No 113, Jan 29 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter

🟣 Huge decisions coming up for counties and members 🟡 Will Graves complete Yorkshire takeover? 🟠 Hants up for sale 🔴 Another SACA success story 🔵 Lancs, Essex, Northants make overseas signings

I renewed my membership of Essex County Cricket Club on Sunday.

On the pitch, we should be competitive again this season. Dean Elgar and Jordan Cox appear excellent replacements for Sir Alastair Cook and Dan Lawrence, Paul Walter may have made a step change in winning the Big Bash and we have three starters in England's under-19s side at the World Cup.

This newsletter is being written just a few hours after one of the most remarkable days in the history of Test cricket. An inexperienced, underdog Windies ran through the mighty Australia then, shortly afterwards, England secured the best win of the Bazball era in India.

Such drama should prove the value of the long-form game.

But, alas, it won't.

Just look below at the stories about a ridiculously crowded T20 schedule.

The sports marketers’ solution to most problems is to create more and more, monetising at every stage, selling the sizzle until saturation point.

We are seeing a microcosm of this in the SA20. Six teams, named after the Indian IPL franchise motherships playing in front of big crowds dressed in IPL colours, enticed partially, by dirt cheap tickets and bucketfuls of hype.

In itself, there is nothing wrong with this. I would be very happy for low prices to bring bigger crowds back to county games. And a little (or any) promotion would not go amiss.

My point is about the deliberate choices behind where resources are placed.

In the coming months, we will see counties formally asked to back the ECB's expansion of you-know-what. Before Christmas, the news of the move was reported by the Telegraph, funny that, but there was little detail, even funnier. They want a yes or no before the spring. There is no alternative, no choice. Take it or leave it.

This, too, is deliberate.

Should the counties vote for it, I predict the eight teams not hosting franchises will get left behind sooner rather than later.

As we have seen in wider UK society, a move to put more money in the hands of the few is being dressed up as a beneficial necessity for all.

Which makes my Essex renewal, a triumph of hope and loyalty. Arguably we will be the biggest, and certainly the most successful, modern county in the marooned octet.

Reading some of the articles below, you would think that a rampant cash grab and overseas ownership of UK institutions and sports clubs (something the ECB are also pushing in cricket) is all upside.

It isn't.

Football has already gone through this process and may have to now regulate to force a more equal distribution of revenue. Because it isn’t going to trickle down on its own.

Of course, money is necessary to grow the game. But, in an era in which greed is accepted and almost encouraged, it starts to be seen as the end in itself, rather than a means to achieve goals. I saw this when I worked in football and spoke up loudly against it. This did my career no good whatsoever.

The ECB's proposal should not be dichotomous. It is their choice to make it so. Especially when it is being pitched by leadership who have utterly U-turned on their preferred route to progress in the past few years. If their principles change with their employer then, in truth, they have no principles at all.

Likewise, some loud media voices were content to use the county system when they needed it but appear happy to hop aboard the first gravy train out of the shires now their playing days are over.

Broadly speaking, county cricket was as uneconomic in their day then as it is now. If the governing body had pulled the plug back then they might not have had anything like their celebrated careers in the game. Essex were handing around a bucket in the crowd to keep the club going in the 1960s and I fear they might have to do the same thing, albeit digitally, in the near future.

Despite that, I urge county members to tell their clubs NOT to support the ECB's proposals.

Not because I do not want change. But because I do not want THIS change, THIS way. It should not be this or nothing. This or financial destruction. This or you are ‘a flea’.

Make no mistake, the approach is deliberate.

Despite the nonsense, nothing done by the ECB in the last few years has served to support the county game. The Championship is forever sidelined and faces a reduction in games that may render it almost pointless. The previously highly-successful Blast has never recovered from being moved from the prime spot in the summer and the 50-over final is lightyears from the showpiece event of old.

Yet, somehow, the Empire is expecting Luke, Han and Leia to support an expansion of the Death Star.

Personally, I am happy to be 'rebel scum' for a while longer.

Implicit in some of the pieces on Hampshire is that strong, active membership is bad for the club because it restricts financial development. That is where we are now. Let the marketers, execs and rich people do their thing, those troublesome long-standing members who pay their fees, watch games and turn up to AGMs in the bleak midwinter only hold them back.

What we need is television viewers, lots of them, especially young ones with disposable income that advertisers will like.

Because cricket is run by television, it is keen to sacrifice the deep, meaningful, old and poor, for the shallow, superficial, young and rich.

Which means it is no longer a sport but a commodity.

Tom Hartley and all the other players who won that marvellous Test on Sunday, along with all the English stars earning money in franchise cricket over the winter, came through a county system. Many will have started under volunteer coaches, played on local pitches prepared by volunteer grounds people and were certainly driven around by parents. On Sunday, Ormskirk CC opened their pavilion to celebrate Hartley’s success. The first drink was on the house.

Rightly, they were proud.

Yes, Hartley and all the others deserve their cut of this success. Yes, the game needs television, sponsors and monetisation. But not at the expense of the essence of sport - joy, pride and meaning.

You undermine the sturdy pillars of English cricket when you undermine the county game. It is the local connection, the talent factory and, if it had sufficient support, could yet be the focal point.

So make your voice heard against the ECB's latest proposals.

And, straight after that, make your voice heard in creating a better alternative. Join the CSA and send them an email. Write to your county CEO. Do something.

Because, at the same time, a vote for the status quo is no vote at all.

PPS I have set up a County Cricket Chat space on Reddit - r/CountyCricketChat

PPPS If you want to get involved in any groups to change this situation. Then there is the County Cricket Members Group and, of course, the Cricket Supporters Association.

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