Graham Thorpe

More practice, less matches

Wed Apr 22 03:09PM

As I begin my first full season as a coach on the county circuit I maintain the belief we need to change the philosophy applied to upcoming players in the game.

At the moment there is far too much emphasis on competitive cricket and I think the domestic calendar needs to be overhauled to allow for more practice time.

In an ideal world we'd take 25 days from the start of the season and put that time aside purely for practising. That way players would have an adequate amount of time to hone their skills.

It's not a new theory, people have been suggesting this for a long time - but nothing has been done about it.

And it's the same problem in the junior ranks. When you get kids of 14 and 15 playing non-stop competitive games for most of the season they miss out on the opportunity to focus on their skills and develop.

On the plus side, I have noticed at Surrey that practice methods have improved from the days when I was playing. It's really exciting to see new approaches being applied and it can only help us develop Test-quality players.

- - -

I was pretty happy with the way we played in our opening four-day game against Gloucestershire at The Oval.

We had a relatively inexperienced side out in terms of batting and to come away with a draw against a strong bowling attack was very positive.

It was a great chance to see how the younger guys would stand up to the challenge and they did pretty well.

It's onto Derby next, where we are sure to come across a very different wicket to the one we played on at The Oval.

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