Silly season here once more

Perennial offenders Don Topley and Kevin Petersen are back to their usual antics on social media, desperately attempting to maintain edgy relevance in the modern game.

Topley, who it appears will push any cause that offers his son Reece the chance of a gig, asked on Twitter how many Derbyshire-born or Pathway-produced players represented us last year. It was an attempt to back Kevin Petersen, who quite clearly sees the removal of the likes of Derbyshire as key to the resurgence of English cricket, post-Ashes.

Topley's blissful ignorance was embarrassing. He guessed none, with the retirement of Harvey Hosein. Surely if you are going to criticise you get your facts straight? Alex Hughes, Sam Conners, Matt Critchley and Tom Wood featured, as did Mitch Wagstaff and Nafis Shaikh.

A pedant may argue that Critchley came south from Lancashire, and Wood was never part of the academy, but without Derbyshire neither would have got opportunity. The latter developed through local cricket and hard work, of course. That Critchley was poached from us by his old county seems to have completely  passed him by.

So too that the likes of Ross Whiteley, Tom Taylor, Will Davis and Callum Parkinson are giving sterling service to other counties, or that Ben Slater must be closing in on an England call at Nottinghamshire.

Then there is good old KP,  whose assertion 'for those asking' that he would only become England cricket supremo if the county system was disbanded and replaced by eight 'elite' Franchises was laughable. I suspect I am closer to that role than he will ever be.. 

Pietersen was a very good cricketer who has always courted controversy and attempted to be 'edgy' . It hasn't always worked in his favour and now seems to be more attention-seeking than anything especially thought - provoking. 

His rationale is that there are too many 'average players' plying their trade in county cricket. With eight elite squads, he argues, the standard would be better and of course, we will then dominate the world game. 

Really? So reducing numbers and as a result opportunity guarantees quality? What about late developers? How about the progression from talented yet raw under 19 to the senior game? Or the ones who start off in the wrong place at the wrong time? 

I offer you Luis Reece, Brooke Guest and Ben Aitchison. All started in Lancashire but lacked opportunity there. Reece has been a standout player at Derbyshire (and a Hundred franchise pick) but would have disappeared bar for Kim Barnett spotting his talent. 

Guest and Aitchison will yet improve and who knows how far their talents take them. At 24 and 22 respectively they have big futures. 

Let's not forget Fynn Hudson-Prentice, who was cast aside by Sussex and could easily have disappeared from the game, bar for that prized opportunity when Steve Kirby brought him up from Lord's for a trial. 

What about spectators? They 'don't matter' says Petersen, who appears to have given his argument less thought than I normally put into which bin to use for rubbish each day. 

Really? So the recreational and social aspect of the game is of little consequence, let alone 150 years of history and local rivalry? The county clubs as huge community hubs are an irrelevance? 

For many people, whether KP and others like it or not, their county is their thing. Give me a choice between watching Derbyshire on a windswept ground or via a stream and England from an executive box, I will go with the former every time. 

Last season, when fixtures coincided, I watched Derbyshire on the stream every time over an England side for which I struggle to have empathy. It has become too elitist, like a gentleman's club. Derbyshire represent me, I just happen to be from England. 

The national side will return to winning ways if they schedule tours better and allow players time in the middle to get used to local conditions. Time was when between six and twelve matches were played BEFORE the overseas Test series. Now, they are lucky to get one. Seriously, how can you match the world's best with no practice? Who of you playing club cricket feels in the form of your life before the season's first game? And look how many times we lose the opening match of any international series through this nonsense. 

It is the same with the domestic schedule. If we overly focus on matches where a quickfire thirty is celebrated, then how is that preparation for a five-day Test? Why introduce a format that no other country plays and few care about, bar for marketing types who line their pockets? 

Play and schedule county cricket over four days across weekends so people can watch it, allow two overseas players and get England players involved in at least half of the matches and you will see a difference. When Pietersen refers to county cricket being tougher in his day he is likely right about one thing. 

Why was it better? Because pre-IPL, the world's best players were here, two per side and the England players were in it too. Cast your mind back to the Derbyshire side in the Barlow era and imagine it without Mike Hendrick, Bob Taylor and Geoff Miller on central contracts. Barlow would have been in the IPL until June, as would Peter Kirsten, then maybe a CPL stint or a limited overs tour for their country. 

On the subject of central contracts, who gets better at anything in life by not doing it? Whether writing reports, driving a car, doing handicrafts, interviews or whatever, familiarity and repetition bring greater comfort and quality. 

Who among us enjoys singing in the shower, or around the house, but would buckle if asked to go and do so in front of an audience? Going from even competitive nets to Test cricket has to be a huge jump. 

The twin ironies that have passed Pietersen by are that his own South Africa went down the franchise route and have scrapped it. To quote the cricket writer Firdose Moonda last year:

While the franchises were intended to provide an Australian-style strength-versus-strength structure, the South African men's national team finds itself in a difficult stage of rebuilding and CSA has opted for a system that closer resembles the English or Indian domestic set-up, and provides more consistent opportunities at the top level for a greater number of players.

Funny that, huh? 

Secondly, Pietersen argued he became an international cricketer on the back of a first-class record where he averaged 57.

Yes Kevin. In the county championship that gave you the opportunity to forge a career, when you arrived here from South Africa. 

His average when he arrived at Nottinghamshire was below 25, perhaps the very definition of 'average' he was looking for. Yet Clive Rice spotted potential and the rest is history. He faced and honed his skills against top quality bowlers, so the leap to Test cricket was not so bad. 

As one old pro said to me, when you had faced Clive Rice and Richard Hadlee on a green Trent Bridge track, or Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux at Hove, you knew there was nothing to worry you at Test level. So too those who faced Malcolm, Mortensen, Holding and Cork at Derby.. 

Those who would rip it up and start again, in a knee jerk reaction to a lost Test series against the world's best team are the biggest danger to the game. 

England have won series against many top sides BECAUSE of the grounding of players in the county game. It is only when they lose that it ever gets mentioned. I would take our Blast in overall standard over their T20 competitions every time. 

Comparisons with Australia are pointless, because the populations are concentrated and miles apart there. The small number of first-class teams is dictated by this alone. I have watched top level cricket from there and South Africa and the standard below the very top players is really not that great. 

At the end of the day, sporting success is cyclical. Look at the West Indies for a prime example, South Africa too. When England again realise that the classic late developer, the man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time early in his career, could have much to offer them as a seasoned professional, they will improve.

Look at Stuart Broad, Bob Willis, Graeme Swann. Crikey, going back further, Warwickshire didn't think much of Hedley Verity. Changes of county brought changed fortunes. 

But picking out talented young lads and plucking them from regular, technique-honing county cricket to a net-focused central contract is a recipe for disaster. Once surrounded by hostile, gobby fielders and facing bowlers who are really slipping it through, they will fail. 

Reducing a talent pool by over fifty per cent and expecting it to solve our problems is silly. 

You don't see English football ripping out clubs and divisions after failing to win yet another trophy. 

At the end of the day, sometimes you have to accept that despite your best efforts, you were beaten by a better side with better players.