In the face of the criticism that has been levelled at domestic English cricket in the aftermath of the Ashes defeat Somerset chief executive Peter Anderson has once again spoken out in it's defence.

At the County Ground in Taunton he told me: "It is not exactly a good time to be an English cricket supporter and the only solace I personally get is to remember that in the last two years England have performed much better and had good series both at home and away."

Mr Anderson continued: "If you set that against what Australia have done to both Pakistan and South Africa it tends to prove that rather than us being poor Australia are very good."

The Somerset boss went on: "The usual suspects are saying that the cause of England's demise is the standard of county cricket and that too much cricket is played. This ignores the fact that with the central contracts system it is actually the England coach Duncan Fletcher who controls the amount of championship cricket played by centrally contracted players."

The chief executive concluded: "The question that Duncan Fletcher has to answer is why is it that English batsmen and bowlers do not perform with the same technique as the Australians. That is his job, but the evidence out on the pitch is that either he can't coach or that our players can't adapt to his methods. It is certainly not the fault of the English county game."

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