“I think the gap is as wide as it has ever been.”
Sussex head coach and former England assistant Paul Farbrace could have been talking about where Tottenham Hotspur Football Club is compared to where it wants to be.
But he was speaking about something much closer to home – the relationship between the England cricket team and the counties that provide its players.
“It needs repairing,” was Farbrace’s take when he appeared on Sky Sports News a day after the England and Wales Cricket Board revealed the findings of a review taken following the 4-1 Ashes drubbing over the winter, a tour blighted by all kinds of errors.
Sussex head coach Paul Farbrace says the relationship between the England team and county cricket needs repairing
Poor shots, poor preparation, poor professionalism. A video appearing to show Ben Duckett drunk during a team beach break in Noosa was an example of the third misstep on that list.
Laying out plans for the rebuild – a rebuild that will not only involve winning again but also re-engaging with the cricket-watching public annoyed by recent events – managing director of men’s cricket Rob Key and CEO Richard Gould revealed a pledge to form a closer link with a county game that many believe they have flagrantly ignored.
With a number of players picked in the ‘Bazball’ era as punts as opposed to because they have any real red-ball stats behind them – Shoaib Bashir and Josh Hull being two of them – Surrey head coach Gareth Batty believes the pathway from domestic cricket to the international domain has “misted over.”
Northamptonshire chief Darren Lehmann – who told the BBC that England players do not feature in enough county cricket – insists he did not see a selector during his first season in charge of the club. Sussex supremo Farbrace insists “the current link is poor”.
Farbrace added: “I also stand by the fact the noises [England coach Brendon McCullum] makes about county cricket are not exactly encouraging. He has no dialogue whatsoever with the directors of cricket or county coaches but that’s his choice.
“That’s fine when you win but when you lose and we think we could have helped or offered something that is a different matter. We want to be better joined up.”
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Australian cricket writer Adam Collins joins the Sunday Supplement panel to discuss if Brendon McCullum is building the right culture for England to progress
McCullum to chat to county directors – but will anything change?
There is set to be dialogue between McCullum and all 18 directors of county cricket this week. That will be in a meeting conducted remotely with 44-year-old currently at home in New Zealand before returning to England on as-yet unspecified date ahead of the first Test of the summer against the Black Caps at Lord’s from June 4.
On the agenda may be comments such as the ones McCullum made when discussing Hull’s call-up during the 2024 home summer, with the Leicestershire left-armer holding unremarkable first-class numbers at the time of 16 wickets at an average of 62.75
McCullum said: “County and Test cricket are probably slightly different games. If we were putting together a county side, it would look a little bit different to what it looks in the Test side.”
There is some truth in that. Not every domestic player will have the skills to graduate to the international game but they need to believe they have the opportunity to do so. McCullum’s words, and some of England’s recent selections, hardly suggest that is the case.
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ECB managing director Rob Key tells Sky Sports why McCullum remains the right man to lead England and discusses The Ashes fallout
Farbrace added: “Every time we seem to lose an away Ashes series, we have a review and county cricket gets the blame. Well, this time county cricket is not to blame because it is perceived to not be important to the England team.
“In county cricket we can’t agree on a schedule, how we are going to play and what pitches to play on, so I have a bit of sympathy for the England set-up – but there are times we feel there is an arrogance about them that we are not enjoying.
“I know a lot of county players who think unless their face fits, they are not going to play for England regardless of the runs they score or the wickets they take. I think a lot of people in county cricket are not that fussed whether England do well or not, which is a crying shame.”
Speaking to the media last week, Key said not interacting more with county cricket to this point was a “mistake”.
This vow to communicate more will include establishing a county insight group for quarterly meetings with county representatives, two from each division. A national selector will be appointed in due course to replace the outgoing Luke Wright.
“The proof will be in the pudding,” was Jonny Bairstow’s take on whether England really are committed to county cricket but the mood music ahead of the season-opening fixtures from Good Friday is perhaps as positive as it has been in quite some time.
Northamptonshire’s Saif Zaib was the leading red-ball run-scorer in the country last season
Hope for Zaib, Hameed and Cook ahead of Test summer?
Players like Northamptonshire’s Saif Zaib, the leading red-ball run-scorer in the country last season but then not picked for the England Lions this winter, and Haseeb Hameed, seemingly not previously deemed Bazball enough to regain his England place but with 1,258 Championship runs last season as he captained Nottinghamshire to the Division One title, may now feel more optimistic that similar efforts will be rewarded.
So, too, county wicket-machine Sam Cook, with the Essex seamer handed a long-awaited international debut against Zimbabwe at the start of the 2025 summer, toiling somewhat on a pitch not suited to his bowling style, and then not seen since with England prioritising pacier seamers as they looked towards The Ashes.
That is not to say that those leading the run-scoring and wicket-taking charts should automatically be selected.
Doing that in the past has not always paid off, while Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick became England greats despite possessing modest county records at the time of their call-ups
The most composed batter in the Ashes this winter, other than long-time linchpin Joe Root, was Jacob Bethell, who, up to that point, had not scored a first-class hundred. There is still room for hunches. All people are asking for is bit of balance.
The same applies with the approach. Attacking cricket is great, it got England into winning positions in the Ashes. But over-attacking cricket then saw them throw those winning positions away. Some of the strokes were awful. Jamie Smith woefully holing out off a Marnus Labuschagne long-hop may be burned into many fans’ retinas.
Rob Key says England will consider anyone if they think they can perform against the best players in the world
Players will ultimately be picked for England, as Key told the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast, “if we feel they can do it against the best bowlers in the world. If we feel that, then everyone’s got a chance.”
Publicly, at least, there appears an acceptance that there are different ways of doing that, that ruthlessness, to use Key’s word, is needed as well as swashbuckling shots.
Is what has seemed a closed shop now open for all in county cricket? As Bairstow said, “the proof will be in the pudding.”
Watch England’s home international summer live on Sky Sports, starting with a three-Test series against New Zealand from June 4. Not got Sky? Stream cricket contract-free on NOW.
