 Clark has won first-class titles in England and Australia |
Former Yorkshire coach Wayne Clark says county cricket needs a radical overhaul if England are to avoid a repeat of the poor performances during the winter. Clark, who led Yorkshire to the County Championship title in 2001, stood down as coach of Western Australia in March.
"Australia's domestic cricket is a lot stronger than county cricket and bloods people well for the international scene," Clark told BBC Sport.
"In England, they just about grind players into the ground."
After losing the Ashes 5-0 in disastrous fashion, the England and Wales Cricket Board ordered a thorough analysis of what went wrong.
And the findings of the Schofield review group, chaired by former golf executive Ken Schofield, are due to be made public on Thursday.
England also had a dismal World Cup, when they failed to make the semi-finals and lost to every Test team they played against bar West Indies and Bangladesh.
Clark, who played 10 Tests for Australia, has also coached Western Australia to two Pura Cup and three one-day domestic titles.
And he feels it is Australia's more compact system that makes domestic cricket more competitive in his home country.
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Six state sides compete in Australia's domestic competitions, compared to 18 first-class counties in England and Wales.
"The intensity of the game is a hell of a lot higher," said Clark. "When you've only got six teams, it's very hard for players to get a game.
"In Australia, we only play 10 [Pura Cup] games a season and leading into that there's a hell of a lot of preparation.
"In county cricket, because there are so many games, it's very difficult, especially for the bowlers, to play at 100% in every game."
Former England skipper John Emburey agreed that English cricket would benefit from a reduction in teams, but admitted it was unlikely to happen.
"Thirteen teams playing each other once would no doubt be better than the present system," Emburey, now Middlesex director of cricket, told BBC Sport.
"But it isn't going to change. You can't turn round to Derbyshire and say, 'go and join with Notts', or tell Leicestershire to join with Northants."
Cricket writer and former Middlesex seamer Simon Hughes also thinks there are too many professional players in England, but says the links between county cricket and the club scene should be stronger.
 Harmison has played three first-class games for Durham this year |
Hughes told BBC Sport: "We should have a smaller nucleus of professional players.
"County cricketers are cosseted - once they get a contract, a lot of them think, 'I'll do just enough to keep going'.
"But they should be told that if they don't perform, they're out, and someone from club cricket will replace them.
"In Australia, there are strong links between club, state and international cricket, they get amateur players through the ranks and into the top level more quickly."
Emburey agreed that the English game as a whole would benefit from closer ties between the counties and clubs.
"In Australia, the young kid at a club is playing with perhaps two state players, perhaps a former state player and sometimes even a current Test player," said Emburey.
"That helps the development of the young player. In England's professional system, first-class players don't drop down and the club game isn't nurtured in the same way."
Emburey also thinks the introduction of central contracts for England stars was a short-sighted measure.
"By not having these senior England players around that can contribute and develop the younger players, we've shot ourselves in the foot," said Emburey.
"That said, maybe we should kick into touch those old players that are not going to play for England and develop young players instead."
| In Australia, the state teams are subservient to the national team Journalist Scott Heinrich |
Meanwhile, Australian cricket journalist Scott Heinrich believes England will never be a consistent force unless the make-up of the ECB's 12-man board is altered.
ECB board members, said Heinrich, who either represent counties directly or come from a background where they have their interests at heart, will always be more interested in their own survival and financial well-being than anything above or below.
"In England, the counties run the game," said Heinrich, who covered the County Championship for the BBC Sport website for five years.
"It's the other way round in Australia, with the state teams subservient to the national team. It is understood that the Pura Cup is a nursery for the bigger stage."
In addition, Clark, who is eyeing a return to county cricket in 2008, says the counties are not doing enough to develop the grass-roots game.
"In Australia, the states are responsible for delivering the Milo cricket programmes, which involve more than 500,000 children each year," said Clark.
"The states are involved with the schools competitions from the age of eight upwards. In terms of structures and participation, things are a lot stronger.
"They're really nurturing the game at a grass-roots level. I didn't see enough of that when I was in England."
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