Steven Finn Returns From Australia

http://www.espncricinfo.com/the-ashes-2013-14/content/current/story/709945.html
Well, an eventuality waiting to happen has happened. Steven Finn, his confidence totally shot, is returning from the Ashes tour, a defeated man with serious uncertainties regarding his career.
Finn was marked out for big things at a very young age, and by 2011, had become England bowling leader in limited over cricket. In tests he was a wickettaker, and offered an aggressive 3rd seamer option.
His habit of colliding with the stumps at the bowling end prompted a rule change, and thereafter the England coaching staff had modified his run-up. But the plan was shelved after a few games and Finn was back to his old run-up.
For the 2013 Champion's Trophy, England opted to go in with Tim Bresnan in place of their attack leader, presuming that the former would offer significantly better control. When Kumar Sangakkara and then Corey Anderson smashed Bresnan's 'Hit Me' length around, the folly of the plan was exposed, but the stubborn team management stuck to their guns. This was the beginning of Finn's confidence issues. Then after taking 8 wickets from 2 tests against New Zealand including some pacey spells that troubled the likes of Ross Taylor, Finn had a pretty poor first test in the summer Ashes. He was dropped from the playing side for the 2nd test, and then was ejected from the squad altogether.
Finn maintained his squad place for the Australian tour. In the last warm-up before the first test, Finn took 8 wickets including a 5for. But England opted for the military medium option of Chris Tremlett as he had bowled well 3 years ago!. After that, Finn just couldn't find his way back, and even when the likes of Tremlett, Bresnan and Boyd Rankin were failing around him, he was never considered.
And now we have this.
Hopefully, one of the brightest tallents to have emerged from England in recent times is not lost to England and world cricket.
Will it be Joe Root next? I hope not.......

Hell, when it goes wrong for England, it really goes wrong.

Reminded of Irfan Pathan in 2006. He was selected for the South African tour, and became the first Indian bowler to return midway from a tour due to form issues. In the first 3 years of his career, Irfan looked like becoming a quality all-rounder for India. After being axed midway from the tour, he has never been the same cricketer again. Greg Chappell was the Indian coach then.......

At least hes had a relaxing time away form all the stress of playing.

I know you are big Finn fan msp but I think the OP is a bit over the top.

According to the reports it is not his confidence that is the issue, just that he has lost is technically which does happen to bowlers, and of course is widely known as "the yips" across many sports.

Also you criticise the CT team selections, but that is a tournament that England should have won (and the failure to get over the line was in the batting) so I don't think that's fair criticism.

Finn needs to look at the examples of Jimmy Anderson who totally lost it on tour to SA in 04/05 and Mitchell Johnson to see that is can be turned round. He should not look at the example of Steve Harmison!

VTR wrote:I know you are big Finn fan msp but I think the OP is a bit over the top.

According to the reports it is not his confidence that is the issue, just that he has lost is technically which does happen to bowlers, and of course is widely known as "the yips" across many sports.

Also you criticise the CT team selections, but that is a tournament that England should have won (and the failure to get over the line was in the batting) so I don't think that's fair criticism.

Finn needs to look at the examples of Jimmy Anderson who totally lost it on tour to SA in 04/05 and Mitchell Johnson to see that is can be turned round. He should not look at the example of Steve Harmison!

I think there is a close linkage between technique and confidence. Finn can't become totally useless overnight.
As for the CT selection, what I said was Bresnan for Finn didn't really work. Bopara had a fine tournament, and the likes of Trott and Root were among the runs. England did come close to winning it but had a bit of a choke at the end, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Bresnan, picked over Finn for his control, got tonked by Corey Anderson, Kane Williamson and Kumar Sangakkara during the course of the tournament.

The coaches do have to take some culpability along with the player for this. Their job is to give players the tools to improve. There were issues that needed fixing, even when he was getting good returns in the early days. Finn himself talked about needing to improve his accuracy and reliability. Theres also always been a need to protect him from what Australia did to their crop of young pace bowlers, ensure that he was strong enough and that his technique was not overly stressing parts of his body.
He did need "messing with".
The problem is that messing has ruined everything that was good with him. No question that goes hand in hand with confidence but that too is part of a coaches remit. Maybe its something inherent in Finns personality of course.

But we can only judge coaches on their results, they have not been able to coach Finn into a complete bowler and now he is worse than when they started. Its not that this has happened overnight, he has been working intensively with the england set up for several years now.

Finn is included in the 30 man provisional list of players for the World T-20. I hope they leave him alone with Gus Fraser rather than taking him to Bangladesh to carry drinks.
They do have Jade Dernbach after all!!.

VTR wrote:I know you are big Finn fan msp but I think the OP is a bit over the top.

...

VTR - msp had already nailed his colours to this mast and so I feel it would have been unreasonable to expect any different tone. In any case, some of msp's comments are unarguable -''.. an eventuality waiting to happen has happened'' - and one, in particular, beautifully put - ''But England opted for the military medium option of Chris Tremlett as he had bowled well 3 years ago!''.

From the cricinfo article, I did find this statement from Giles very concerning -
''I suppose he has been in this state for at least a couple of months and it hasn't worked.''

I can do little more than wish the young bowler all the best.

True Guildford. For the record I am a big fan of Finn and am very disappointed with his regression, at home to SA and in ODIs around that time he really looked like the bowler we needed to carry us forward. I really hope he isn't Harmison mk2 i.e. one good year, several mediocre/terrible years.

The coaches have to shoulder some responsibilty here. They've basically mucked up a promising young bowler so much, they had to send him home. Sending home home is another balls up!

I can't say I'm surprised; I'm surprised and if truth be told a bit miffed it hasn't happened sooner if things are as bad as have been reported. It seems Finn's bowling must have gone further downhill drastically, and England have been keeping Finn on the tour basically in hope more than expectation that something would improve.

I said I think a while back that for me Finn needed time away from the England set-up (and matches, although he has had that and apparently nothing has improved) to work out his action. As much as anything he needs to figure out his game for himself (with the advice and input of coaches, but he also needs to take ownership and responsibility of his game; he is after all the first concerned). It seems like he'll now have it, and that can only be a good thing.

msp's post makes some valid points, and some OTT ones. I agree that from where I am standing Finn's confidence issues started with his being axed from the ODI squad, after having led the attack with good success. It is worth remembering that Bresnan didn't replace Finn, it was Anderson/Broad who had been rotated out of the side over the previous few series (mainly Anderson IIRC) and naturally came back in, and when they did the selectors opted to keep Bresnan rather than Finn in the side.

Probably Bresnan's batting came into it, almost certainly they were wondering about Finn with the older ball (Finn often bowled his 10 overs straight off, and the thinking was probably that Anderson and Broad should be given the new ball); possibly they thought Bresnan would offer more control in the middle overs. I believe they got that call drastically wrong, and believed so at the time; Bresnan's length which can be restrictive in tests is hittable in ODIs, and his economy rate in ODIs is poor. Dropping who had been your best bowler over the last couple of years (in ODIs) was just not a good move.

Thereafter though I don't think you can fault the selectors too much. Finn bowled OK against New Zealand (some good to very good spells) but in all honesty was dreadful in the 2nd innings of the first ashes test match, and Haddin smacked him to all parts. It is easy to say he should have been given another chance, but the truth is test cricket is a harsh place, and after a close match which Finn and England almost gave away, picking Bresnan turned out to be a good move, as he played a key part in a big England win at Lords. What was done to the arguable detriment of Finn was undoubtedly to the benefit of the England team in the short term at least.

As for this ashes tour, well none of us have seen Finn bowl on the tour at all, so we are scarcely qualified to comment. 8 wickets is all well and good, but if they are all from short wide long-hops it is hardly a ringing endorsement of Finn's ability to bowl in a test match. Clearly his bowling hasn't recovered from the issues last summer, and that being the case I'm not sure putting him in the most hostile environment he will have faced in his career would have done much good.

It does seem there is more sympathy for some players than others on here, Panesar has also been defended as being treated unfairly, yet he has been England's worse bowler after Swann, and has definitely bowled less well than the likes of Rankin, Tremlett, Bresnan.

It also seems to be the flavour of the month to lay all the blame on the management and coaching, and none on the actual players.

I will say that I think Finn has been poorly managed (last summer at least), and not well coached enough - someone should by now have figured out what makes him tick, how you sort out his action; not saying it's easy, and clearly people have worked on him, but these guys are meant to be the best in the business, that is how they earn their keep, and they haven't come up with the goods.

However some blame must also be apportioned the the players.

In Panesar's case, he should have come on in Melbourne raring to go, given every ball as big a rip as he could manage, bowled every ball as if it were his last. His attitude should have been "I'll show Cook he should have bowled me sooner". Australia still needed over 100 runs when he came onto bowl, and with their ability to collapse the game was far from over. It was a time for Monty to make a real statement and step up as England's main man. Instead he just floated the ball there without any venom, and bowled the ball all over the place. Rogers, hardly the greatest ever player of spin bowling, was able to take him apart with ease.

In Finn's case as I said earlier this means him taking ownership of his game. You get the impression at times that he is waiting to be told what to do rather than take control. His attitude is "I've got a problem, can you sort it?" rather than "I've got this issue, I think I should try this, how can we make this work?" The difference between the two is subtle, but real, and I know this from personal experience: the guys who get to the top are the guys who come to the coaches and actively work things out, rather than be passive about them. Coaching is a two-way street.

Post of the day Mike.

Mike Selig wrote:...
In Finn's case as I said earlier this means him taking ownership of his game. You get the impression at times that he is waiting to be told what to do rather than take control. His attitude is "I've got a problem, can you sort it?" rather than "I've got this issue, I think I should try this, how can we make this work?" The difference between the two is subtle, but real, and I know this from personal experience: the guys who get to the top are the guys who come to the coaches and actively work things out, rather than be passive about them. Coaching is a two-way street.

It is said that talent is everywhere, but it is the mental side of things that distinguishes the amateur from the professional and the ordinary professional from the great.  I suppose this must be the case - I mean, what distinguishes man from other animals is his brain - so they should use it.

Mike, going back to last test that Finn played, I think we should remember that it was Finn's twin strikes in an over that brought England back into the game after yet another underwhelming batting display. Even in the 2nd innings, he bowled a decent spell when Michael Clarke was at the crease. He certainly wasn't at his best, but even then he did contribute.
Lord's is his home ground and he had a very good record there. They should have given him a go there, if he could have returned with a good outing, his confidence would have been restored and he might have kicked on. All speculations, but a fair one I suppose.......

I hope if and when the ECB undertakes a serious and meaningful review of this tour, deflective tactics around Kevin Pietersen would not let anyone get away with some serious questions that need to be asked around the management of players like Joe Root and Steven Finn.

Mike Selig wrote:...
In Finn's case as I said earlier this means him taking ownership of his game. You get the impression at times that he is waiting to be told what to do rather than take control. His attitude is "I've got a problem, can you sort it?" rather than "I've got this issue, I think I should try this, how can we make this work?" The difference between the two is subtle, but real, and I know this from personal experience: the guys who get to the top are the guys who come to the coaches and actively work things out, rather than be passive about them. Coaching is a two-way street.

This is bang on Mike. I'm fairly sure in his early career Anderson was messed around with a bit, (think Gough was as well, not sure on that tho) but they went away and basically just bowled how they wanted to bowl, taking it into their own hands.

There is no doubt Finn has been mismanaged, but he really needs to take control himself now, and bowl how he feels best. For me he should just go away, blank out what coaches are telling him, and just do whatever he feels will make him a better bowler in terms of his run up etc.

And to be honest, much like Tremlett it seems Finn was picked for this tour more in hope than expectation. Poor poor selections.

msp83 wrote:...
Lord's is his home ground and he had a very good record there. They should have given him a go there, if he could have returned with a good outing, his confidence would have been restored and he might have kicked on. All speculations, but a fair one I suppose.......

You are right, it is speculation. What is not speculation is that Bresnan bowled well (better than Finn in his previous innings certainly) and played his part in a thumping England win. As I said in my original post, dropping Finn for Bresnan was to Finn's detriment, but England's (short term at least) benefit. Which is the primary focus of the selectors during a crucial test series. Whilst it would have been nice had England managed to get Finn's confidence back up AND be certain of not damaging the team, it is worth remembering that England had squeaked home by 14 runs in the first game, so that had they picked Finn and he continued his form from where he left off, things may have been very different...

Of course in hindsight of this series, and the way Finn's bowling has gone downhill since (apparently) there is an argument that dropping Finn damaged England more in the medium term. However that is in hindsight, and selection decisions aren't made in hindsight. At the time it was a tough call, but ultimately test cricket is a tough place, and you can't afford to take a bowler (particularly as part of a 4-man attack) on board if you think there is a real chance of him being unbowlable.

Mike Selig wrote:
...

I said I think a while back that for me Finn needed time away from the England set-up (and matches, although he has had that and apparently nothing has improved) to work out his action. As much as anything he needs to figure out his game for himself (with the advice and input of coaches, but he also needs to take ownership and responsibility of his game; he is after all the first concerned). It seems like he'll now have it, and that can only be a good thing.
...

Mike - a typically commendable thorough post.

You did indeed say that previously about what Finn needed.

You are also certainly right that it is the bowler who needs to take responsibility for his bowling.

The only aspect I would follow up on - and apologies if it seems like pedantry on my part - is your reference to ''with the advice and input of coaches'' (plural).

I saw Bob Willis being interviewed on Sky by Charles Colvile about Finn and his apparent issues a week or so ago. Willis' view - and to be fair, he emphasised that he didn't know the full situation - was that Finn needed to get away for now from the England set up, shut himself off with just one coach whom he fully trusted and work with him to rediscover form and confidence. Willis made no claims as to Finn having been given conflicting advice previously (although some believe he has), but still stressed the benefits of one voice to a lost soul and referred to similar having worked with certain Australian bowlers.

I could certainly see the merits of Willis' comments. As an aside, Willis was generally true to miserable expectation when comparing England to Australia during this series - ''men against boys'', ''dustbins for brains'', etc. - but surprisingly constructive (and sometimes left field) when analysing individual players.

I didn't really pay much thought to writing coaches rather than coach, but here goes.

It depends. There are times when it is best to have only one voice, but also there are times when a variety of advice being available can help you figure things out simply because it gives you more options and a different outlook. Or it can act as conflicting advice and muddle you up further.

On a more general level you can't just work with your bowling coach, you need your fitness coach (and if you have one, mental coach), all working together, along for the ride - your game is the total of all those components.

Mike - thanks for your response.

My thinking is that Finn is badly confused and so now needs less options rather than more which would muddle his mind and bowling further. However, that can only be a guess from this distance.

he just needs time away from the game, and needs people to stop meddling with his action, same thing happened to Jimmy, he went back to his old, own action and now look at him.

This is what Finn has to say in his only public reaction after he had to fly home.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/current/story/710343.html

I'm surprised no one has blamed Graeme Smith yet...

Finn it seems has at least been well coached in making media statements    That's about as cagey and non-committal as you can get (not that I blame him, I mean what is he supposed to say?)...

I think comparisons with Anderson are partially valid: Anderson was worse from the coaching point of view, because England were correcting a non-issue, and in doing so made Anderson lose what was his most valuable asset. The point is that he did go and have some time away from the England set-up, sorted things out, and gradually became a very good bowler.

Someone should tell the cricinfo staff about this ...

Boyd Rankin is unavailable due to a hamstring problem, so Chris Woakes and Steven Finn would be the two men who could come in if Tredwell is left out.

England (possible) 1 Alastair Cook (capt), 2 Ian Bell, 3 Ben Stokes, 4 Gary Ballance, 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Ravi Bopara, 7 Jos Buttler (wk), 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Chris Jordan, 11 James Tredwell / Chris Woakes / Steven Finn.