Alec Stewart has defended the County Championship, with Surrey’s director of cricket insisting England’s first-class system is an adequate breeding ground for producing Test-quality players despite England’s woes.
“The gulf between the Championship and Test cricket has gotten bigger,” said Stewart, who captained England in 15 of his 133 Tests. “Test players used to play county cricket. They would finish a Test and play a Championship match the next day. [County players] would be bowling to Graham Gooch or Mike Gatting or facing high-quality overseas bowlers. The quality of overseas player has diminished.”
Stewart blamed a congested Test calendar as well as the proliferation of T20 franchise leagues around the world for the decline. With Kolpak contracts having come to an end last year, restricting the influx of South African and Caribbean players with Test experience, the standard of the Championship will need to be raised by locally produced talent, he added.
“We’ve still got good players [in the Championship], you’ve got excellent coaches,” Stewart said. “When they go up it’s a massive jump and it’s a massive jump in all domestic cricket around the world.
“The scrutiny you’re under now is greater than it was. That’s when you need selection to be strong. If you’re good enough for one game you’re generally good enough for five or six.”
Stewart singled out Ollie Pope as “high-class”, but with a first-class average above 50, and a Test average of 28.66 from 40 innings, Pope’s numbers appear to support the claim that England’s domestic system is battling to bear fruit.
For Surrey’s head coach, Gareth Batty, the problem lies further up the supply chain: “There are less senior players in the England XI at the minute. So young players are going in and having to fend off like a senior player. That is why it isn’t working. It isn’t the quality of the young player.”
After a poor Ashes return of 67 runs from six innings, Pope was not selected for the Tests against West Indies. Rory Burns was another who failed to make the touring squad having struggled in Australia, registering two ducks from six knocks at the top of the order, including the first ball of the series. Along with Sam Curran, who is close to a return to full fitness after a lower-back injury, Surrey have a number of England players eager to return to the fold.
“Our duty is to help them get back to where they want to be,” Batty said, adding that he believes Burns is “the best opener in the country. I’m not worried about him putting his best case across. I worry about who might select the [England] team.”
