Alec Stewart defends County cricket, says, 'We've still got good players in the championship.'

Among the several reasons that are getting mentioned by the cricket pundits for the ongoing poor string of performance by the England test team, a prominent one is the inability of England's County championship to produce quality players. But the former English Captain Alex Stewart has defended the English domestic tournament by saying that they still produce good players and the County teams are trained by good coaches. 

"We've still got good players in the championship; you've got excellent coaches. When they go up, it's a massive jump and it's a massive jump in all domestic cricket around the world", Stewart said.  

However, Stewart, who played 133 test matches for England, has also stated some reasons responsible for the continuously increasing gap between the returns of the English players in domestics and those in internationals. According to him, most of the English international players don't play in the County Championship when they aren't committed to representing England, which averts the domestic players to play against the likes of Joe Root or James Anderson. 

Further, he mentioned the dissolution of Kolpak as a prime cause behind England's County circuit lacking good overseas players, which is another factor responsible for the decrease in the quality of the competition. Finally, the legendary former keeper-batter termed the packed test schedule and the desire of players to play t20 leagues as the root cause of these problems.  

"The gulf between the championship and test cricket has gotten bigger", Stewart said. "Test players used to play county cricket. County players would be bowling to Graham Gooch or Mike Gatting or facing high-quality overseas bowlers. The quality of overseas players has diminished", Surrey's director further added. 

Stewart believes that if the player picked is good for one game, then he is also good enough for 5-6 more games. Therefore, he feels that the real issue lies in the selection process, and therefore, the selectors have to be spot on while making their choices. 

"I always believe that if you've been picked to be good enough for one game then you should be picked and be good enough for a number of games, because if you're not, then it's not the lad's fault it's the selector's fault", the ex-England captain said. 

On the other hand, Surrey's head coach Gareth Batty cited the lack of senior players in the England XI as the reason behind such woeful performances. However, he stressed that the quality of young players has nothing to do with this regard.  

"There are less senior players in the England XI at the minute. So young players are going in and having to fend off like a senior player. That's why it's not working. It isn't the quality of the young player", Batty said. 

To note, England have managed to win just one test in their last 17 games, which signifies their poor run in the longest format in this period.