England need to catch up at under-19 level, says Mo Bobat

JAMES COYNE: The ECB's performance director believes a lack of high-pressure knockout cricket for younger players contributed to England's ninth-place finish in this year's Under-19 World Cup

ECB performance director Mo Bobat acknowledges that England's Young Lions are lagging behind their biggest rivals in pressure situations at under-19 level.

After the 2020 tournament in South Africa, England have won the Under-19 World Cup just once in 13 attempts. This time they were unable to get out of a tough group containing West Indies – who are usually a threat at youth level – and Australia. The Young Lions had to console themselves with the Plate trophy and ninth place overall – England's lowest finish since the play-off system came in at Under-19 World Cups.

The crunch game was at Kimberley, when England had Australia 189 for 7 chasing 253, but suffered an agonising last-ball, two-wicket defeat.

Bobat has been through three World Cup cycles at the ECB in one guise or another – and, though seen as very strong on processes and analysis, has prior experience of working with young people from his previous jobs as a teacher and sport science lecturer in his native Leicester.

"The thing that always strikes you is that the pressure that hits our players and how unexpected that it is at times," he said.

"It's probably the first time where there is real global attention on their games. It's been watched by everyone back home [on Sky Sports]. They'll often have family coming out to watch, which is lovely, but adds another dimension of pressure.

"Everything we know about adolescent development tells us that things like peer pressure and peer perception and scrutiny probably weighs most heavily on their minds and that's only right for that tournament.

"So it's the ability to think clearly and execute and deliver the thing you've been practising in gametime under pressure that appears to be the thing that probably hasn't been done as well as we’d like.

"I think exposure to knockout cricket where everything's on the line is really important. Our lot don't get that much of that. And it's hard to manufacture and recreate those situations – so I think that's quite difficult."

^{Gloucestershire's Ben Charlesworth starred before injuring his thumb}

There were some mitigating circumstances for England. Gloucestershire's Ben Charlesworth, the squad's outstanding batsman, missed the remainder of the tournament with a thumb injury after making 82 against Australia.

And it is inevitable to some degree, given the British climate and the traditional strength of seam bowling, that developing English players will not be as proficient as some countries when it comes to facing or bowling spin.

Bobat suggested the ECB will continue to look at giving the next under-19 players opportunity to work on spin. In the run-up to this World Cup, head coach Jon Lewis brought in Ian Bell to host a clinic at Loughborough, and the squad went out to Desert Springs in Spain to practice on drier pitches.

"I still think as a system, players coming through with sound basics against high-quality spin is important," said Bobat. "I think that was true of the whole competition, not just England. If you look at the way spin was played by all teams, strike-rates were down and economy-rates were pretty low."

Regardless of the outcome, Bobat went out of his way to praise the work done by Lewis in preparing the Young Lions over the course of the two-year programme leading into the World Cup.

"Clearly the performance and the result weren't what we were hoping for, and was probably below what we would have expected. I feel slightly for Jon Lewis as head coach. I know how good a job he's done over the last couple of years and I don't think us failing to qualify was a fair reflection on the quality of the work and the experiences that those players have had over two years.

"That's just tournament cricket, I guess. You know that can happen. It was a difficult group to get through. Of all the groups, that was probably the one with the three big teams in, so that's worth noting."

^{Former England seamer Jon Lewis took charge of the Young Lions in 2018}

It was put to Bobat that, traditionally, the opportunities presented by the 18-county system and the solidity of ECB coaching structures has allowed English players to catch up on the rest of the world’s players after the age of 19.

However, the continuing absence of County Championship cricket from the warmest months, and this year's entry of The Hundred into the middle of summer, is leading to fears that the skills of batting and bowling on flatter or turning pitches are being denuded beyond the level they might be otherwise.

Bobat has stressed before that he has limited control over the structure of the English cricket schedule, and his job is to focus primarily on improving English players at 19. He hopes The Hundred could be used to an advantage, in that it will present young players with opportunities for their counties in the Royal London Cup. That will not assuage those sceptics who believe that high-summer should be a time for youngsters to be forging their first-class games.

"We talk about that [question] quite a lot," said Bobat. "The first thing I'll say is I'm passionate about us getting closer at 19 first, before I worry about catching up. The closer we are at 19, the quicker we'll go beyond, is the way I’m looking at.

"So, that's the challenge I've set us in terms of how competitive we are and the quality of our players. We might have a bit of work to do to get there, but I think that should be the ambition.

"I think the key thing is the players getting relevant opportunities. And whatever time of year that might be, if they're going to get opportunities I think that's positive. The relative merits of adding a fourth [domestic] competition or not is a different point, but what it will do is create first-team opportunities for players, even if it's just in white-ball cricket."

^{A robust youth setup saw Bangladesh claim their first Under-19 World Cup title}

He acknowledged that several countries, most obviously India, have started to better organise their youth structures in a way they perhaps did not a few years ago.

"The opposite might be worth considering, in that countries like India have become more organised and more sophisticated in the way they approach things, so what has been our competitive advantage in terms of the quality of our development programmes and how joined-up we are in terms of player development, you could argue that they’re making some of those gains as well."

Bobat batted back suggestions that England tend to be overreliant on a relatively small crop of players at under-19 level. His mantra in his previous role as England player identification lead, when he set up the ECB’s extensive scouting process, was 'multiple eyes, multiple times'.

"In excess of 120 players would have been observed and assessed in relation to selection. That's quite a broad talent pool for a squad of 15 eventually – that's eyes on a lot of players. Our Super Fours competition plays a significant part in assessing players, as do all of our county academies and 2nd XI cricket.

"I see all of that as being one system. Myself and Jon Lewis are both pretty certain, if not adamant, that there weren't any better players at home based on where we think they're currently at. That doesn't mean someone will go past somebody who was out there, because obviously development isn’t linear."

There will always be a debate about whether a player identified at youth level is continually selected through a system ahead of others in order to justify the original talent-spotting – confirmation bias, as it's known. But Bobat suggests the yield of England players who had come through ECB programmes represents a healthy balance.

"I haven't done the numbers for 2019, but I remember looking at 2018 and something like 73 per cent of our players who had experienced under-19s and Lions cricket had then debuted for England.

"I feel like that's a healthy number – it's not 100 per cent, but it's not 50 per cent either, so it's not a poor return on investment. That feels like a reasonable level of retention to me. And I reckon most sports would snap your hand off for that level of retention in terms of investment."