Elvis, Flintoff & soil - life in England's fast lane

There are leaves on the ground in Loughborough. It is unmistakably autumnal.

At one end of the Haslegrave Ground on the university campus, in the shadow of English cricket's National Performance Centre, is a marquee, big enough to hold the swankiest wedding.

If you listen closely, you can just about make out Elvis' Greatest Hits: Return To Sender, Jailhouse Rock, Hound Dog and Fools Rush In. If Elvis is being meshed with cricket, there is a decent chance Andrew Flintoff has something to do with it.

Inside the marquee, with Flintoff leading a training session, is the result of a multi-year project. Not the players, but the pitches – fast, bouncy and un-English surfaces.

The England senior men, Lions and Young Lions, as well as the senior women, have all used this facility and left for winter tours in the same two-week period in November. The pitches are just part of a peek at how England are preparing for the now and the future, with an insight into selection, coach education and, erm, designer soil.

Pitch perfect

Out-of-season training in a marquee is nothing unusual – plenty of counties do the same. The innovation at Loughborough is the surfaces, conceived to give England teams more exposure to conditions found in places like Australia and South Africa.

The senior men happen to be touring those two countries over the following two winters. The women, Lions and Young Lions are all in South Africa now, or heading there soon. There is a longer-term element, too, with the hope England players will benefit for many years to come.

Pace and bounce is as indigenous to the UK as a polar bear. Ben Stokes asked for such surfaces during last year's Ashes, though Mitchell Starc was more on the money when he said: "I don't think you get fast wickets in England".

Even before Stokes' request, there was a plan in place to make the net pitches in Loughborough a cricketing science experiment. Andy McKay, the ECB's pitch and grounds advisor, had "12 months staring into the void" until surfaces were built more than two years ago.

McKay's challenge was clay. Fast, bouncy pitches usually come from a soil with a high clay content, yet clay is no friend of the ryegrass that grows in this country.

Clay also cracks. The rapid Waca in Perth, Australia, has a high clay content, but produced cracks big enough for a small child to fall into. Not ideal for the safety of a practice pitch that will be used over and over. Just for good measure, there was also a desire for McKay's pitches to take spin early.

"We examined different sand shapes, finding a sand that would give us hardness, combining elements of clay, silt and particle distribution to make sure that we had a high-binding strength soil," says McKay.

The result, if we want to get really geeky, is a mix of clay, pure sand and sandy loam. "We've arrived at something a little bit funky," he says. "For want of a better description, it is a designer cricket soil."

Glen Chapple, with nearly 1,000 first-class wickets to his name and a fast-bowling consultant for the Lions, describes the pitches as "rapid". McKay believes the process can be repeated at a major ground if a county is willing to go through the process.

"There is an opportunity for a venue if they wanted to do something a bit different," he says.

'WhatsApp explodes during every round of Championship fixtures'

In one lane, Dillon Pennington and Pat Brown, seamers on the Lions tour, are working on moving a new white ball. Olly Stone is ticking over before the senior tour of New Zealand, while Josh Hull and Josh Tongue, both Test bowlers, are outside continuing their return from injuries.

Farhan Ahmed, the 16-year-old brother of Rehan, bowls his off-breaks watched by Graeme Swann. Rocky Flintoff, in the Young Lions squad, chats to his dad.

Selection is a live topic. Hull made his Test debut after only 10 first-class matches and Jacob Bethell is the back-up batter to the Test squad in New Zealand despite never making a senior century.

In the Lions squad, 18-year-old batter Hamza Shaikh has played just four first-class matches, Lancashire pace bowler Mitchell Stanley none at all.

Ed Barney, speaking for the first time since being taking over as England's performance director in March, says there is an "overplayed narrative" around the convention, or lack of, in recent selections.

But there is also disquiet in the domestic system. If performances in county cricket mean less than they used to, what is the point of a player slogging around the circuit? One head coach said England's policy is making his job "impossible".

"There is always an eye on the domestic game," says Barney. "WhatsApp explodes during every round of Championship fixtures in terms of performances with bat and ball.

"We recognise counties are under certain pressures to do things that are slightly different to some of the things we might value. It's our role to look under the bonnet and make some conventional and some slightly less conventional selections."

'Freddie is doing a cracking job'

In the corner of the marquee, three analysts sit behind a desk, capturing the work of Pennington and Brown on a phone and tablet mounted on a tripod. The bowlers are watched by Chapple, who had seven years as Lancashire head coach, and Neil Killeen, with more than 600 wickets and 12 years as a coach at his home county Durham.

If Chapple and Killeen are traditional appointments, Flintoff and Swann are not. While they were world-class players, their coaching experience at the top level is minimal. The Lions have cast their coaching net wide in recent times. Dinesh Karthik worked with the squad last winter, Dale Steyn will this winter. Sarah Taylor is believed to be the first woman who is part of an international men's set-up.

Barney and England director of cricket Rob Key identify coach education as an area of growth in this country. There is a balancing act. Flintoff has returned to the game and gone straight to a high rung on the coaching ladder. Like selection, England have to be mindful not to devalue domestic achievements in favour of chasing star names.

"We spoke to a number of people in making the Lions appointment, many of whom had been immersed in the county game and there were some very compelling people going through that process," says Barney.

"Freddie is doing a cracking job at creating an environment the players and staff feel they can thrive in."

It helps that Flintoff's ethos aligns with Stokes and Brendon McCullum, drivers of the Bazball revolution that is now permeating through all parts of the England set-up.

"That catalyst has come from Rob Key, Baz and Stokes, but it feels like it sits strongly across England men's cricket," says Barney.

"There's a strong sense of responding to the generation of athletes coming through. What was appropriate 20 years ago just wouldn't wash. We have young players coming through that want direction, but also autonomy and freedom. That's the day and age we live in."