English Cricket Structure Needs Revamp to Bring out Stars of Tomorrow

The main topic of conversation in English cricket in the past week is how Nottinghamshire's Darren Pattinson got drafted to play against South Africa and on what grounds it was justified.

Pattinson, born in Grimsby but Melbourne bred and a roof tiler by trade, was a club cricketer in the Melbourne league until finally getting his chance to play for the state team, Victoria. This in itself is evidence of how the structure of cricket in Australia and New Zealand is ahead of that in England.

Pattinson's performances at senior club level justified his call up to the state team. Would this ever happen in English cricket? Probably not.

The 18 first class counties in English cricket means 18 academies. These academies pick up most of their players between the ages of 15 and 18.

If you're a young and talented player who doesn't make it into those academies, realistically your chances of playing first class cricket are gone. Irrespective of performances in high level club cricket, counties aren't going to look at players performing well.

Compare this to the systems in Australia and New Zealand where club cricket is held in the greatest esteem. First class and test players play regular club cricket and the associations pick players performing well at club level.

In Christchurch, New Zealand there are only eight major clubs in the whole city, creating a pyramid effect in which players can find the grade they should be playing in and the one they can work their way up to.

Each Saturday, if the state team Canterbury doesn't have a game, the state players play and sometimes even the test players are back to play. One of those teams, East Christchurch Shirley, can boast players such as Nathan Astle, Craig McMillain, and Michael Papps.

Surely it would benefit English cricket if first class played club cricket. It would raise the standard and it would provide the counties the chance to see if the contracted players were as good and as ruthless as they needed to be to make it.

And if the club players were dominating the first class players, surely they should have the contracts.

There must be a lot of unsigned talent out there who are good enough to play first class cricket but whose places were taken by players who got picked up at 16 or 17, having managed to get onto the circuit. Such under-utilized talent may not have fulfilled their potential until age 20 or 21.

Surely it would be beneficial for English cricket if performers in club cricket were given a chance rather than Kolpak players taking up places with them having no real chance of going on to play test cricket.