between red and white ball cricket.

Gary Kirsten is an obvious frontrunner to take the helm in Test cricket, given his previous success with India and South Africa and his desire to takeover.

In white ball cricket, a coach like Stephen Fleming, Mahela Jayawardene or even a returning Trevor Bayliss would be excellent appointments.

As far as Giles’ replacement goes, former England head coach Andy Flower seems like an obvious candidate, having briefly stood in for Strauss before he decided to step down.

Like Strauss, Flower is highly respected within English cricket and helped mastermind England’s 2010-11 Ashes win Down Under and their ascent to the top of the ICC Test rankings.

Away from the fundamental structure of the domestic first-class game and those in charge of English cricket, former England assistant coach Paul Farbrace has been particularly critical of the way young batters are getting coached, labelling it “lazy”.

“I think we’ve got too many batsmen in county cricket that have got techniques that are flawed,” Farbrace told Cricbuzz . “There’s too many quirky techniques in English cricket, people have got too quirky and too funky.

“You know this idea of batting on off-stump, bats coming down from gully with three or four movements before the ball is bowled. And there’s too many people that haven’t got the temperament to want to bat for long periods of time.

“I think our coaching has got lazy in the last few years. Coaching in England has gone away from instilling basics in young players to actually saying, ‘Play your game, play the way you want to play’. It’s a cop out because coaches are not being strong enough. They’re not working hard enough to instil the basics in our young players, and as I say, there are too many players at the age of 15, 16, the techniques ingrained into them are not good enough.

Coaches have let them get away with it because they want to be their friend, they want to be nice to them and they want to encourage them to hit the ball well.”

It is clear there are plenty of fundamental issues affecting England’s Test fortunes but, there is no easy fix.

It will take a lot of time for any meaningful change to take effect and, while there certainly appears to be a willingness among those in the game to make changes, whether that actually comes to fruition remains to be seen.