Two coaches, renowned for their meticulous planning and clarity of vision, helped England to number one in the world rankings. Here, we explore the parallels between England’s cricketing journey and IG’s investment methodology
Paid for by
Designed and produced by Telegraph Media Group
Creative director: Matthew Brant
Project manager: Jason Desir
Editor: Jim Bruce-Ball
Web editor: Caroline Stacey
Illustrations: HifuMiyo
Photo credits: Getty
The journey to rock bottom had been long and winding. Since the 1981 Ashes, when Ian Botham’s heroics unified a nation.
Since then the England Test team, a few notable series excepted, were chronic under-achievers in that decade – humiliated by the West Indies. And the 1990s were not much better – Alec Stewart, Mike Atherton and Angus Fraser were bedrocks, but this time it was Australia’s turn to dominate and humiliate them. And suddenly there we were, watching the new captain Nasser Hussain being booed by home fans at the Oval after a 2-1 home defeat to New Zealand, one that left England rock bottom of the Test rankings.
Hussain was to play a key role, laying foundations for his successors as skipper, Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss, while a pair of Zimbabwean coaches – Duncan Fletcher and Andy Flower – were to oversee an incredible improvement in England’s fortunes over the next decade, one that culminated in the team becoming No.1.
How data and insight helped England become the best Test team in the world - and can this current crop do it again?
Find the Insight Edge with IG and England Cricket
Go to IG.com/investing
Your capital is at risk. The value of shares, ETFs and ETCs can fall as well as rise, which could mean getting back less than you originally put in.
Glenn McGrath was able to put in such incredible performances for Australia during the 90s and 2000s thanks to central contracts.
England soon followed suit
England had a good look at how Australia were doing things and made a change.
In came central contracts which, in simple terms, meant that cricketers were no longer in a position where they had to drive straight from a Test match at Old Trafford to their county match in Taunton, for example, the next day. Their priority was now the England team.
Among the first beneficiaries of England’s new deals was Darren Gough and Andrew Caddick, who formed a potent partnership that didn’t shrink in comparison with Fred Trueman and Brian Statham.
In recent years James Anderson and Stuart Broad have profited, bowling 67.27 and 66.67 per cent of their first-class deliveries respectively for England.
It may have upset their county fans, but England’s Test results have been better in the last 20 years than they were in the preceding 20.
“When I started with England, because we didn't have central contracts, players would come for a week of Test cricket and then go back to the counties,” said Mike Atherton. “We didn't develop a cohesive sense of who or what the English team was. It was very difficult without them, because you are still playing lots of county cricket between Tests. Fast bowlers would arrive knackered, or often injured.”
Hussain, the beneficiary, said: “Before central contracts, everyone turned up as county players – they might be there next game, might not be. You'd get your £1,200, play your game, usually lose and wait to see if your name was read out on the next Radio 5 sports bulletin. When you know you are playing for a team and you know your team-mates, you can create so much more in terms of bonding and morale. You could turn up with bowlers who were fresh. Bowlers are like gold dust.”
It consists of a state-of-the art £4.5m indoor training complex. Facilities include lanes enabling full run-ups for seamers and wicketkeepers standing back, Hawk-Eye cameras and advanced biomechanics analysis equipment.
The England Lions, ‘the next generation’, are now based here.
"There is no comparison between the facilities we have here and those in Australia,” said Marsh. “These are far and away better. Australia will now be aiming to follow what we will be doing."
He saw Marcus Trescothick make 167 for Somerset against a Glamorgan attack that included Jacques Kallis at Taunton in 1999. Trecothick had only averaged 31.37 in the first-class game when he was selected. He had a terrific Test career, however, with 5,825 runs at an average of 43.79.
After Fletcher, England then had a fairly unsuccessful stint with Peter Moores, an excellent county coach who couldn’t quite translate his ways to the international stage.
But one of the best things Moores did was bring Flower in as his assistant. Initially reluctant to take on the main job he was won round and a whole new era was about to begin.
Flower was a meticulous planner with a fierce work ethic who liked aggressive batting, accurate bowling and sharp fielding. He saw a like-minded cricketer in Andrew Strauss, the captain. Strauss was the calm diplomat, Flower the driver.
In February 2009 England made a poor start, losing in the West Indies when they were bowled out for 51 in Jamaica. It served as a marker for what the two Andys – the ‘Andocracy’ as it was dubbed – had to do. They were fifth in the Test rankings at this stage.
Flower took responsibility even though he was not yet confirmed in the top job. “The buck stops with me,” he told the press.
Summer 2000 | Beating West Indies for the first time in 31 years | Fletcher / Hussain
How England went from zero to hero in 12 years
Triumphs on the road to the top
So, how did this happen?
Well, England had taken a good, hard look at what had made Australia so successful in the 90s and started to implement a few of their ideas. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery isn’t it?
The disparity between the output of Australian and England bowlers for their countries was startling. Compare, for example, Glenn McGrath with Angus Fraser:
Glenn McGrath (Australia 1993-2007)
29,248 (70%) balls bowled in Tests out of a total of 41,759
first class deliveries
Angus Fraser (England 1989-99)
10,876 (19.32%) balls bowled in Tests out of a total of 56,281
first class deliveries
1. Central contracts
Gough
11821 (26.85%) Test balls bowled out of 44,023
Caddick
13558 (22.72%) Test balls bowled out of 59,663
Anderson
35,772 (67.27%) Test balls bowled out of 53,174
Broad
29,863 (66.67%) Test balls bowled out of 44,790
2. Academy
Australia founded a national cricket academy in 1987. It was a joint initiative of the Australian Institute of Sport and the Australian Cricket Board. The idea was to have a batch of elite young cricketers training and playing together, learning the game and life skills under mentors like Rod Marsh.
In 2007 following the Schofield Report into the disastrous 2006/07 Ashes, England followed suit, and they even appointed the charismatic Marsh – a fusion of geniality and iron – to take charge. A permanent facility had been built at Loughborough University in 2003 and now the National Academy was renamed the National Cricket Performance Centre.
Indoor nets at England’s Loughborough base
2005
£10.1m
2010
£24.8m
Investment in Team England in 2005 and 2010
As a part of the central contracts, academy and the focus on data the ECB was starting to spend a lot more on Team England – in 2005 it was £10.9m, but by 2010 it was £24.8m, according to The Plan, a book by Steve James.
3. Insight and micro-details
It is up to captain Joe Root and coach Chris Silverwood to plot the Australians’ downfall this winter, but what can they learn from their predecessors Fletcher and Flower?
Current England captain Joe Root (right) and coach Chris Silverwood will be plotting to execute a plan to beat Australia
on their home soil for only the third time since 1980
Both Duncan Fletcher and Andy Flower came from big families – the former was one of six siblings, the latter five; and they were both shrewd, hard-working, calculating and ruthless when they needed to be.
Fletcher helped devise Zimbabwe’s vehicle number-plate system which perfectly illustrates his attention to detail.
He was very good at watching a batsman and assessing what they were doing wrong. James says he has the “the sharpest brain in cricket”.
Fletcher encouraged them to adopt a ‘forward press’ against spinners, a half-step that allowed them to switch between defence and attack more rapidly.
He wasn’t so proficient in coaching the seamers, but he had the insight and bravery to appoint Troy Cooley, an Australian who had the insight to get the best out of Andrew Flintoff, Steve Harmison, Matthew Hoggard and Simon Jones, the ‘Fab Four’ who were key to the 2005 Ashes.
Fletcher was clever at spotting players who had not necessarily amassed runs and wickets at county level, but could raise their game in the international area:
Fletcher knew Michael Vaughan was special as soon as he saw him bat, but in the summer before he was called up (1999) he averaged just 27.10 for Yorkshire. He proved himself to be exceptional before knee injuries hampered him, with six Test hundreds in 2002 (seven if you include the New Year Test at Sydney).
Simon Jones had raw pace and was capable of bowling reverse swing. County cricket, which can provide a fertile feeding ground for mediocre seamers, was not seeing the best of him. The summer before he was picked by England (2001) he took 17 wickets at 52.17 for Glamorgan. Fletcher insisted upon his selection, however.
Mini-meetings were crucial in forming strategies between Flower and Strauss.
Strauss said of Flower: "He’s a guy who prefers to lurk in the shadows a bit. He's not good at smiling for starters, so that would have been a bit of a hindrance to him. Often you can't describe what he brings to the side because it's just a multitude of little things, little conversations he has with people, little thoughts he puts onto paper that he puts into practice. The way he works with the backroom staff is as good as I've seen in county and international cricket."
A camp in Bavaria was said to be pivotal in forging the team spirit and work ethic essential to winning in Australia, even if Chris Tremlett did break Anderson’s rib while boxing (Flower resented the way it was described as a ‘boot camp’ by the media).
The planning of tours was meticulous. This was especially true of the 2010/11 tour to Australia. The modern way was for tours to be short, to avoid the warm-up matches of old; but England had three-day matches against Western Australia and South Australia, then a four-day match against Australia A at Hobart. The first and third matches were won, the middle one drawn. It paved the way for a 3-1 Test series triumph, winning their first Ashes series in Australia for the first time in 24 years. Flower’s insightful work had been pivotal.
Harnessing the mavericks
When Moores departed the captain at the time, Kevin Pietersen, fell with him. Upon his return to the ranks, he needed careful handling. A brilliant, unorthodox batsman in all formats, he was a difficult-to-manage mixture of huge confidence allied with deep insecurity. Strauss and Flower set out a detailed programme to harness his talents and get the rest of the team to accept him simply for who he was and find a way to get the best from him for their benefit.
It was successful until the 2013/14 Ashes where England were well beaten. There were signs that Pietersen was no longer the dominant force he’d been. In 2011 in Tests he averaged 73.10, and in the subsequent years that slipped to 43.88 and 36.10. The management considered his behaviour to be not worth tolerating any longer, and they discarded him. It was brutal, it was ruthless, but it was effective.
Graeme Swann was also a quirky character, and hyperactive. He infuriated Fletcher in South Africa in 1999/2000 with his poor time-keeping and was discarded. He admitted he was not ready, and immature. But after working hard at Nottinghamshire, Moores wisely brought him back. He’d learn to bowl defensively – and developed away drift. His county captain, Chris Read, told him: “Stop looking for the dream ball every ball.”
He proved, with 255 wickets at 29.96, to be the best off-spinner England had since Jim Laker (193 at 21.24), even better than Fred Titmus (153 at 32.22) and John Emburey (147 at 38.40).
James Anderson, meanwhile, had been one of Cooley’s few failures. He tried to remodel his action to help him avoid injuries, but in doing so risked losing what made him so brilliant – prodigious swing and accuracy. Under Flower’s insightful guidance, Anderson reverted to what he knew. He took 24 wickets in the 2010/11 Ashes, and has become England’s leading Test wicket-taker – an extraordinary 632 wickets putting him third on the world list (the highest seamer, behind spinners Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne).
Top 10 all-time Test wickets
Muralitharan (Sri Lanka)
Warne (Australia)
Anderson (England)
Kumble (India)
McGrath (Australia)
Broad (England)
Walsh (West Indies)
Steyn (South Africa)
Kapil Dev (India)
Herath (Sri Lanka)
800
708
632
619
563
524
519
439
434
433
Flower’s belief in intensity of focus also brought the best out of Jonathan Trott – England’s finest No.3 for four decades. The insight of selector Ashley Giles from their time together at Warwickshire identified Trott as a Test cricketer. He made 41 and 119 on debut against Australia in the pivotal fifth Test at The Oval in 2009, and in 52 Tests overall averaged 44.08. There had been modest summers (he averaged 22.52 in 2007) but Giles was right to identify technique and temperament as factors that could transcend numbers.
Flower was also able to expertly identify where others could help his side. He brought in Graham Gooch and David Saker as batting and bowling coaches respectively, and both did fine jobs. He recruited Richard Halsall in as fielding coach and England’s was excellent in the 2010/11 Ashes.
The work of psychologist Dr Mark Bawden and fitness coach Huw Bevan was also lauded. Flower forced Ian Bell to be harder and fitter. He helped Alastair Cook with his backlift during a lean spell. He knew Strauss needed a rest so he missed the tour to Bangladesh in early 2010.
The attention to detail was extraordinary, even down to the husbandry of the ball that allowed reverse-swing.
Insight, data, talent identification, infrastructure, judgement.… All these things came together to take England to the summit of Test cricket, under the guidance of Fletcher and Flower.
And now the mission is to do it all again, starting with Australia this winter.
The IG view
with Sam Dickens, IG portfolio manager
Being at the top: what does it mean to be a leading provider of investments in 2021? What does a leading investments service look like?
A good market leader should excel in all areas; providing inspiration, demonstrating reliability and giving value to its customers.
At the start of 2020, IG became the first established investments provider to offer commission free dealing on US shares. This allowed our clients to buy and sell US shares at lower cost during one of the most volatile periods in market history.
IG is also ahead of the game in offering access to US markets outside of usual market hours, giving clients the opportunity to open and close positions in over 70 of the biggest US companies when significant events such as earning announcements are made, which always happen outside of market hours.
There were three key things that helped England
improve:
The IG view
with Sam Dickens, IG portfolio manager
What about the trend towards social investing and ‘copy investing’? Is it right that investors simply follow the crowd, or should they focus on learning from the best?
It is important to assess what others are doing well or not so well and learn from these successes and failures, just the same as in a sport like cricket.
We acknowledge that there are popular features such as social investing which we do not offer but have proved popular among less experienced investors. But the consensus from our clientele is that they want the tools to react quickly to capitalise on market movements or to help monitor and grow their investment pot.
What we build and design always has these customers in mind and we believe our award-winning platforms and apps cater towards those investors that want total control of their own investments.
The IG view
with Sam Dickens, IG portfolio manager
What kind of distractions do investors face? How do they hurt their chances? How should they maintain discipline/focus?
The investments arena can be very noisy. Short-term concerns over unexpected economic data or a corporate earnings miss can tempt investors to flee to the safety of cash or other safe haven assets. Focusing on your longer term goal is key. As the old adage goes: time in the market is more important than timing the market.
Some of the largest difficulties investors face are the usual psychological pitfalls. For example, in the event where the stock market has already fallen in value; some investors may exhibit loss aversion and might unfortunately choose to liquidate their portfolio. We know that stock markets provide long-term returns, so selling out may mean missing out when markets do recover.
In contrast, the disposition effect describes the difficulty letting go of stocks that are worth less than what was paid for them. It is important to always be open to changing your opinion on a stock.
History is littered with examples of once successful companies failing to adapt to disruption in their industry or management demonstrating poor decision making. Prospects for companies as well as investment styles change, and so too should investors’ opinions of these.
The IG view
with Sam Dickens, IG portfolio manager
Why is it so important that the younger generation learns about investing for themselves? How does the new generation of investors differ from the traditional crowd and what can they teach their older counterparts?
The younger you start investing the better, since the longer your money is invested the greater the impact of compounding – where dividends and income received from your investments can be reinvested and start earning income themselves.
For example, if you saved £250 a month from the age of 18, your pot would grow to around £1 million by the age of 65, assuming an annual return of 7% without factoring in fees.
If instead, you started to invest at the age of 40, you would need to save £1,250 on a monthly basis to get to the same size pot of money in time for retirement.
As well as starting early the amount you are able to save on a regular basis is hugely important. And, when your pot of savings is relatively small, it is actually more significant than the rate of return received.
Taking our first example of the 18 year old saving £250 a month, if they were able to save an extra £50 a month, under the same assumptions their pot would increase in size to £1.2 million, an extra £200,000 from just £28,200 in extra contributions over 47 years!
The IG view
with Sam Dickens, IG portfolio manager
Why is it worth working for that extra bit of insight in pursuit of achieving the insight edge? Why is meticulous planning so crucial in investing as well as in the Test cricket arena?
If you want to pick your own investments, analysing certain stocks may require more due diligence than others, but however simple or complex a company’s operations may be; it is important that investors get to a point where they are comfortable with how the company operates, how management have performed in the past or at previous firms, and whether its shares are attractive based on current valuations.
Like cricket or any other sport, investing is not a tick box exercise and while investors may have a set of financial metrics they use for the majority of their investments, every company is different and will require varying levels of analysis.
That said, investing can be more straightforward than that. For example, IG offers a range of managed portfolios called IG Smart Portfolios. With this service, you just need to complete an online questionnaire to help understand your attitude and ability to take on investment risk, then pick the portfolio you wish to invest in. We then manage your investments for you to help you achieve your financial goals.
The IG view
with Sam Dickens, IG portfolio manager
Why is it important to build diverse portfolios of assets?
Diversification is the only free lunch in investing. By spreading your investments between a range of different asset classes which are not perfectly correlated with one another; investors can build an investment portfolio which has the potential to provide higher returns for the same level of investment risk.
As well as spreading your money across stocks, bonds and other asset classes such as precious metals, commodities and property; it is also important to diversify across geographies and sectors. This will help create a portfolio which delivers superior risk-adjusted returns over the longer term.
Dominic Cork leads the charge following England’s 3-1 Test series win against West Indies in the summer of 2000
Winter 2000/01 | Winning in both Pakistan and Sri Lanka | Fletcher / Hussain
Craig White and Ashley Giles celebrate victory in Sri Lanka in 2001
Winter 2003/04 | 3-0 win in West Indies | Fletcher / Vaughan
Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff on a lap of honour after winning the first Test v West Indies in Jamaica in 2004
Summer 2004 | 7 wins out of 7 v NZ and West Indies | Fletcher / Vaughan
Marcus Trescothick hits the winning runs to complete victory in the second Test v New Zealand at Headingley in 2004
Winter 2004/05 | Series win in South Africa | Fletcher / Vaughan
Matthew Hoggard is mobbed by his jubilant team-mates as England claim the fourth Test against South Africa in Johannesburg in 2005
Summer 2005 | First Ashes win in 18 years | Fletcher / Vaughan
Ashes celebrations at The Oval in 2005 as Simon Jones poses for the cameras and captain-in-waiting Andrew Strauss looks on
Summer 2009 | Second consecutive home Ashes series win | Flower / Strauss
England win the fifth Ashes Test at The Oval in 2009
Winter 2010/11 | First Ashes victory away in 24 years | Flower / Strauss
England celebrate a famous Ashes victory Down Under in 2011 as a win on the final day of the fifth Test in Sydney is confirmed
Summer 2011 | Reach world no1 after 4-0 series win v India | Flower / Strauss
Another captain-in-waiting Alastair Cook joins the throng as England celebrate beating India in the third Test at Edgbaston in 2011
65 out of 90 wickets came from catches for England in 2010/11 compared with 32 out of 56 for Australia
4 run-outs for England in 2010/11 - Australia 0
Swann had a strong action with a powerful shoulder that enabled him to generate lots of revolutions on the ball (2000 per minute – the same as Ravi Ashwin. This technology gave England crucial insight). Swann’s 370 Test runs were a bonus.
Swann
Laker
Titmus
Emburey
255 wickets
153 wickets
147 wickets
193 wickets
Duncan Fletcher with his England charges in the early 2000s
Andy Flower led England to victory in Australia with the help of Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott
The Insight Edge Series: Ashes to Ashes with Andrew Strauss