‘Less cricket, higher intensity’: Dawid Malan backs ECB’s cuts to county game
‘Less cricket, higher intensity’: Dawid Malan backs ECB’s cuts to county game. The suggestion by the England and Wales Cricket Board to cut the number of county championship matches has received the unqualified approval of England and Yorkshire batter Dawid Malan.
Malan remarked that it was easy to start feeling like “you’re just going through the motions” when playing county cricket due to the constant stream of games.
Statements
“England’s reign at the top of the Test cricket rankings has been brief.” He continued, “we can’t say that the county system is working if we’ve only been No. 1 in the world for such a short period,” despite the fact that England has produced “several world quality players” in recent years.
Malan thinks the major issue is that players don’t have enough time to practice because of the county arrangement.
There is “no time” for a player to improve, he remarked. The opportunity to train for and prepare for fewer, more intense cricket games would be invaluable.
According to him, “bowlers will be fitter and they will be able to bowl quicker for longer lengths of time, so it will be tougher for the batters” if the sport was regulated in this way.
The 35-year-old, who hit 36 from 35 balls for England in their fifth Twenty20 international loss to Pakistan on Wednesday in Lahore, thinks that the shorter first-class schedule would make it more probable that young players are able to commit to all formats of the sport.
‘Cricket is becoming a year-round sport,’ he declared. “Once a player makes the big leagues with England or has shown promise in white-ball cricket, the six-month game is over for the vast majority of players.”
T20
“Take a look at the young guns like Surrey’s Will Jacks, who has flourished in both the Hundred and the T20 Blast since making his debut.”
The doors are opening wide for him. I’m aware of his desire to play in the Tests, but he’ll be completely spent by the time April rolls around if he continues to perform well this winter, makes the England white-ball teams on a regular basis, and plays in three or four tournaments across the world.
Then in the summer, he has international cricket, the Hundred, and the T20 Blast. There has to be a price paid by players of that caliber.
While Jacks insists on continuing to play Test cricket, Malan predicts that many players in his situation would abandon red-ball cricket. He argued that a more accommodating schedule will encourage more people to play four-day cricket.
Consequently, they require a reasonable amount of time in between games to recharge their batteries and improve their performance.
Declarations
The difficulty lies in it. You don’t want to lose too much cricket, but you also don’t want people to start saying things like, “It’s too much, and I’d rather play XYZ,” because then you’ll be forced to pull your finest young players away from one format.
The Yorkshire players won’t be swayed by Malan’s reasoning, but then, nothing has won over the squad this year. Malan pleaded with fans to be understanding, saying, “It has been a terrible year. Given the circumstances off the field, I suppose that was inevitable.
The youngsters are understandably upset by what has transpired, what with the loss of the entire coaching staff and the introduction of new faces to county cricket who are still learning the ropes and are unfamiliar with the local players. Because representing Yorkshire is like representing England, the county has a lot of pride.
But it was really tricky for the new coaching staff to come in a month before the season and figure out who fits in where, what kind of players they believe are good and not good, and what they need to add to the group in order to be successful.
We should probably wait until next year, once we’ve had more time to create, to be judged. The first year is always the hardest.
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