Good posting boys
Unfortunately the entire development program needs to be completely reviewed.
For a hundred years, grade and shield performances actually meant something. Those two testing grounds once upon a time produced seasoned professional players. Players ready to take on the challenge of test match cricket.
Today both competitions are completely disregarded, runs and wickets in these competitions mean nothing.
The only players being considered for tests are those in the national talent program, which immediately eliminates 75% of those players playing shield cricket.
There lies the problem, the ACB thinks it knows better and is trying to identify players early and manufacture test players through its development program, hence bypassing the need for grade and shield performances. This means guys move through the system far too quickly, they have no grounding in the hard school of cricket and no experience at spending time working their way up the ranks, having to graft and perform at all levels before being selected.
This process itself destroys the fabric of the game and the credibility of selection. Selection is now not about runs and wickets or performance, its about which young guy is seen as having the most potential as judged by the cricket development programs.
If you go back a few years this all started with the introduction of the talent identification program and the arrival of Greg Chappel into the development system. I know of occassions where state sides are forced to pick players that are in these programs over and above players they really want to play because someone in the talent programs wants them to play.
This whole process weakens the depth of our production system. Young players are smart these days they know full well if they are not picked in one of these development squads there chances of playing higher levels disappears. So the days when you came up through the grade ranks and performance saw you promoted to shield level are gone.
interestingly these kids then drop out, along with more senior players they go and play sub district where they play on decent grounds with their mates with no pressure and less travelling. This weakens the whole production line. Look at any grade side now around the country you will find at least four players in every side that would never have played first grade fifteen years ago. You can also add in the the fact that those in the state squads also do not play the number of grade games they would have done in the past as they do not need to perform to get picked.
Add in the following
1) second eleven cricket replaced by an under 23 comp to suit the talent program, where does a player in the state squad play?
2) Rookie contracts restricted to under 22 year olds, the ACB should look at the AFL system as this could provide an avenue for those late developers who dominate grade cricket and aren’t in the talent program
Sorry for the whine but our system of development is totally wrong at present, we use guess work and potential as the measure for selection when performance should be the dominating factor.
Let’s take a step back and allow the grade and shield sytem the opportunity to do what it did for us for a 100 years
You can add the following to the list of issues we also need to address.
