I thought I would close down my attempt to follow the 2021 English Cricket season.

To be honest, the main conclusion is that English (and Welsh) domestic cricket is hard to follow. In fact, it is chaos. So far, 2021 has been a disaster for the ECB. Of course, England still have time to turn the year round. Pigs might fly. But if I had to break down the disaster of 2021, two things stick out.

1. Rest and Randomise

Despite Rest and Rotation, Ben Stokes is out of action. The policy sounds sensible, but has been a complete disaster which should have been binned as soon as the wheels came off in India. Certainly, some of the movements in and out of the team for India were completely mad.

But the main problem is the injury list. It is endless, but to give a few examples:

• Jofra Archer has hardly played since India and will miss The Ashes
• Stuart Broad has not played since the New Zealand series and was rotated beforehand
• Ben Stokes is taking an indefinite break, despite having only played 3 One Day Internationals for England since India
• Ben Foakes, England’s most unlucky player bar Jack Leach, has been injured all summer
• Jos Buttler has suffered injury
• James Anderson, England’s best and oldest bowler has bowled endlessly this summer…and has hardly been rested at all

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Now New Zealand did mange to do ‘Rest and Rotation’ for the second test match of the summer. But largely they pick a consistent team.

For Engand, players are missing games and then getting injured when they play. Rest and rotation seems to have created more injuries than it prevented. How can a team become used to playing together when the players never actually play together? Actually, the only answer is to play less cricket.

The other point is that the the public do not get to see the best players. People have said that ‘England could have found 15 players to tour Pakistan’. Well, I am not so sure about that given what is going on in neighbouring Afghanistan, but that is another matter – though one worth considering before you judge the players. But my point is that I do not want to watch ’15 players that England found somewhere’. I want to watch the best players. In 2021 I have hardly seen some them.

2. The best domestic One Day Cricket of 2021 was T20 Finals Day

It must surely be a difficulty for The ECB that the best One Day Cricket I have seen, domestically, this year was not The Hundred. I thought The Hundred was really good, but the best games I have seen were the 3 that took place on Finals Day.

It does give County Cricket the best fighting chance of survival though. I have limited sympathy for the Counties, and I do not really subscribe to the idea that they have been trampled all over by the ECB. Or that County Cricket is a good enough standard (it isn’t). It is outdated and confusing and hard to follow. I believe the Counties need to catch up with life and get into the 21st century.

The best way for the counties to survive is to ensure high quality cricket. That will stop The Hundred in its tracks. Even in this crazy year of 2021 the counties came up with the goods on finals day. It can be done even without the ECBs help. Focus on this and stop moaning about how badly treated the counties are.

Looking back

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Let us briefly look back. England started the year on a high. They won both home series in 2020 and the ECB deserved a lot of credit (and still does) for saving the international fixture list. Yes, you can be critical of England for cancelling tours and not ‘repaying’ the favour, but in 2020 we faced the real possibility of not having any international cricket from April onwards.

The high continued when England were victorious in the first 3 outings of the year, which were all difficult assignments – though it was pretty much down to Joe Root, who has been a one man team all year. And then, in long format cricket anyway, it all came crashing down. England played a second string team against New Zealand that was not full strength either and escaped with a 1-0 series loss. It should have been 2-0 and those that said England should have taken on the chase at Lords were living in ‘cloud cuckoo land’. New Zealand showed themselves to be a classy team, the best team in the world, and the best test match cricket I have been all summer came from the Kiwis.

Throw away England

Eventually, the second England India series of the year started. England worked extremely hard to chuck away a game at Lords thanks to an hour of stupidity. Genuinely, it was lame cricket, which came after being saved by rain at Trent Bridge. India were ok at the Oval, and despite a nightmare in Leeds would probably have won at Old Trafford if they could have been bothered to turn up. I was disappointed by the India series.

England worked extremely hard to chuck away a game at Lords thanks to an hour of stupidity.  Genuinely, it was lame cricket

Short Form Success – but muddled T20 thinking?

In the middle of all this, England were having a good short format summer, though the 2019 World Cup Team is now a thing of history. That England were easily able to beat Pakistan in the 50 over games showed England’s One Day depth – this was genuinely a ‘C for Covid’ team due to an outbreak. Those 3 games have proved costly though; they must surely have impacted Ben Stokes wellbeing, and shortly afterwards he announced his ‘break’ from cricket.

And we still have no idea what the team will be for the World T20. England still have too many openers and not enough middle order specialists. One such specialist is Jos Buttler, who is opening and that means, assuming Jason Roy plays, that Jonny Bairstow bats at 4. This is the same Bairstow who could be considered England’s best One Day opener ever. I just don’t understand why Bairstow opening is not the first ‘inked in’ name and position.

For now, we will not discuss the fact that England no longer has a Chairman of Selectors. But I think we can agree that Ed Smith did not do such a bad job, compared to what we have had since. Chris Silverwood needs to accept some help and not repeat the mistakes of the 90s Illingworth era.

The None Games

The biggest talking point of the season has to be the games that did not happen, both in England and in Pakistan. Despite positive noises this week, The Ashes remains in the balance. I am prepared to cut the boards and players some slack when it comes to travelling and touring at the moment. It is not easy.

I think the Pakistan situation is more challenging than is generally stated, but it was poorly handled by the ECB. It seemed to be the end for Ian Whatmore.

The problem has been bubbling for years. The players have too much cricket to play. It does seem to me that the same voices who moan about the overloaded fixture list are the ones who moan when games get called off. You cannot have it both ways.

Perhaps 2021 is that typing point. It is time to cancel everything and start again – domestically and internationally. It won’t happen though.