Jon Lewis ramps up the pressure on England's future stars

It has been a good week for England's cricketers. The men's team won their ODI series against India, confirming their status as the best side in the world, while the women's team defeated New Zealand 2-1 in their one-day rubber, making it three series wins from three this summer. The England Lions are currently dominating India 'A' at New Road, Worcester, with a number of the full Test side members going well. And to cap it all off, England's U19s beat South Africa in a two 'Test' series to register their first series victory since 2009. There have been worse weeks.

It is the last of those achievements which is perhaps the most interesting. With England's Test side apparently in stagnation, the whole approach to red-ball cricket in this country is being reviewed by the ECB. Above all, the criticism leveled at the County Championship and the ECB's development programme is that they do not produce enough cricketers with the skill and application to flourish at Test level. Whether that's fair or not, the recent struggles of the Test side - and in particular of those who have been added to the side from county cricket - suggest that the pathway to the top level has its issues.

This is why victory for the U19s in a two-Test series against a good South African side is important -- not only as a boon to the work the ECB and the counties are doing with their young players but also as proof that there is talent coming through. "It was a brilliant result," Jon Lewis, the head coach, tells Cricbuzz. "Really happy for the boys, they worked really hard. We had a good week and a half prep and they've taken what we were trying to do in practice into the game."

England won the first match at Scarborough comfortably in the end by nine wickets but there were moments when the South Africans looked to be getting on top before the home side eventually pulled away. "We held our nerve better than them and our periods of pressure lasted for longer than theirs," says Lewis. The second game in Durham was a similarly see-saw affair in which England negotiated a tricky fourth innings chase to win by four wickets, sealing their first Test series win at this level for nine years.

What's more, the victory over South Africa was achieved without five players who would have been in the team had they not been playing for their counties. The likes of Warwickshire's Henry Brookes, Worcestershire's Dillon Pennington and Surrey's Will Jacks have been doing well at first-class level and that county experience is of greater worth than playing for the U19s, which is why they were left out of the squad. "It's a higher standard than playing international U19 cricket. It's a better development opportunity," says Lewis.

As well as the likes of Brookes and Pennington, there is another, older group of players also doing well in county cricket who have also come through the U19 set-up. This number includes Surrey's Ollie Pope and Sussex's Delwray Rawlings. Far from there being a dearth of young talent, then, there seems to be an abundance of it and the chances being given to the likes of Pope and Rawlings prove the old adage still more or less holds true. If young players are good enough, they will be picked.

There will always be exceptions and some counties receive criticism for importing players from overseas or from other clubs rather than developing their own. Earlier this season, England U19 players who had played in the winter's World Cup were struggling to get opportunities in first team cricket, something