Something for the weekend

All quiet on the county cricket front over recent days, though in the close season that should hardly come as a surprise. We've been spoiled in the past couple of weeks, with nigh-daily news releases from the club on signings on and off the pitch. It has, of course, been extremely heartening.

So too was the news that the ECB have had a climb down over fixture scheduling from 2014 onwards. The sad fact is, however, that they actually needed to present such a cockeyed initial idea to warrant one. How anyone at the organisational end of the first-class game could think weekends free of cricket was ever a good idea astounds me.

I appreciate that Sunday starts for championship matches is not ideal for some - those with church commitments for morning and evening fellowship among them - but such a problem will always be an issue for a subset of supporters with a preference for one format. I know a few keen cricket fans whose love of the one-day game has been subjugated to such commitments over many years, several of them among the clergy.

Still, Sunday starts should, weather permitting, guarantee fans some cricket, even if it requires committing a full day rather than the afternoon. The new schedule for fifty-over cricket sees two groups of nine, with eight matches played per side, four home and four away. There will obviously be the luck of the draw with regards to home advantage against specific opposition, probably of greater importance off the field than on it. I'm sure that Derbyshire would welcome home matches against Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire than away ones from a financial perspective, but in a crowded schedule something has to give.

Sadly the new competition allows no space for Scotland, Netherlands and the Unicorns. While the success of each side has varied, there is little doubt that increased exposure to the county game has improved the game north of the border. There are more Scots on county staffs at present than at any time in my memory and they are capable of making an impression on the county game just as Mike Denness, Brian Hardie, Terry Racionzer and, of course, Dallas Moir did in days gone by. I guess we'll see more county scouts racking up the miles on their travels, rather than waiting for the players to appear somewhere closer at hand.

Spreading the T20 over the season, primarily on Friday evenings, theoretically allows greater flexibility in the availability of bigger names for the competition, while also preventing a bad and static spell of weather from wrecking a competition as it largely did this summer. I am unsure how many top stars will commit to a spell in England for a twenty-over game once a week, however. Perhaps we will see a new rationale behind overseas recruitment, with one brought in for T20 and fifty-over games to make it worth their while. I would have thought maintaining form with a week between short innings or spells could be an issue, but such thoughts will doubtless occupy the minds of county coaches over the next twelve months before they need to do anything about it.

Overseas, there were 68 runs for Ross Whiteley in his first match in Australia last week, a game that ended in defeat for his side. Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, Ben Slater and Peter Burgoyne continue to impress. Slater has made runs in most matches, though will be a little disappointed to have only gone on to fifty in one of them. Burgoyne has bowled with ever-increasing confidence, today producing figures of 1-17 in four overs of a 20-over match as the opposition racked up 176. That is an exceptional spell, especially when one considers that he opened the bowling.

I'm no more aware of the standard of Zimbabwe domestic cricket than the rest of you, but both boys have acquitted themselves well. Burgoyne in particular could push himself into contention for a regular berth in the one-day side with continued good performance. Mind you, so too could Tom Knight, another playing in Australia this winter. He made his debut for his club side in Victoria and took two good wickets, then top scored in a defeat against one of the stronger sides in the Victorian Cricket Association.

Knight, as evidenced in his efforts for the Second XI and England under-19s in recent months, is a much improved batsman. He needs to be, as such ability makes the difference when you have two bowlers of similar ability in contention for a place in the side. With Wainwright, Burgoyne and Knight all pressing, squeezing sixteen eminently capable cricketers into eleven places is going to be a problem of the nicer kind for Karl Krikken next summer.

It is a long time since we had such issues and is encouraging to see.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. See you soon.