Kevin Pietersen reckons franchise T20 cricket is spoiling England Test cricket.

[King_Kohli]

Kevin Pietersen blames franchise cricket for England's Test woes: Hardly any greats have played county season

Former England captain Kevin Pietersen has explained the reason behind the team's batting woes in Test cricket after the hosts lost the second Test against New Zealand by 8 wickets.

New Zealand thrashed England by eight wickets in the second Test on Sunday to clinch the two-match series 1-0. New Zealand pacers ran riot against the England batting line-up in their second innings to set up a comfortable win for the Black Caps, who were without regular skipper Kane Williamson in the decisive Test.

After posting 388 runs in reply to England's first-innings total of 303 runs, New Zealand bundled out the hosts for a paltry 122. Mark Wood top-scored for the hosts with a resilient 29 off 38 balls as the top and the middle-order suffered a terrible collapse. New Zealand chased down the target without breaking a sweat and bagged a comprehensive win by eight wickets.

England batting woes were left exposed against the Kiwis in their own backyard as the likes of Joe Root, Rory Burns, Dom Sibley, and others failed to deliver. Ahead of the five-match Test series against India and the Ashes later this year, England don't have much time to sort their batting woes.

Former England skipper Kevin Pietersen has blamed franchise cricket for England's Test woes and pointed out how not many players in the England squad play full county seasons these days.

"Since the franchise T20($$$$$$) started, hardly any of crickets GREATS have played full seasons of County Cricket. HUGE gap between County & International cricket, hence the Test match batting woes," wrote Pietersen in a tweet.

https://www.timesnownews.com/sports/cricket/article/kevin-pietersen-blames-franchise-cricket-for-englands-test-woes-hardly-any-greats-have-played-county-season/770063

 

[King_Kohli]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Since the franchise T20($$$$$$) started, hardly any of crickets GREATS have played full seasons of County Cricket. <br>HUGE gap between County & International cricket, hence the Test match batting woes!</p>— Kevin Pietersen&#55358;&#56719; (@KP24) <a href="https://twitter.com/KP24/status/1404036584572338179?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 13, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[RedwoodOriginal]

Guys like Sibley, Burns, Crawley, Pope, Stone, Robinson have all earned their place based on a number of consistent performances in county.

Its easy to make franchise cricket the scapegoat but fact of the matter is that guys are still being selected for England based on county performances

As hard as it may be for KP to admit, maybe he should just admit that (a) England were completely outplayed by New Zealand, (b) county cricket just isn't what it used to be. Or both.

 

[marlonbrowndo]

Guys like Sibley, Burns, Crawley, Pope, Stone, Robinson have all earned their place based on a number of consistent performances in county.

Its easy to make franchise cricket the scapegoat but fact of the matter is that guys are still being selected for England based on county performances

As hard as it may be for KP to admit, maybe he should just admit that (a) England were completely outplayed by New Zealand, (b) county cricket just isn't what it used to be. Or both.

But KP isn’t saying that county performers are not being selected. He is clearly admitting that the standard of county cricket is not good enough which is why a lot of the top county performers are not good enough.

 

[shaz619]

Rubbish, India have a T20 heavy schedule too. England are doing fine, this only proves their bench is not the best. Forget your Stokes, Archers and Butlers, had we picked Mo on this dry wicket after batting first, we’d have won compatibly, not picking a spinner at Edgbaston is baffling to say the least

 

[RedwoodOriginal]

But KP isn’t saying that county performers are not being selected. He is clearly admitting that the standard of county cricket is not good enough which is why a lot of the top county performers are not good enough.

When was the last time you heard about Kohli playing Ranji Trophy? Even guys like Root, Smith and Williamson only play domestic to get practice. None of the truly great players play a full season of county or domestic. That has nothing to do with franchise cricket, it has everything to do with the importance of international cricket.

As for the standard of county cricket going down; its a decades old story at this point. And the ECB is to blame for that. They are the ones who stopped multiple overseas players from playing for a team which is why the standard of county cricket dropped rapidly.

 

[IMMY69]

Rubbish, India have a T20 heavy schedule too. England are doing fine, this only proves their bench is not the best. Forget your Stokes, Archers and Butlers, had we picked Mo on this dry wicket after batting first, we’d have won compatibly, not picking a spinner at Edgbaston is baffling to say the least

Have to agree with this ^^^

Ridiculous decision not to select Moeen here.. especially given the weak batting lineup, not only would he have been a wicket taking threat but would also have made crucial runs batting at 7...

In fact you can bat Moeen anywhere in the top 7, he's a better batter then all of these guys except Root.

 

[sindhiboy]

Batsmen like Burns and Sibley will be far away from any t20 side.Infact, almost all of eng's test batsmen are test specialists.

Lawrence, engs highest scorer in the recent test, was the most attacking batsmen out of the XI.The most loi orientated batsmen, Stokes and Butler , have proven to be match winners and game changers for the test side.

Eng just have to accept their batsmen arent good enough. Even root and stokes did not have a clue on turning pitches in india.Pope and Crawley have been completely inept. I hope bohanon and foakes get picked in the test squad soon.

 

[ElRaja]

people misunderstanding the point kp is making. i think [MENTION=53290]Markhor[/MENTION] posted some stat showing how county is now dominated by 80 mph bowlers, clearly guys like archer and wood are few and far between. even mills is a t20 specialist, 20 years ago he would have had no other option than to continue playing first class to earn money despite his injury fears and guys like shoaib also showed up in county now and again.

he isnt necessarily talking about england players, hardly any international player aims for a full county contract anymore. t20 leagues is far more lucrative and easier on the body. his point is right, the level and competitiveness of the county games is likely falling, and t20 leagues have a role to play in that. thats before considerng the effect that a high proportion of young players are coming to the game with the aim of being t20 cricketers, which reduces the talent pool for 4 day cricket even further.

 

[BunnyRabbit]

He cried for 6 7 years about English players not being given a chance to play IPL and how playing IPL would improve his game rather than playing county cricket.

Weird guy.

Since the departure of KP, Bell, Trott, James Taylor and Cook, Root and Stokes have been the only constant in the batting department. Others have either been found out or have not been good enough.
The likes of Ballance, Vince, Westley, Malan, Stoneman, Robson, Lyth, Compton, Carberry etc etc just haven't been good enough.

They had a domestic stalwart in James Hildreth but refused to pick him back in 2014 because he was already 30.
In Sibley, Burns, Lawrence, Foakes and maybe Pope, they have good upstarts (apart from Burns who is probably 30+) who may end up becoming good to very good batters but their selections have for last 2 years been quite inconsistent and they seem unsure of what brand of cricket they want their batters to play. It all started with Bayliss wanting them to play attacking cricket, Silverwood hasn't really done much better in his tenure either.
The way Bess was treated on the tour of India was awful for an international cricketer who had just taken a match shaping 4 fer.

County cricket I believe is still the best FC circuit to hone your game in with players from all over the world coming in and a very good 2nd XI system, but they have been messing up with their selections and management at the international level and have been pretty directionless since Andrew Strauss left the director's job. Giles simply isn't good enough.

 

[BunnyRabbit]

people misunderstanding the point kp is making. i think [MENTION=53290]Markhor[/MENTION] posted some stat showing how county is now dominated by 80 mph bowlers, clearly guys like archer and wood are few and far between. even mills is a t20 specialist, 20 years ago he would have had no other option than to continue playing first class to earn money despite his injury fears and guys like shoaib also showed up in county now and again.

he isnt necessarily talking about england players, hardly any international player aims for a full county contract anymore. t20 leagues is far more lucrative and easier on the body. his point is right, the level and competitiveness of the county games is likely falling, and t20 leagues have a role to play in that. thats before considerng the effect that a high proportion of young players are coming to the game with the aim of being t20 cricketers, which reduces the talent pool for 4 day cricket even further.

Well Stone, Wood, Archer, Woakes, Jamie Overton all bowl around 90mph range. And that is already a better depth of pace stocks than most countries not to say Anderson and Broad plus a host of 80+ mph haven't been included in there.

 

[Prince of Pakistan]

Says the guy who a few months ago said that IPL is close to international cricket.

Some of these people just adjust their opinions according to the needs of their international teams.

 

[Titan24]

There can be an argument about revamping/revolutionizing the red ball structure.

Thing is there used to be number of top overseas players in the country championships along with Kolpak players which obviously used to add onto the quality of the competition.

With them being gone, ECB will have to think about how to increase the quality of the county championship as a whole. It can be done by reducing the number of teams which at the moment are 18 and in the recent 2021 competition were divided into 3 groups.

Does Eng really have decent quality almost 340 or so players? I personally dont think so. There are a lot of soft runs and wickets to be taken and thus players toping the charts usually fail to replicate their performance when they come to the test team.

Even in the previous structure where the teams were divided into two divisions of 8 and 10, there were many players in the 2nd division teams who were good enough to be in the first division but just because their teams struggled to get promotion they had to learn and play in the 2nd division.

With limited number of quality players available at the county level even if they dont want to change the historic county championship tournament by reducing the number of teams atleast there should be a tournament where all the best 120-160 players play against each other in a 6-8 team tournament.

As ECB already struggles with the schedule of the domestic tournaments the only way that can be possible is by reducing the length of county championship and add that top 6-8 teams with top players drafted in the very same window. That would be much better for the development and judgment of players than the current structure in my opinion.

 

[pakistani pride]

Are Butler, Bairstow, Stokes, Jofra, Ali etc all injured? Its like almost half of their TEST side.

 

[shaz619]

Have to agree with this ^^^

Ridiculous decision not to select Moeen here.. especially given the weak batting lineup, not only would he have been a wicket taking threat but would also have made crucial runs batting at 7...

In fact you can bat Moeen anywhere in the top 7, he's a better batter then all of these guys except Root.

Yes he adds great value with the Bat as well, it seems relation between the two parties is a bit sour and ECB could have managed his use much better over the years. Going back to England’s general struggles in cricket, people forget this is a World Champion team, they would die to have the sort of players we have developed over a long period who have been devastating in LOI’s, the Test fortunes as a result may have struggled but England have a fantastic core group, but the management of that pool could be so much better, similarly in the past we had the same issues around the 2015 WC debacle but once ECB utilised its resources better the fortunes transformed dramatically.