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County Championship may have to be put down before it suffers any further indignity
HUW TURBERVILL The Cricketer: Draft schedule for 2020 sees 11 out of 14 matches played at pointless times
When Eoin Morgan said “over the next few years, one of the formats will miss out – we can’t play with four formats”, he was probably right. He was just wrong to infer it would be the Blast.
That is the only conclusion to be drawn from the draft schedule for 2020, seen by The Cricketer.
With 11 matches out of 14 set to be played at the bookends of the season, it is the County Championship that is imperilled.
It will no longer be – to use a phrase favoured by former Home Secretary John Reid – fit for purpose.
Frankly, what will be the point of it?
Yes, yes, I know several hundred to a thousand or two fans attend the matches. And thousands more like me follow the scores online through the day. But one of its fundamental purposes – to identify and prepare players for Test duty – will effectively be nullified.
The schedule – sent to county CEOs – sees three Championship matches in April and four in May. Then the Vitality Blast enjoys a run (May 28-June 7). A Championship match pops up in mid-June. Then more Blast matches (June 19-26). Then two four-day windows (starting June 28 and July 5).
The Hundred is poised to start on July 17, the ‘development’ 50-over tournament commencing a day later. The Blast quarter-finals are from August 18-21, then it is two Championship windows (August 23 and 29).
Blast Finals Day could be on September 5 (with a reserve day). Then two Championship windows (September 8 and 14). The 50-over final to be on September 19 (with a reserve day). And finally two Championship matches (September 21 and September 27 – going into the last day of the month)... later than ever before.
Rumour reaches us that this is the precursor to an announcement that two Championship matches will be culled come 2021, to 12 per side. Which presumably means teams in both Divisions One and Two will not play each other home and away (this is already the case in the top flight next summer). How much longer will it be before the magic number of 10 is reached – in line with the Sheffield Shield?
Of course all these matches in the spring and late summer/autumn will not be conducive to producing Test cricketers – unless Faf du Plessis is right that the World Test Championship is likely to result in more result pitches.
Success in the County Championship will still signify character and combativeness – somebody like Dominic Sibley last summer, who can rise above the elements – but conditions will bear no resemblance to those of a Test match – in England, with three Tests pencilled in for June and three for August – and especially at venues like Brisbane, Colombo and New Delhi.
How has this occurred?
There was a clue at the House of Commons, when the ECB delegation were questioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. “Next year, from 2020 onwards, the schedule has been put together by the stakeholders, the counties,” ECB chairman Colin Graves told MPs. “They got together between them; we didn’t impose anything on them.”
So there you go... it looks as if the counties chose to have their Blast matches, not Championship, in mid-summer. And you can see why: T20 makes big money, the four-day game does not.
The ECB have to tread carefully with the counties. There was a cold war about The Hundred. Now it’s détente. But really shouldn’t the ECB be telling the counties to schedule the Championship better? After all, the Test game is still important to them. It still makes them big money. I am guessing Test cricket makes up about £700m of the £1.1bn television deal from 2020-24.
Maybe this is where the new Professional Game Board comes in – to make decisions for the good of English cricket, not the bank balance.
A new legend seems to fear for Test cricket’s future on a weekly basis. Greg Chappell believes there may only be four or five major countries playing it soon. “It's another reason why I think 50-over cricket needs to be supported and given a rethink,” he says, “because 50-over cricket could well become the Test cricket of the future for a lot of cricket-playing countries.”
Ashley Giles, the managing director of England men’s cricket, suggests a solution: play some Championship matches rather than 50-over alongside The Hundred.
Yes, 96 domestic players will be away in the ECB’s new competition, but that still leaves a lot of cricketers to enjoy good conditions, at outgrounds which are so popular with traditional fans and many of our readers.
This gives the 50-over format its own slot, and would placate critics who say we are not taking the defence of our world title in 2023 seriously enough. Sky would also be pleased. As it currently stands, the only county 50-over match shown will be the final (understandably, because of course they will be broadcasting every match of The Hundred, even the ones the BBC have the rights to).
There was criticism on Twitter when the Giles story was published, saying it was downgrading the Championship with under-strength sides, but can it be any worse than having so many matches in April and September?
It’s like watching a beloved pet suffer an agonising death. It’s the last thing I want to see, but maybe a mercy killing would be best before it suffers any further indignity.
I understand where he is coming from, and in the battle to defend and promote the County Championship we are a bit like Great Britain in 1940. But as what Mr Gaitskell nearly said many years ago "But there are some of us, and I think many of us, who will fight, fight and fight again to save the game we all love !"
ReplyDeleteMoney will be the driver over the fixtures, we are already seeing early glimpses of this. To watch 4 day cricket in future in any great quantity we will almost be forced to travel to the away fixtures(luckily one advantage next season are the easy to get to games versus Direbyshire&AckermanCosgroveshire) or actually watch these counties themselves. But this is certainly NOT ideal for a lot of the loyal Notts membership for varying reasons. Ms. Pursestrings, until she defects to the ECB possibly, will be very conscious of this. The Princess is fully aware of members frustrations over the fixtures from the members forumns we all attend. And she is certainly no fool.Whilst she is in charge I'm certain memberships will be always be priced very competitively for us red ball enthusiasts and it will still in real terms offer good value for money for the vast majority,albeit some I know personally will not be able to attend as many days cricket as in previous seasons.
DeleteIf the powers that be are determined to reduce the CC further, then surely the only logical step, if we are to preserve all 18 FCC is to introduce 3 divisions - Div 1 and Divs 2 N and S with promotion of 1 team following a play off between Div 2 winners.
ReplyDeleteThe 3 Division approach could be taken with the Blast also - Finals day could alter slightly in that perhaps there's a Women's Final, A Plate Final (Div 2 N winners v Div 2 S winners) the winnrs of which gain promotion and the Grand Final between the top 2 in Div 1 - freshness and diversity in a one day package rendering The Hundred obsolete and in the bin.
As for the one day cup, why not go back to the Gillette Cup knock-out format or at least have a round before having 4 groups of 4, starting with the National (Minor) Counties in the first round playing against FCC in a seeded R1. Expanding the game in the country and preserving the format.
I think all of these add up to 62 days play maximum for an individual cricketer if he reached both finals and a Div 2 CC play-off, so there should be space for reserve days and no need to play in most of April nor the last three weeks of September.
Why not then have a 3 Division Premiership in Football and ........ Utter nonsense 'Three...' you are just playing into the hands of those who want to dilute the existing 2 Division County Championship. I don't want to be limited to watch Notts playing Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Northants and 2 others tryinmg to get back up to Division 1. I want each County Side to play each other twice per Season in their respective Divisions, home and away, that would be fair.
ReplyDeleteIf the trend is, as the article above suggests, for ODIs to morph into being the new Test Matches and multi day cricket to vanish, then if in England we want to save our counties and the 18 county system playing First Class in a league then perhaps 3 divisions is the way forward. If you're tired of playing the same three or four counties over and over, then perhaps two randomly selected conferences, Div 2 A and Div 2 B instead of N & S. Before the two divisions were first introduced, never in CC history did all counties play all other counties home and away each year. So 3 divisions would at least allow the fair, even, balanced fixtures to return to all divisions. Less is more?
DeleteIF sport is all about fairness and equality what on earth is there to dispute in each County not playing each other twice - home and away? Can you imagine in the Football Leagues, and many other sports, such an unequal situation as exists in First Class cricket? Come on guys, let's stop looking for the 'lowest common denominator' and go for a Gold Standard.
DeleteQuite recently we have blamed the ECB for the fixture list demoting 4 day cricket to the margins of the cricket season .
ReplyDeleteHowever from what has been said it appears the COUNTIES themselves are responsible for the 2020 scheduling of matches .
That has not previously been given out as information during the various Members forums I attended this past season . Were the Top Table trying to keep it quiet and hope we wouldnt know about their decisions ?
I recall at the Q&A in March 2019 with Franks, Mullaney and Slater in the DRS that it mentioned that the ECB run provisional fixture lists passed the counties to provoke comments and this might happen a couple of times before the release of the actual next season's fixtures. ECB always had the final say on the final draft.
DeleteGood point, The ECB seemed to shift the responsibility for the vote for The Hundred and for the worrying outline fixture structure to the counties. Certainly the counties did back all this, bit it did start with ECB and members have in practical terms been by passed
ReplyDelete'Rich' - you are correct in that the Counties voted for it - with even Surrey eventually agreeing. The fact is, though, that overwhelmingly Members of the Counties were never balloted - so it was the Chairmen and CEO's and their Committees who we have to blame - and that includes OUR Chairman and Committee.
ReplyDeleteVery true Philip
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