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10 February
There has been a few alterations to some conditions for the coming Championship season as a result of the Strauss led HPR recommendations.
The Kookaburra ball, used in the southern hemisphere and regarded as inferior by some, will be used in rounds 9 and 10. After last year's farce with the so-called bad batch of Dukes, a different ball might come as a welcome relief even if it's just for games between 25 - 28 June and 10 - 13 July.
[however the feeling is that the Duke is a better quality ball than the Kookaburra]
- Points for a draw will be reduced down to only 5 (previously 8), but 16 points for a win remains.
- Batting Bonus Points will now be awarded for scores between 250 and 450 (not 200-400). There's no escape from inflation, even on a cricket pitch it would seem.
- Counties will be allowed to register 4 overseas qualified players at any one time, instead of 3, as the Championship schedule is being more mixed with the T20 Blast this year.
- Notts currently have just the 2 overseas on their books for 2023: Dane Paterson who played in all formats in 2022 and Colin Munro, who has signed just for the Blast
[Notts have since added Shaheen Shah Afridi to the T20 squad]
Could never understand 8 points for a draw personally. Only plus point was some Counties, like our ‘friends’ down the A52 prepped good pitches, hoping that assuming they couldn’t force a victory, then a decent points haul would be taken from most games. Always prefer a game to go 4 days, personally and have never like the “result” Camelot pitches ending inside 2and a half days favoured by certain counties. This certainly doesn’t raise the standard of cricket, no matter how few games played or when you play them.
ReplyDeleteInteresting experiment with the Kookaburra ball.
8 points for a draw was a safety net if Covid wiped out a game in 2020 and 2021. As it turned out, the results in 2020 and 2021 meant nowt so the additional points for a draw were of little significance except for securing a Championship fudged-up win for Warwick in 2021. As we all know and believe Nottinghamshire were true Champions in 2021 with most wins and most points.
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