ECB 12 Team Consideration - Telegraph

 

ECB consider 12-team Premier League as part of radical new blueprint for English domestic game

Plus: Why it is time for a radical overhaul of the county game which is not fit for purpose

ByTim Wigmore29 March 2022 • 6:08pm

A radical new blueprint for the English domestic game involving the creation of a 12-team Premier League is being considered as part of the England & Wales Cricket Board’s high performance review.

The potential new structure, which would replace the existing model of 10 teams in Division One and eight in Division Two, is viewed as a way to bridge the gap to international cricket as well as reducing the overall number of County Championship fixtures, creating more time for players to rest and prepare.

A priority of the review will be to raise the standard of the top echelons of the domestic game, which could also lead to players at second-tier counties being encouraged to move to teams in the top tier of the first-class game, thereby raising the standard and reducing the step-up to international cricket.

Rather than a football-style transfer system, it is considered more likely that a new compensation system could be introduced - rewarding teams for producing players, but making it easier for players to move counties. Under the current system, players can only be approached from June 1 of a season in which their contracts expire, but it could become easier for players at second tier sides to move.

The high performance review was conducted to address the struggles of the England Test team and the series defeat to the West Indies, which extended the national side's woeful run to one victory in their last 17 matches, has injected even greater urgency into the process.

Under the current governance structure of the ECB, any reforms advocated by the high performance review would need to be approved by two-thirds of county chairs. This amounts to 12 of the 18 first-class counties, the same number who would be in the new top tier – potentially making the Premier League an easier sell for counties. But counties who consistently remained in the second tier, below an enlarged top division, might fear that, if they did not improve their performances, their long-term first-class status could be jeopardised.

The high performance review, whose remit extends to all aspects of the men’s professional game in England, was launched by Sir Andrew Strauss, the interim managing director of men’s cricket this month. Strauss said that the review would be “bold and ambitious,” warning that “incremental tweaks is not going to give us the step change we are looking for”.

While the recommendations from the high performance review will be influenced by the new director of cricket, who will be appointed in mid-April, there is growing support for a new model of 12 Premier League counties. The remaining six first-class counties would continue to play first-class cricket in Division Two, although they might fear being viewed as less relevant.

A new structure would lead to a reduction in the volume of County Championship cricket, with the current structure of 14 games per county widely viewed as leading to a reduction in intensity, forcing fast bowlers to either be rested or bowl well within themselves, and also make it harder for ground staff to prepare good quality pitches. Since 2015, April has been the highest scoring month in the County Championship, with the average number of runs per wicket falling in every subsequent month.

Under the proposed restructuring, the 12 teams in a Premier League would each play 11 matches, meeting each opponent either home or away. The six teams in the second tier would each play ten games, playing each other side in their division both home and away.

The domestic review will accelerate once the new managing director is appointed, in mid-April. It is hoped that the high performance review can put together recommendations in May, leading to a consolation period of several months before the changes are voted on around September, with the new structure to be implemented for the 2023 domestic season.

As Telegraph Sport revealed this month, other major reforms to the domestic game being considered include reintroducing an FA Cup style one-day knockout competition, and reducing the group stages of the T20 Blast from 14 to 10 games per county.

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County game is not fit for purpose – it is time for a radical overhaul

Based on recent County Championship pedigree, it would be impossible to dispute the selections of Ollie Robinson, Craig Overton, Ben Foakes and Alex Lees in the West Indies. Since 2019, Robinson and Overton have each taken over 100 Championship wickets at, respectively, an average 16 and 17. Foakes has been acclaimed as one of the best wicketkeepers in the county game and averages 52 with the bat in the last two years for Surrey. Until his selection, Lees had a strong claim to being the best uncapped opener in the English game: only Sir Alastair Cook has scored more Championship runs at a higher average in the last three years.

The quartet of Robinson, Overton, Foakes and Lees all earned selection through years of Championship excellence. All are of an age – between 27 and 29 – where they know their games, and should be able to translate their excellent grounding in domestic cricket into Test level. And yet, in different ways – Robinson with his fitness, the other three on the field – the quartet all had disappointing tours of the West Indies.

One hallmark of the England side who became the Test number one side in 2011 was the ease with which many players graduated to international cricket. Of that side, Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook and Matt Prior all scored centuries on Test debut; Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen scored half-centuries; Graeme Swann took two wickets in his first over. The struggles of England’s experienced county quartet in the West Indies point to how great the step-up to Test cricket now is.

Today the County Championship is less like a lower standard of Test cricket than a wholly different game – one that rewards a fundamentally different type of cricketer to that needed at Test level. Since 2015, only 0.6 per cent of deliveries in the County Championship have been 87mph, compared to 16 per cent in Test cricket, and 35 per cent in Tests in Australia: county wickets are often such that bowling with extra pace, and risking being less accurate, is counterproductive. Over the last seven years, spinners also bowl a lower proportion of overs in the English domestic game than in any other country in the World Test Championship.

England, then, are picking players based on their performances in a domestic system that bears little resemblance to the challenges they will face in the Test game. This explains why Saqib Mahmood, a bowler brimming with the traits that England have lacked at Test level, averages ten runs more in the Championship over the last three years than Overton.

A County Championship in which the schedule, pitches and intensity looked more like Test cricket would help England in two ways. It would mean that the players picked for their Championship performances were those who were most likely to succeed at Test level, rather than merely those best-suited to the very different demands of the county game. And it would mean that the leap between the Championship and Test cricket would be less of a chasm.

Robinson highlights how Championship excellence can be the catalyst to thriving in Test cricket too: he has taken 39 wickets at 21 apiece in his nine Tests. Yet Robinson has encountered a new and unforeseen problem in international cricket. For Sussex in the county game, Robinson has been a model of reliability, scarcely missing a game despite the relentless schedule. Nothing in his domestic record suggested a bowler who would not prove robust in international cricket.

But Test cricket demands that bowlers summon altogether greater intensity. Robinson has repeatedly lost pace in later spells during Tests, and a back spasm in Hobart in January meant that he could scarcely bowl after his opening spell. He was not fit to play a single Test in the Caribbean.

“You come out of county cricket and you don't realise how tough international sport is,” interim head coach Paul Collingwood said earlier this week. “I think he's only played seven [nine] games. So he is starting to understand what is needed to play international sport.”

It is an indictment of not only Robinson, but the broader Championship game, that it has taken this long. And it helps to explain the urgency in English cricket about reforming the domestic first-class game to look more like Test cricket.