England players do not play enough county cricket - Lehmann
Ollie Pope played six games for Surrey but Joe Root and Harry Brook played once for Yorkshire – a game they lost by five wickets at home to Warwickshire in May - and keeper Jamie Smith played just three games for Surrey - though not behind the stumps. Gus Atkinson made just four Surrey appearances, Brydon Carse one for Durham, Jofra Archer bowled just 18 overs for Sussex and Mark Wood did not play at all for Durham as he continued his recovery from knee surgery. Vaughan: Key and McCullum lucky to survive Ashes review ECB managing director Rob Key told the BBC's TMS podcast earlier this week he was keen to "deepen the connection" between the national side and the county game and would be launching a new committee to provide feedback on players.
"[Despite what may have been said] our selection isn't done off WhatsApp groups or things like that," Key said. "We have a whole scouting network of people across every single game. There's about 10 of them that go into it, we go into analytics, every ball is tracked.
"We are going to have a County Insight Group, run a process, try and pick a couple of people, coaches or directors of cricket, from the First and a couple from the Second Division and meet four or five times a year. "With no selector at the moment that becomes quite an important brief for the start of the summer in this cycle - there's a massive opportunity for people at the start of this summer. "We're going to need to use that group to get as much information as possible about potential players we might pick, the players who show they can score against the best bowlers but also be relentless and go on and score big runs.
" Northamptonshire finished seventh in Division Two of the County Championship last season There was considerable criticism of England's apparent lack of preparation for the series in Australia, both before and during the tour, with particular focus and controversy around the four-day break in Noosa, Queensland after the first two Tests. England said the break had been scheduled for more than a year but there were reports of players drinking excessively. "If they had played those first two Shield games before the first two tests, then played the two Tests on the bounce, they actually needed a week off," added Lehmann, who played five Tests against England during his playing career.
"They're not big drinkers and there's nothing wrong with having a night out. I actually saw a couple of them for a coffee in Noosa and they were fine. "It's more about the preparation for the Ashes where they didn't play any county cricket in the back end of the summer and then they played a one-day series before the Ashes where they could have played a extra first-class game and that's probably where it's gone wrong.