The England Test squad gathered in London about two weeks ago, to get to know how they are recognised by their fans, before they were going to a training camp in Loughborough.
Rob Key, England’s Managing Director of the Men’s Cricket team, said that players should be more responsible about their comments on social media. He was relating to some agenda back in March.
After losing the series against India, Ben Duckett’ posted on social media “If we lose 3-0 to India, I don’t care as long as we beat them in the final of the Champions Trophy.” But in the end they were out of the Champions Trophy.
After that he received many negative comments and hate from his followers. The conversation was based on the seriousness of players on social media.
Due to the absence of international matches, England’s team developed interest in Golf, so it was a hot topic of discussion. And most important of all, due to this downtime the team is trying to stay focused on the busy schedule ahead including a one-off Test match against Zimbabwe starting on Thursday, five match India series and winter Ashes.
“With a bit of idle time, we get the opportunity to retrospectively look at things and see where things have been over the last few years,” Brendon McCullum said.
After some poor performance by the team, there comes rogue comments about it, which seems that there is no connection or love between team and their fans.
“If we look at it at the start, I think people were excited by the way that we played,” said McCullum, who noticed a change from the first two summers on his watch.
“They were enthralled by the freewheeling type of cricket that we played, and – I’m guessing here – but I feel as if they felt a sense of belonging to that type of group.”
“But if we look at it, some of the ways that we’ve probably let opportunities slip, some of the ways that we’ve maybe not been as smart as what we possibly could with some of our comments in the media and the way that we’ve addressed a couple of those things.”
“I think the thing that we want to do is, in our role, you’re not just trying to build cricketers, you’re trying to build men for life too. There are going to be mistakes made, and there’s going to be periods where guys say things that they don’t quite mean and can be misconstrued in a different way. But for us, one of the things that we talk about is we want the English fans to get in behind us.”
The England team just want to reconnect to their fans and want a friendly relationship with their supporters.
“We also want to be a strong representation of the English fans. We want the English fans to feel as if they’re a part of this journey with us as a team as well. There’s some things we need to do to make sure that we bring everyone along for the ride as well, and that includes winning.”
“We want people to look back and say, ‘crikey, that team in the mid 2020s was a hell of a team that we loved following, and we felt as if we were a part of that journey’.”
