Interesting chat with the retiring seamers Masters and Napier, during the Essex break.

The were saying that Silverwood has Essex set-up to play attritional cricket, where the batsman grid out the bigger scores, and that their seamers can then chip away at a top of off stump line and make it hard for the opposition batsman.

I would say that that attitude is the direct opposite of the attitude Croft bring to the game, especially with his quotes in the press.

My point is that we don’t really need new coaches, I find the need for a batting coach a bit unwarranted, because there is batting experience already at the club in the shape of Morris and Rudolph that can pass those messages over, and also the fact that you would say younger players need coaching, while senior players need tweaks in their technique. The fact that its our younger players that are doing well points to there being something going right in the coaching.

What we do need in the longer form game is a change in attitude.

Maybe we are seeing pressure from the top that our shorter form games are attractive because that brings in the money, so we have focused all our play on that to the determent of the championship game.

I was speaking to someone involved in St Fagans this season, and he was very much of the old school coaching format where you take a youngster and you teach them technique first and then expand their game as their strength grows, and I remember many a game down there where you would come up against a younger player, and he wouldn’t score but you wouldn’t get him out either. They then had Matthew Maynard come down to take a session and he went in right away and forget all that and just hit it as far as you can, the members were shocked, but maybe that is the way the game is going these days. That you teach a player to slog first and the technique comes afterwards. Maybe Croft then comes from that school of thought, and what we will se is some frustrating seasons while it all comes together.