Wednesday 20 December 2017 15:18, UK
England's Test prospects are being undermined by counties forced to focus on the financial rewards of T20, says Yorkshire's director of cricket.
England's humiliating Ashes loss in Australia, where they have lost the opening three Tests to surrender the urn before Christmas, has put the domestic game under the spotlight, with the lack of pace bowlers coming through a particular issue.
Martyn Moxon believes the county game cannot afford to be the breeding ground for Test players as the County Championship season has been marginalised by T20, which is now being played in the middle of the campaign to maximise revenue.
"The problem with English cricket is that there are so many conflicts," said Moxon in the Yorkshire Post. "There are conflicts of interest between county and international cricket, and it's so difficult to solve them.
"Realistically, how many counties now can genuinely look to produce Test cricketers because of the financial situation? Counties are in debt, so we have to play the cricket that's going to bring in the revenue to keep us all afloat, and we all know that the type of cricket that brings in the revenue is T20.
"We have to maximise revenue from that and it's been identified that the best time of year to play that is when we're now playing it. The importance that a certain number of counties place on T20, that's the priority, not red-ball cricket.
"It automatically reduces the number of counties that are potentially looking to produce red-ball cricketers and investing time in developing red-ball cricketers, because it doesn't bring you any revenue.
"There isn't an easy solution. We need to play T20 when we do because of finance, which means we're playing Championship cricket in April and September predominantly, which is the time of year when your traditional English seamers dominate.
"But it's a different type of cricket and a different type of cricketer required to winning in Australia as opposed to winning in England, for example, just as Australia have found when they've come to England."
