Why do England struggle to produce undisputedly great players?

[Furball]

Selling off all the schools' playing fields certainly hasn't helped cricket in state schools, no. The vast majority of English players now come from public (fee paying) schools or from cricket clubs. If they come through the English system at all, obvz...

The sad fact is we aren't overburden with world class sporting talent, but we do produce them in other sports with greater regularity than cricket; for instance our world cup winning union side had three nailed-on AT greats in Johnson, Hill & Robinson and others like Wilkinson & Dallaglio who could have cases made for them.

As to the why? Several reasons, the weather probably doesn't help, nor the sedentary lifestyle or lack of investment in the grass roots but as a nation we are utterly sports-obsessed (EPL most watched sports league in any sport in the world and yesterday 70k people paid money to watch England play Samoa, which, with all due respect, isn't a blue-chip fixture) so it is something of a mystery.

The schools in this country have a lot to answer for when it comes to lack of sporting talent.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Can't be having that. In the past decade the english have produced greats that will go down in the annuals in football, rugby union, boxing, motor racing and athletics just to name a few.

I'm intrigued as to whom you would rate as ATG in these sports. Certainly there are no footballers who would demand places in the World's All Time XIs - this "golden generation" bull**** doesn't cover up the lack of any consistent success on the world stage. Alan Shearer would probably be my single pick, in a sport played by millions more than cricket. Rugby Union I'll give you - Wilkinson for certain and probably a few more members of the 03 side - alas, I didn't follow the sport closely enough then to have any idea what made the likes of Johnson/Greenwood/Dallaglio/Back so good (apart from a total lack of morals or ethics in the last bloke's case).

Boxing probably covers Joe Calzaghe - beyond whom a few fly-by-night world champions like Lewis and Hamed barely register. Hatton is closer - but Pacquiao is an ATG and we saw what happened there - while Haye is on the path, but has the small matter of the Klitschkos to deal with first.

As for athletics, the odd gold medal doesn't qualify you for ATG status - sorry Kelly. Daley Thompson, Jonathan Edwards or perhaps Colin Jackson are the most recent performers whose achievements are going to transcend history. F1 is a similar story: Mansell, Hill, Button and Hamilton are all World Champions, but so is Keke Rosberg. Schumacher is an ATG and Alonso is on the path towards joining him. Carl Fogarty would fit the category on two wheels.

Snooker and Darts have seen British ATG players - as has golf (Nick Faldo, with several on the fringes of that echelon in the current crop). For me, these aren't things you can quantify and expect to happen like clockwork: you need a system, hard work, a sprinkling of genius and a whole lot of luck.

If Australia can produce a generation in which star quality is currently conspicuously absent, if NZ can consistently produce elite Union players from a country with half as many occupants as London, if Holland can keep on being a footballing world power in spite of size, I don't think we need to worry. There's no set recipe for a star, that's what makes then so alluring - we just need to keep doing the simple things right - as I'd argue we are at present - and then savour any extra brilliance that may come along.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I'm intrigued as to whom you would rate as ATG in these sports. Certainly there are no footballers who would demand places in the World's All Time XIs - this "golden generation" bull**** doesn't cover up the lack of any consistent success on the world stage. Alan Shearer would probably be my single pick, in a sport played by millions more than cricket. Rugby Union I'll give you - Wilkinson for certain and probably a few more members of the 03 side - alas, I didn't follow the sport closely enough then to have any idea what made the likes of Johnson/Greenwood/Dallaglio/Back so good (apart from a total lack of morals or ethics in the last bloke's case).

Boxing probably covers Joe Calzaghe - beyond whom a few fly-by-night world champions like Lewis and Hamed barely register. Hatton is closer - but Pacquiao is an ATG and we saw what happened there - while Haye is on the path, but has the small matter of the Klitschkos to deal with first.

As for athletics, the odd gold medal doesn't qualify you for ATG status - sorry Kelly. Daley Thompson, Jonathan Edwards or perhaps Colin Jackson are the most recent performers whose achievements are going to transcend history. F1 is a similar story: Mansell, Hill, Button and Hamilton are all World Champions, but so is Keke Rosberg. Schumacher is an ATG and Alonso is on the path towards joining him. Carl Fogarty would fit the category on two wheels.

Snooker and Darts have seen British ATG players - as has golf (Nick Faldo, with several on the fringes of that echelon in the current crop). For me, these aren't things you can quantify and expect to happen like clockwork: you need a system, hard work, a sprinkling of genius and a whole lot of luck.

If Australia can produce a generation in which star quality is currently conspicuously absent, if NZ can consistently produce elite Union players from a country with half as many occupants as London, if Holland can keep on being a footballing world power in spite of size, I don't think we need to worry. There's no set recipe for a star, that's what makes then so alluring - we just need to keep doing the simple things right - as I'd argue we are at present - and then savour any extra brilliance that may come along.

I don't wish to drag this too far down the "arguing the toss about other sports" route, but would say Lewis is a borderline all-time great. He beat everyone out there and ducked no-one. True, he got tagged by a couple of muppets not fit to lace his gloves, but avenged both defeats and ended up defeated fewer times than Ali, Tyson, Holmes, Louis, etc.

Main issue is, obviously, he grew up in Canada, so not particularly a triumph for the English system.

Fogarty meanwhile was sort of like a bloke who scores 30 goals a season in div 1 or, as this is a cricket site, carves up the county championship but fails in tests. He's not in the same league as the MotoGP bods of his era like Wayne Rainey or Mick Doohan. Superbikes v much a sideshow in comparison.

 

[fredfertang]

I wonder if it's related to improvements in coaching - by which I mean that the lack of apparently stellar performers is down to the fact that the gap between the great natural talents and the next level down has been eroded by the next level down simply being better than they used to be, by virtue of being coached by immeasurably better coaches than they would have had a generation ago

 

[cricket100%]

If you don't see Andrew Flintoff as a cricketing great the I want to know what is. Anyway, the English have an alternative now. I mean, where does Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Strauss, Jonathon Trott, Matt Prior and Craig Kieswetter come from. In case you wondered the answer is South-Africa. So it appears as if England found a new breeding ground for their next generation superstars.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

I'm intrigued as to whom you would rate as ATG in these sports. Certainly there are no footballers who would demand places in the World's All Time XIs - this "golden generation" bull**** doesn't cover up the lack of any consistent success on the world stage. Alan Shearer would probably be my single pick, in a sport played by millions more than cricket. Rugby Union I'll give you - Wilkinson for certain and probably a few more members of the 03 side - alas, I didn't follow the sport closely enough then to have any idea what made the likes of Johnson/Greenwood/Dallaglio/Back so good (apart from a total lack of morals or ethics in the last bloke's case).

Boxing probably covers Joe Calzaghe - beyond whom a few fly-by-night world champions like Lewis and Hamed barely register. Hatton is closer - but Pacquiao is an ATG and we saw what happened there - while Haye is on the path, but has the small matter of the Klitschkos to deal with first.

As for athletics, the odd gold medal doesn't qualify you for ATG status - sorry Kelly. Daley Thompson, Jonathan Edwards or perhaps Colin Jackson are the most recent performers whose achievements are going to transcend history. F1 is a similar story: Mansell, Hill, Button and Hamilton are all World Champions, but so is Keke Rosberg. Schumacher is an ATG and Alonso is on the path towards joining him. Carl Fogarty would fit the category on two wheels.

Snooker and Darts have seen British ATG players - as has golf (Nick Faldo, with several on the fringes of that echelon in the current crop). For me, these aren't things you can quantify and expect to happen like clockwork: you need a system, hard work, a sprinkling of genius and a whole lot of luck.

If Australia can produce a generation in which star quality is currently conspicuously absent, if NZ can consistently produce elite Union players from a country with half as many occupants as London, if Holland can keep on being a footballing world power in spite of size, I don't think we need to worry. There's no set recipe for a star, that's what makes then so alluring - we just need to keep doing the simple things right - as I'd argue we are at present - and then savour any extra brilliance that may come along.

Though you have probably missed our 2 greatest sporting stars of the last 30 years in Redgrave and Ainslie.

Some people will say they don't count though as they are sat down.

 

[Zinzan]

Crowe and Flower as specialist batsman > all those blokes. Flower's stats are very strong in comparison, particularly given he had to keep and played for a crappy side. Crowe's stats seem to be misleading - he got culled by injury and picked too early. And he still had better stats than most of those blokes.

.

Agree entirely, the fact Crowe had the best batting record in the decade between 1985 & 1995 really put things In context for mine & suggests to me that if he's not quite 'ATG" status, he's damn close. A criminally underrated test batsman

 

[Zinzan]

Can't play cricket with all the rain over there.

Martin Crowe>>>>Tresco, Atherton and Stewart. Gooch would be his peer. Those two blokes played extremely well during a period of awesome bowling.

Check out this list of averages from 1985-1995 (qualification 20 tests)

Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

Grrr, see you beat me to it, but my filtering is better

 

[andyc]

If you don't see Andrew Flintoff as a cricketing great the I want to know what is. Anyway, the English have an alternative now. I mean, where does Kevin Pietersen, Andrew Strauss, Jonathon Trott, Matt Prior and Craig Kieswetter come from. In case you wondered the answer is South-Africa. So it appears as if England found a new breeding ground for their next generation superstars.

Probably a player who excels at Test level for most of their career, rather than than just two or three years. Flintoff had a great period of form, and was a very good bowler, but a great he is not.

Also a massive at the South Africa joke. Original.

 

[Evermind]

Variety of reasons, heat, flat pancake wickets, Indians don't have natural fast bowler's physiques, cultural reasons (using guile/brains in the form of spinners is seen as a preferable method of dismissing batsmen as opposed to blasting them out with sheer pace and aggression)...

These may sound like wishy-washy theories on the surface and people will say one is missing the obvious reason - i.e. poorly coached fast bowlers and bad selection policies but they could easily have a combined effect. After all, to be an ATG, being in the top 5 percentile is not good enough, you need that extra bit to be in the top 0.1 percentile and these things may all bring down those chances.

Sri Lanka? Pakistan? Much worse off in terms of facilities, same sort of weather, similar wickets, same physique (racial stock).

I'm thinking it's mostly cultural.

 

[vcs]

SL are worse than India when it comes to producing fast bowlers.

Pakistan, it's a different story, they're differently built and have role models who were iconic fast bowlers.

 

[Himannv]

I dont think I can compare them to the likes of Hobbs or Hammond, but I think Gooch and Gover are definitely greats. Gooch in particular is the leading English run scorer of all time and surely that must count for something. Also I think he has a record for being the most prolific batsman considering his FC and List A career. Gover was definitely a class act. Perhaps their averages weren't too great but they were definitely top players. Also feel Thorpe was somewhat unlucky not to be rated higher. I always felt he was definitely their best batsman for a certain period. I would include Flintoff except that I keep comparing him to Botham for some reason and I dont think he matches up comparatively.

 

[Furball]

Also a massive at the South Africa joke. Original.

Not only is it not original, but the fact he's claiming the South African system is responsible for how Strauss and Prior developed as cricketers makes his point redundant. I'd put Kieswetter in with those two at a stretch, seeing as Kieswetter both finished his schooling in England and has never played First Class cricket in any country other than England.

 

[smash84]

SL are worse than India when it comes to producing fast bowlers.

Pakistan, it's a different story, they're differently built and have role models who were iconic fast bowlers.

I think that North Indians and Pakistanis have similar built and are of the same racial stock. I think it has to do with the role models. As I mentioned earlier Imran inspired a whole generation to bowl fast. That was the point that started it.

Quite similar to the kind of impact that Sachin and Gavaskar have had in India.

I remember playing in the streets and in the drinks break we would go and buy pepsi and wipe our forehead from the cold bottle like Imran (and then later Wasim and Waqar) used to do in the pepsi ads ........

And I remember all the young kids wanted to steam in like Waqar and whenever cricket would come up we would discuss who was the fastest (we had a silly criteria that a bowler who has broken the stumps in half were the quickest ....). There were others who wanted to seam and swing it both ways like Wasim and almost everybody who played in the team wanted to be a captain like Imran and an all rounder like him. Everybody also wanted to look like him too ......

I would say that role models played the biggest part in making the Pakistanis want to bowl well rather than bat well. Which is probably why we see much better bowlers come out of Pakistan than batsmen. Decent batsmen seemed to have gone under the ground.

 

[S Chanderpaul]

James Taylor will change this.

 

[Shifter]

Never understood the whole poaching SA talent thing. Even KP and Trott would of developed their game extensively in the English system. KP was picked as a spinner who could bat a bit before he moved.

Morgan is their worst poach, though he also would of benefited some from playing county cricket.

 

[Howe_zat]

Never understood the whole poaching SA talent thing. Even KP and Trott would of developed their game extensively in the English system. KP was picked as a spinner who could bat a bit before he moved.

Morgan is their worst poach, though he also would of benefited some from playing county cricket.

"Poaching" is a ridiculous word to describe what happens here. Willingly moving to another country to play your game, and doing well enough to represent that country is not poaching. KP for example has had far more success here than he ever did in South Africa. This is where he feels at home and this is where he makes his living. There are a lot of South Africans living in England, some of them are cricketers.

You've massively underrated how much county cricket has helped Morgan there too. Ireland has no first-class structure. The entire Irish side is completely reliant on the counties to allow their players to play and develop as cricketers. Morgan, like Joyce before him, aspires to be a Test player and the only way he can do that is with England - a country that far from having "poached" him, is simply a country where he has been able to play the game that he loves.

 

[Blaze 18]

Graeme Swann has it in him to become an all-time great. KP has a fair chance as well provided he sorts out whatever issues he currently seems to be having.

 

[wpdavid]

You do have to wonder why the number of unquestionably world class English cricketers tailed off so dramatically after the 1950s. I know it's a minority sport, but so is rugby union (with a similar catchment) and they got their act together well enough to win a WC.

Probably a combination of poor coaching, duff culture and a questionable FC system. Perhaps it isn't a coincidence that our two most successful coaches over the last 30 years are from overseas.

 

[r3alist]

pakistani's and indians are not of the same "racial stock" - this is only true in the punjab region where there is overlap, otherwise pakistan has ethnicities which are cimpletely distinct to other s.asians.


one thing i have noticed is that pakistani's seem to have a higher skill level with their bowling, forget the build argument, its the skill that really sets them apart - look at asif - hardly a big man but he has immense skill