XAVIER VOIGT-HILL: This year's Under-19 World Cup is the first in South Africa since England won in 1998. After taking over just four weeks before the 2018 tournament, England's head coach explains how his squad could follow that up this time around
Leading the England Under-19 squad to the World Cup two years ago was, if anything, a case of simply being in the right place at the right time for Jon Lewis.
With the team due to leave for New Zealand at the start of January, Andy Hurry announced in October that he would instead be returning to Somerset as director of cricket after three years heading up the programme. Steve Rhodes, brought in as an interim successor, lasted barely two months in the role before the fallout from the arrest of Worcestershire's Alex Hepburn on charges of rape. Richard Dawson, a longtime teammate of Lewis at Gloucestershire, stepped up to see the side through a winter tour of South Africa, but was not an option to carry on past December.
And so a call went out to Lewis, the stalwart seamer who played a single Test against Sri Lanka in 2006. He had spent three years on the coaching staff at Sussex after drawing the curtains on two decades of first-class cricket with a year at the county in 2014, and a self-funded trip to spend the winter months studying under Perth Scorchers boss Justin Langer placed him just a four-hour flight away from meeting the Young Lions en route.
The only problem, as Lewis tells The Cricketer the night before flying to South Africa to do it all over again, was he hadn't met most of his players.
"I met the team for the last World Cup on the plane in Sydney," he recalls. "They were all sitting in different parts of the plane, and I was wandering up and down trying to remember who I'd spoken to and who I hadn't. Ethan Bamber, the Middlesex seamer, is such a nice man that he just kept saying hello – I think I must have introduced myself to him about four times.
"It was a bizarre experience, but Richard – a good friend of mine – gave me some good information about the plans, and it was a great experience for me as a coach to learn and to try and help this group of young players who are going on the ultimate challenge of a World Cup – which, for them is the biggest thing they will have taken on so far.
"We played some really nice cricket in the group stages, but as a novice Under-19 head coach I didn't realise how big a deal this is for these young players. Two years' experience gives you a totally different perspective on how to approach the job."
Lloyd Pope claimed eight wickets to end England's hopes in the 2018 tournament
England's makeshift campaign eventually came undone in quite spectacular fashion chasing 128 against Australia in the quarter-finals, as leg-spinner Lloyd Pope sparked a second-innings collapse from 47 without loss to 96 all out. Pope, now a Big Bash regular with Sydney Sixers, made headlines that day by claiming eight wickets for 35 runs – the first and so far only eight-wicket haul in any ICC World Cup cricket.
Nevertheless, Lewis clearly impressed the powers that be, and he accepted the role on a full-time basis upon the team's return from their seventh-place finish. While his initial attraction to the role came from a desire to lead his own staff – as assistant at Sussex, Lewis had been overlooked during the winter as the county opted to appoint Jason Gillespie to replace Mark Davis as head coach – it is clear when Lewis speaks that he finds his role an immensely fulfilling one.
For as much as lifting the World Cup trophy is the side's main goal – a feat England have not managed since Owais Shah captained the likes of Graeme Swann and Rob Key in 1998, the last time the tournament was held in South Africa – Lewis is acutely aware that playing in such competitions will merely be a footnote for some players and the pinnacle of a cricketing journey for others.
Though a handful of the 2018 squad are now firmly established in their county's first-choice XIs – see Tom Banton, Dillon Pennington, Will Jacks and captain Harry Brook – there are just as many already out of the professional game, Lewis points out, and the lessons he is keen to instil on those that come through the Loughborough setup are ones he hopes will prove invaluable, in whatever direction their careers may take them.
Lewis argues: "Challenges that are underrated in the coaching world are how hard it is to coach people going through adolescence, how patient you have to be with these young players, how fast they can change, and, if you can build a real trusting relationship, how integral that can be to their cricketing future.
"What we do is a small part of their cricketing journey, so I try to make sure that they understand that. We really want them to go on to bigger and better things, as this shouldn't be the pinnacle of their achievement.
"The crux of it is that we're trying to develop our best young cricketers, and part of that is to teach them how to win. They will never have been under this much pressure. Most of them have finished school now, but three of them will still be under the pressure of examinations coming up in May and June.
"When we take guys out on tour, we're trying to add experiences that are in line with what will happen when they go on tour with England, even to the point where they're selected – they come up to Loughborough, sit in the same chairs the England players do, and do their fitness tests in the same place, so when they're selected for the Lions everything feels normal."
Building players' familiarity with those routines is something conversation with Lewis regularly comes back to, and he says he is pushing the powers that be at the ECB to revive the under-17 programme responsible for nurturing Sam Curran, Ollie Pope and Saqib Mahmood towards England's current senior setup.
"I think football has proved that by investing early you pay a lot less later," he says, citing the examples of Premier League stars Trent Alexander-Arnold and Harry Winks as successful products of age-group programmes, albeit acknowledging that cricket's finances and player pool are no match for what the Football Association can provide.
Tom Banton and Sam Curran are among recent stars of the Young Lions programme
Instead, with a dearth of directly comparable performances to be evaluated, Lewis describes selection as the biggest challenge of the lot, with working out which games actually mean anything as the biggest obstacle he and his 16-strong flock of scouts face.
No fewer than 35 players have featured for the team in Youth ODI cricket across the past two-year cycle, with the formula for the final squad a delicate balance between the players most capable of making an impact at the tournament and those Lewis and veteran selectors David Graveney and John Abrahams deem most likely to gain from the experience for future England duty.
"We rely really heavily on our academy directors, who have the best insight into who their best young players are," Lewis says. "They all perform at their own different places around the country in all different levels in all different positions. If they're playing 2nd XI cricket for their counties, which is really the standard you really want to try and judge them at, are they playing the positions that they would play for you?
"There are always stand-out talents – you've probably got six or seven guys who would get into every squad – but then there's probably 20 other players around the country who could make it. A lot of that comes down to personal choice based on the information you get from academy directors, and generally the guys that are just outside the squad are there because their skills aren't quite up to it yet.
"Actually, by not selecting them, they might be getting the biggest learning experience they will have had. We're saying they're not quite good enough, so go away and work hard and get better."
This time around, it is not just Lewis who has the benefit of being more attuned to the rigours of the challenge at hand. Seven of this year's final 15-man World Cup squad have already represented their counties at first-team level, which is more than twice as many as the equivalent figure in 2018. Several more have also signed substantial contracts with their respective counties in recent months, and there is a wealth of competitive experience on hand in South Africa to support the players in batting coach Ian Bell, spin coach Min Patel and fielding coach Nic Pothas.
The core of the squad has been together through much of the last 12 months, taking in a home tri-series in the summer against India and Bangladesh – perhaps the two strongest sides at under-19 level since the last tournament, and with Andy Flower playing a role on the staff throughout – as well as travelling to the two countries and the West Indies at further points throughout the year.
As far as tournament prospects go, Lewis says the team's progress will largely depend on how they cope with spin and the middle overs, having come undone on occasion in Antigua last month during a tri-series with Sri Lanka and the West Indies, played across an assortment of low and slow tracks.
Expectations for at least the three group games in Kimberley are for something a bit quicker – which would suit rapid Somerset youngster Kasey Aldridge and the seamer tandem of George Balderson and George Hill – but Lewis describes off-spinner Hamidullah Qadri, who claimed five wickets on his County Championship debut for Derbyshire in 2017 but has now left for Kent for regular first-team red-ball action, as an "outstanding" prospect.
"This group is a really talented group, and the thing I really like about them is they're really prepared to work hard at their games," Lewis enthuses. "Because many of them have had some first-team experience, they realise that the ceiling they need to get to is much higher. At the moment, if I had guys who had just played under-19 cricket then I don't think they'd be working as hard because they wouldn't understand how much better they need to get.
"When you've got several guys knowing they need to use this opportunity to make themselves better cricketers, then the rest of the guys just fall in line and do the same thing. If we can play overs 11 to 40 at the right tempo with the right skill level then we will be a very, very good side, because our fielding and our bowling is very efficient."
England's hopes in 2020 will be spearheaded by seamer George Balderson and off-spinner Hamidullah Qadri
Balderson and his deputy Hill, however, are yet to make first team debuts for their counties either side of the Roses divide. Instead, the pair have long been earmarked for leadership, having held the same roles in various youth contests for the North region.
Asked what it is about those two players in particular made them work well, Lewis says: "George Balderson in particular is a very clear thinker. He might be a little too structured sometimes, however he's very clear about a plan and, with most young cricketers, if you've got someone who's very clear and can give direction then they're more than likely to listen and follow.
"Most of the time when a young cricketer doesn't get it quite right it's because there's confusion and indecision. It is clarity of thought, strength of character and a never-say-die attitude that I like about cricketers in particular, but George has those in abundance.
"George Hill is a very different character. He's a lot more subtle in his communication, and he's a really good conduit between the rest of the team and George Balderson. He manages relationships really well, he's got real subtlety about him and he’s got a good tactical brain, so I think they provide a really nice balance.
"I'm confident with either of those guys captaining, and most importantly the team are very confident with either of those guys captaining. There are other guys that have really good cricket brains, really good cricket knowledge and a much higher level of experience playing first-team cricket, but the Georges show leadership qualities that at under-19 level it's really important to have."
With England set to play a familiar opponent in the West Indies for their opening fixture on January 20 before facing relatively unknown quantities in Australia and Nigeria to round out their Group B campaign, Lewis is adamant that adapting to the tasks at hand and dealing with the pressures on the day will prove most critical to determining the side's progression through the tournament.
Above all, the coach believes stability in selection will help the players feel able to bring out their best in the cauldron of South Africa. Each member of the final 15 featured during last year's West Indies tour, with Surrey-bound paceman Nick Kimber the only man missing from a first-choice lineup after suffering a stress fracture in his back. Though 2019 saw the side win just six of their 17 Youth ODI outings, the Caribbean trip featured four of those victories, and Lewis thanks the likes of hard-hitting Nottinghamshire schoolboy Joey Evison and "technically correct" Worcestershire batsman Jack Haynes for those results as they continue to grow in their roles.
In order to further build team morale and communication skills in pressure situations, Lewis has even had the squad in capsizing kayaks in the Lake District.
"In that situation in the middle of Lake Windermere, you've actually got to talk to each other and understand the power of communication and the power of process. The only way you're going to know whether those things work is when the pressure comes on and they're actually able to do it, but in the West Indies we showed some really good learning from that trip and I was really pleased how we could continually use it as a reference point.
"The dream scenario is we go out there and try and win the tournament. That's the only reason for going. There's no point in doing it and not trying to win. We've got a really good group of cricketers and the expectation is if we play to our full potential then we've got a good chance.
"I think our guys will need to be more game-smart than the opposition, but if we're able to control our emotions and be disciplined with how we play, I think we have a really good chance of progressing a long way."
Jon Lewis image: © ICC Business Corporation FZ LLC 2018
Lloyd Pope image: © ICC Business Corporation FZ LLC 2018
George Balderson image: ICC / Getty
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