English Cricket Struggles to Distinguish Selection and Team Building

As England head towards a potential whitewash at home against Australia, it's a good time to talk about Developing a Team and Organization Building Process. Despite having unlimited resources, English Cricket is operating without a Multi-Format Team Building Process. That reality was exposed when Joe Root was the English Captain for over 60 Test Matches. While that reality was hidden when Rob Key, Brendon McCullum, and Ben Stokes took over, it was always lingering under the surface.

It's important to remember that while the triumvirate of Key, McCullum, and Stokes deserve respect and adulation for developing a Style of Play in Test Cricket, International Cricket is operating in a sub-optimal environment. Apart from Australia, New Zealand, and India the rest of Cricket's Test Playing Nations are not pouring resources or energy into Test Cricket. As a result, not only has the standard of cricket gone down significantly, some teams like the West Indies are operating like borderline associates. We have to keep that in mind when thinking about both success and failure on the pitch.

That said, England's Problem like most cricket teams is that it is operating without a Team or Organization Building Process. Its Cricket Department although far more advanced and nuanced than its counterparts, it is comparatively rudimentary when compared to elite sporting organizations throughout the world.

For one, where the first world is Building Teams and Organizations, England is still selecting players. It's important here to make a distinction. There is a difference between Selecting Players and Identifying Talent and Building Teams. If England were Building Teams correctly, Zac Crawley and Ben Duckett probably wouldn't be opening for England and Jonny Bairstow wouldn't be Wicketkeeping and batting at No. 7. If England were Building Teams correctly James Anderson, Stuart Broad, and Ollie Robinson wouldn't be operating in the same bowling attack. Yet, all of these things are happening.

Our Approach to Building Elite Multi-Format Cricket Teams should be systematic, structured, rules-based, and process oriented. When Jack Leach got injured against Ireland early this summer, was the approach to Moeen Ali by Ben Stokes Systematic? Structured? Rules-Based? Process Oriented? Is that how England View Spin-Bowling in Test Cricket? In a country with 18 counties, a retired Moeen Ali should not be the answer to replacing an injured first choice spinner.

If England go on to lose this Test Match and the Series, there will be a Post-Mortem the rest of this summer. Irrespective of who England play over the next two years the topic around English Cricket will revolve around the value of The Hundred and The Ashes in Australia. Two years will go by, England will prepare, but they really won't prepare, and we are likely to see the same outcome in Australia. Repeat...

There is of course an alternative universe. In this universe English Cricket rethinks its Cricket Structure where the role of a Captain, Coach, Coaching Staff, Chief Selector, and Selection Committee is both ambiguous and archaic. In this universe English Cricket develops an Operating Manual on how to Build a Multi-Format English Cricket Team. This Operating Manual incorporates but isn't limited to important concepts such as Roster Construction, Lineup Construction, Talent Evaluation, and Player Development. It also dives into Format Specific Positional Analysis and Player Archetyping (Not a Real Word). In this universe English Cricket rethinks the Structure of Domestic Cricket, the Schedule of International Cricket, and Develops a Policy on Franchise T20 Cricket.

Finally, Cricket more than any other sport requires Multi-Disciplinary Thinking and the embrace of ideas such as Consilient Research and Complexity Science. I hope England's likely defeat to Australia brings us closer to that day.