10 Ways England Can Get The Ashes Back

4. Vary The Pitches

Let's not kid ourselves here: nobody really loves flat pitches. Batsman hate them because they don't allow themselves to be genuinely stretched; bowlers hate them because they have nothing to work with; and the crowd hate them because they make for boring, high-scoring matches which often end in draws. The only people who really love flat pitches are administrators, because then matches have more chance of going for four or five days and thereby they can make the most possible money from ticket sales and broadcasting rights. When England come to play the next Ashes series, they will of course have a say over the state of the pitches; they will play to the strengths of the England team as it then stands. But if England are to recover confidence in the meantime, and turn promising youngsters into genuine batsman, they need to learn how to play on a wide variety of pitches at home. Curators must go to all lengths to create fast, bouncy pitches, dry turners, green seamers and slow, skiddy surfaces in addition to the flat decks in which they and the ECB take pride. By having a variety of pitches all around England, the ECB will create the conditions where any batsman playing at county level will be tested all-round on his technique. It will make the county game more interesting, and if a player has a specific weakness (say against spin) he can spend time working on a specific pitch rather than doing the same indoor nets as everyone else. This won't solve England's long-standing issues with pace and spin overnight, but it will give us a chance to prepare and solve the problem in the longer term.