Strauss off key as he seeks to strike the right chord for English cricket | Jonathan Liew


To Strauss’s mind it is all about high performance, a problem-solving exercise that requires evidence. He doesn’t get it

It’s the design that hits you first. The soft, translucent swatches. Teal for the soothing, explanatory stuff. Bold navy blue for the action points. Coloured boxes with clean, bevelled corners and arrows directing you to the next coloured box, like signs in an airport terminal. The cover design incorporating hundreds of dotted lines, evoking the seam on a cricket ball, but also – eureka! – the road markings on a superhighway to the future.

Yes, I read Andrew Strauss’s high-performance review so you didn’t have to. Although as ever, interpreting the gist of these documents is not so much an exercise in reading as cryptography. We are told that a High-Performance NED and a PCC will be set up, advised by a PAG, in collaboration with FCC leadership, to improve our shared understanding of WITTW. (Non‑Executive Director, Performance Cricket Committee, Performance Advisory Group, First-Class Counties, What It Takes To Win. Come on, guys. Do the work.)

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