More 'Meh' than 'Yeah' for sure.
Let's face it, if you were doing the preparatory work on proving the new format competition was better attended than the county game, you would schedule it exactly as the ECB have done.
If you asked a bunch of primary school kids when best to schedule cricket so they could watch it, they would come up with the answer 'at weekends and during school holidays'.
So why do we have TWO full days of home Derbyshire cricket after the middle of May at weekends? Why do we have just FOUR days scheduled in the balmy (barmy?) month of August?
OK, if you include T20 it rises to the giddy heights of four days, all season after May, but T20 isn't a day out, it is an afternoon or evening.
It is crazy. People with or without families thus have to take their valued annual leave to see much county cricket, or be retired/unemployed.
Even my annual 'home' game, against Durham at Chester le Street, is scheduled Monday to Thursday. Given I work Monday to Wednesday, my chances of seeing much of that depend on there being a worthwhile fourth day to warrant a 400-mile round trip.
My holidays had to be in for this year in October, so only an April date works at all for me. While acknowledging the limitations of geography for me are unusual, I would be surprised if many are enthused. Again, after the middle of May there is ONE Saturday of county cricket - and that a T20 at Chesterfield.
It is all pretty disheartening for yours truly. Were I a conspiracy theorist I would reckon they are starving us of cricket so we watch the Hundred. Truth be told, I would give up cricket rather than watch that.
But of course, I would love to hear your thoughts, as always.
My immediate thoughts are that in between times Derby County are saved.
Fingers crossed on that one. And a better ending than the saga of the fixtures..
Tom Harrison has a lot to answer for! regarding your conspiracy theory Jonathan Agnew wrote an article for the BBC this week in which he wants the first class game in England to be based around the 100 franchises
ReplyDeleteI saw that Ranger. And lost much respect for him too, another who made a good living on it and as soon as we lose a series wants major change.
DeleteHow they reconcile less teams with greater participation is beyond me. Nor does it guarantee a better England side. By halving the number of players, how can it?
They will lose over half the fans, and won't replace them. And will likely still lose to Australia, as we consistently mess up scheduling and tour preparation - as above!
Anew if a recall correctly played for Leicestershire, it appears he is happy to see extinguished. Sheer madness reducing the size of the pond in which to fish. The ECB have alot to answer for in the demise of first class cricket and test team performance. They only seem interested in making money to the detriment of first class cricket. How can young crickets learn their trade when first class cricket is only played early and late season on damp green wickets. These wickets don't help batting skills or bowling skills. What about spinners they don't have the chance to bowl on dry wickets, or get the large number of over they need to develop guile and skills. Back to Agnew which lucky counties has he selected to join the franchise teams to make up numbers. I think he needs to take a hard look at himself. Rant over. PS Did he come up with the idea on 01/04/
ReplyDeleteAgnew's final game for Leicestershire was against Derbyshire at Derby in 1990 he complained about it being against Derbyshire Dominic Cork Made his championship debut in the same match
DeleteThey are blaming the county championship for England's defeat, yet even if the championship was perfect, it ended in SEPTEMBER. You wouldn't expect footballers to go into a world cup, having not practiced for 3 months. I would also say that England picked the wrong squad of 30 somethings. It's all become rather cosy. The schedule works OK for me, apart from September. Kris
ReplyDeleteExactly. And you never hear the county structure praised for the incredible reservoir of white-ball talent that has developed over the last 10 years or so resulting in a World Cup.
ReplyDeleteDomestic cricket in it's entirety in this country is an utter shambles.
ReplyDeleteWe had 3 good competitions which we just needed to schedule properly now we've a fourth which nobody wants yet seems top priority and the oreviously poor scheduling has gone to a new level.
They don't have a clue what they want and which format should be prioritised etc.
Here's what I'd do:
CC becomes 3 divisions of 6 with promotion and relegation, home and away games for 10 games each but 5 day games with heavy bonus points for batting for time. Played in May, June and first half of July. April is a 3 day friendly competition including the minor counties or uni sides as red ball warm up and plenty of opportunities for young players.
Second half of July and then August is white ball window with the Blast taking centre stage to be followed by the OD Cup and grudgingly/concurrently the hundred finishing the season in august/early September.
White and red ball separate, CC taken out of April and more played during summer months, less overall red ball games but focus shifted to batting time and young players blooded in April's 3 day tournament with the minor counties or unis. White ball only window with the Blast leading into the hundred.
I think it typical of the modern game to blame someone else. It is so easy for the powers that be to blame the "little" counties but was it really the likes of Derbyshire and Leicestershire to blame for not playing Stuart Broad in the first test, not having organised a proper preparation, showed little respect for spinners in the last 12 months resulting in Moeen retiring from tests and Dom Bess not knowing whether he was coming and going in India and not continuosly picking Jos Buttler as test wicket keeper on the back of white ball cricket when Jonny Bairstow is in the squad who is a better bat and keeper (don't get me started on Ben Foakes exclusion.
ReplyDeleteWhy when the fixtures are worked out can we not have a red ball game followed by a white ball or couple of white ball games. Then players will play different formats in all conditions.
My thoughts on this, lifted from my posts on our forum, and edited to make more sense, that i though may be of interest to this audience:
ReplyDeleteIts all well and good saying we should mirror the shield but its comparing apples and oranges.
The population of Australia is 25million, England and Wales 60 odd million and growing.
6 state sides works for a small population base whereas we can support more teams. The caveat is that nowadays far less proportion of the UK population in cricket whereas i suspect most proportion in Australia still do. Despite this the base should still support more than 6 teams.
State teams get no support. Counties do. The majority of Australians live in the big cities/towns. Our population is far more spread out.
Division 1 was considered the highest standard of domestic cricket by Aussie overseas player in the 2000's.
The issue is not the number of counties, not with a 2 division structure, the best play the best, so there no need to change the number of teams so long as 2 divisions is maintained. The issues are the sidelining of the 4 day game for the limited overs one. Simple as that. play 4 day cricket on decent pitches in the actual summer and scores will go up, batsmen will bat longer, bowlers will have to find out ways to get them out rather than dobbing it around and relying on the pitch a la Stevens (and our (Essex) seamers to an extent). Play with the kookaburra ball if needs be and give more batting points to encourage long innings.
It also boils down to the point of county cricket, to serve the England team or in its own right. given the skewed finances, nowadays it is to support the England team as without it counties would not be solvent.
Its also cyclical and a big noise over something that will always occur. They lose here we lose there. English conditions are alien to most others so our cricketers will be different. In the past they played as o/s in the Currie Cup which gave them experience of Australia like conditions, but still we didnt win much.
This is a huge hysteria over something that was of our own making and covid. No warm ups, lack of preparation, what did anyone expect? To jump from all that to say the whole county structure needs changing is nonsense, but in todays age where blame is always due and things have to be seen to be done to improve it instantly any failing/perceived injustice warrants a massive overreaction.
I should also have said about Grade cricket. We do not have any equivalent here. The better Grade teams would give the weaker counties a very good game if not better them. Likewise the attitude is different...i belive its still the case that test players, there still turn out for their grade sides when they can. Can you imagine that happening in England, for SNEL (Essex Prmeier Legaue or EAPL (East Anglian Prem League) teams? This isn't a problem in itself as county cricket by having 18 teams, fills that gap to an extent, with the weaker clubs being the opportunity for discarded players or those who mature later, to come again and get that chance. So to get rid of 6 or so counties completely removes that stepping post, so reducing counties will, imo, have an adverse effect on the talent pool. Some don't like it, but 2 divisions, with the better players moving to the division 1 counties, as we tend to see happen naturally nowadays (before covid) has the same effect as reducing teams with the intent of best vs best, (and a massive reason the conference system used last year was a silly idea) so to make it happen artificially is not needed and pointless, not even touching on the impact on the county fan of such a step and the creation of artificial non partisan franchises that no one cares about and riding roughshod over tradition
TLDR, this is a fuss over nothing and just an excuse for those who want to destroy the 18 county structure.
Essex Fan
I'd do what the Leicestershire CEO Sean Jarvis has suggested, making the CC three divisions and bringing in the minor counties. This would broaden the CC support base, provide more variety (Derbyshire v Devon, Norfolk v Derbyshire), and give more opportunities to young players looking to break in to professional cricket.
ReplyDeleteI should also have added the 18 counties allow those discarded early by the big counties, or late developers to get a chance. In Australia they would make a splash in grade and get fast tracked to State/Test. Here they would be lost to the game if only a few first class teams. The 'smaller' counties offer such players a route back into the game, that the standard of both National County and club cricket in the UK doesn't offer.
ReplyDeleteThe issue i have with 3 divisions, is how long before calls are made to make div 3 semi pro or worse, and a loss of interest in it. At least with 2 every county has a chance to get promoted to the top division each season, but the best are still playing the best in division 1. This would be reinforced by 1 up 1 down, or maybe 1 up 1 down and then a play off between 2nd from bottom in div 1 vs 2nd from top in div 2, to make division 1 a bit more open.It also creatins the jeopardy of a big county dropping down.
Essex Fan
I've read the above comments with great interest.
ReplyDeleteMy issue with England's set up is that those that are selecting the team are looking at the county a player plays for rather than the player itself. After all, I think that if the selction policy that's used now was used to select the team, say forty years ago, then the likes of Botham, Gower, Lamb, Randall, Taylor, Miller and Hendrick - there others of course - would not have got a game due to them playing for the "wrong county" and there would have been suggestions that they would need to move county to achieve international recognition. Until the player, instead of the county, is looked at then we are just going to have more of the same.
As for the County Championship I can't see how introducing Minor Counties could work - there is a reason that since 1900 only three counties have been added to the First-Class list (Durham,Glamorgan and Northamptonshire) and the last was Durham thirty years ago. I'm not sure if any would be able to develop the infrastructure needed to compete at the required level, after all how much did Durham spend to become a first-class county? But I think there is a pool of talent in the Minor Counties that First-Class counties seem reluctant to use. The other issue is that trying to persuade someone to give up a job that could give them a steady income for a number of years and allow them to play Minor County cricket at weekends and use annual leave so that they have a chance to play in first-class cricket - where a contract could last a year or two - cannot be easy.
My choice is to go back to one division. I feel that the two-division idea hasn't delivered what its supporters suggested it would, notably increased interest in the Championship and a higher standard of play. What we have ended up with is a competition played on too many result pitches, counties who have a short-term approach (how many times have counties drafted in overseas players at the end of the season to either help their county get promotion, avoid relegation or win the championship or are prepapred to throw the chequebook at ready-made players without developing their own talent?) or are losing players due to being in the wrong division together with a lack of spectators and waining interest shown in the papers. I suggest that we go back to a single division championship, played on decent pitches that encourage batsmen and bowlers to develop thier skills. Counties can also plan for their futures better as they can give those that show promise in the seconds a chance, meaning that they get vital match experience in games where the result isn't too important - as was shown earlier in the thread many a decent career started in an end of season fixture. I know people will say that games between teams who are 9th and 10th don't mean anything but they do with players playing for personal milestones, records and contracts - I once heard Viv Richards say on TMS once that "If a game isn't important, why do people keep the score?".
Another issue I have with the Championship is the scheduling of matches. The Championship is effectively 14 rounds of fixtures with two even-numbered divisions, it's mad to think that it takes 16 rounds of fixtures for teams to play 14 matches - only five of these rounds involve all 18 counties playing simultaneously. If the matches were scheduled with all counties playing simultaneously, the season would be two weeks shorter and if the T20 and 50-over competitions were organised in the same way its's possible further savings could be made. This would mean the season would start later and finish earlier so pitches could be a bit less bowler friendly.
Here's to a decent 2022 season everyone.
Jeff
Some really good points here,, everyone.
ReplyDeleteNice to see such informed, rational comment and I am l left with the feeling that we could likely do a better job collectively than the ECB have managed to do!
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ReplyDeleteSorry Jeff i disagree re. 1 division. Yes i would like that as we all play each other, but too many meaningless dead games with counties going through the motions is just fuel to the fire of those who want to move to a franchise/regional 6-8 team system. Your points are fair but in practice i can remember many a slow disinterested game for a county with nothing to play for, and the same could be said for last season conference, some teams had hit the beach metaphorically on same games near the end had a very half hearted fell about them. The step up to test cricket is cited as the recent issue, so the only domestic solution to that is the best notionally playing the best in division 1. Its a moot point if we agree if that is the actual issue (not one of the fact we have prioritized limited overs too much, marginalized the 4 day game and just have a not very good cycle of players currently) is moot as the ECB and the naysayers say that's the issue, so we have to solution this domestically to not allow them to change things.
I disagree it hasn't raised standards, Many an Aus player has said division one in the 200's was the highest and toughest standard of domestic cricket they played. I think its far more intense in division 2 you can have a few poor sessions and still be in the game, but in div 1, if you have 1 bad session, more often then not you are scrambling to save the game with no hope of winning it. Likewise the drift of the best players to division 1 teams (or those who are consistently in div 1), which i and most don't like, also means the best are playing the best, this happens and means the argument of best playing best, and the sole reason for a franchise/regional small competition is dead in the water. Its natural thing to happen in 2 divisions, but its not that bad...i hated losing Topley and Wheater to Hants, Foakes to Surrey and Mills to Sussex, as an Essex fan, but we brought on more of our own and with some astute overseas help we came again more strongly than i ever thought we would.
E F
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ReplyDeleteAs for 2 divisions increasing popularity i don't know if that was one of its aims, but i don't think anything really will help attendance at 4 day games, given the scheduling and difficulty for most in attending (as Steve himself has faced), it perhaps would help if the ECB and clubs promoted and pushed 4 day cricket but they don't, and i don't think it would make much difference to in person attendance. However i don't think thats a barometer of support, more the masses of traffic that the BBC county live, Cricinfo life, the cricketer and blogs like this wonderful one get, tell me there is massive popularity and interest in domestic 4 day cricket here still, even if that doesn't translate to attendance, due to the aforementioned scheduling.
Promotion of the National (they don't like being called minor anymore!) Counties, is appealing to the romantic in me, i would like to see more and have excuses to visit other grounds, but in reality it will never happen for the points you mention re cost/jobs/infrastructure etc.
Also don't forget Durham were only added for strategic and symmetry reasons and had an awful lot of public and ECB help financially (before it went wrong!). The North East was a vast and underrepresented region with strong cricket heritage and producing lots and lots of talent, and the ECB saw it as important to have an easier pathway and representation for that talent than having to go all the way to Leeds, hence the promotion of Durham. The ECB pumped millions into helping them out (both direct and indirect - international status was crazy) in the late 90's and early 2000's when they suddenly signed a bevy of kolpaks and found the money to keep domestic players, and became the dominant team, and in then encouraging them to overstretch, before shamefully cutting them loose when it went wrong. The ECB wont do that again and i cannot think of another strong cricketing region that doesnt have a first class county fairly close to support them, perhaps Cornwall, although Somerset cover them off, and of the South West counties Devonshire produce a lot more talent than Cornwall in recent times, but their proximity to Somerset who hoover that talent up, will preclude them ever getting first class status in the current system...that said and heaven forbid they go down the franchise/region route, but if they did i can see a shell first class county 4 day comp that potentially could expand to include the better National Counties, but that would be a hollow shell and soon become semi pro at best in my opinion. Similar to what happened in South Africa, where they have the franchise team and then a 2nd rate first class competition in the background (i think this still happens) with the old traditional provinces play in under their own names.
Very interesting debates though, but i think we all agree (apart from a couple of fruitcakes on the Essex forum that the current structure of teams should remain)
Essex Fan
Fortunately, I don't think those who want to reduce the number of counties will be able to get the politics working for them. Agnew wanted the eight counties who are in the Hundred, plus a couple more. That means scrapping eight.
ReplyDeleteI can see some support for scrapping Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire unfortunately - but that leaves you with 15 teams - which is too many for one super-league. And cutting three counties gives you lots of pain without significantly reducing the number of teams. And if all the cuts came from the East Midlands then there would be outrage - rightly.
Durham is a test match venue. Worcestershire surely has the most beautiful cricket grounds in the country. Essex and Somerset came 1st and 2nd in 2019 and 2020 and you don't improve county cricket by abolishing your best teams. Gloucestershire and Kent are in Division 1 (as are Northants). Which leaves Sussex I guess. So I can't see how they could make it work.
Curious as to which two counties Agnew had in mind when he talked about the Hundred franchises plus two.
Get rid of Somerset and south west has no team to feed into, yes Gloucs are in the South West but as anyone who has driven to Cornwall/Devon will know there still a very long way from those 2 counties!
DeleteGet rid of Essex, and East Anglia, East London (well London CC could pick that up), Cambridgeshire all lose there local county, a very large area and one that is a hot bed of cricket.
Same for most counties apart from Sussex as they could easily be absorbed into Hants or Kent or vice versa!
Regardless i think legal challenges etc would make any attempt very messy but with Tom Harrison et al in charge who knows what will happen.
I think his solution would mean regionialising (better than franchise imo as still some tribality and connection in the very loosest sense of the word), South West Saddos vs East Anglian inbreds for example (Agnews nicknames btw...given im a proud East Anglian/East Saxon mix!) But then franchise are notionally tied to the counties aren't they, not that i have a clue which London team Essex are meant to be, i assume the Lords team as its north of the river, so franchises could claim to represent the underlying counties...either way i not take much/any interest in them if they did.
Essex Fan
Having 2/8 teams in London is silly really (and I say that as someone who lives there)... and it's only because that's where the big grounds are. If Tom Harrison was really committed to franchise cricket perhaps he should put his £2M+ bonus towards building a big stadium somewhere in East Anglia so the teams could spread out a bit.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I am being over cynical but I am coming to the conclusion that the woke brigade are out to destroy cricket altogether because of its conection to the British Empire and commonwealth
ReplyDeleteRather hilariously the dinosaurs who wish the sport was still in the same form as it's colonial iteration are the ones destroying it. Pretty sure the Middlesex chairman who embarrassed himself today had been brought here from the 60s in a time machine given his shocking views. Out of touch barely covers it.
ReplyDelete