No 104, Sept 10 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟢 IPL franchise 'to buy' Yorks 🟣 Future of you-know-what under discussion 🔴 Hants docked points for pitch 🔵 Roach, Brathwaite love Champ 🟤 Notts, Northants, Kent sign overseas 🟠 Match previews
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How the hell are we into September? I was just writing previews yesterday.
However, by this time next week, the second of the three domestic trophies will have been lifted. A fortnight or so later, it will be all over.
Surrey put one hand on the biggest prize this week. A glut of stories on them, see below, suggests some believe it is done. Not quite. The top two miss out this week but both play Northamptonshire and Hampshire in the last two fixtures. Durham are all but up in Division Two but the race for the second promotion spot could be very tight if Leicestershire win at Sussex (Free entry there on Sunday).
We are in the last few weeks of the season, the sun is out. Enjoy county cricket while you can.
The weather screams otherwise but winter is coming.
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Player moves, contracts, loans:
Overseas signings till the end of the season: Nair (Northamptonshire), Fernando (Nottinghamshire), Chanel (Kent)
Loans: Currie (Hampshire to Leicestershire)
Contract: Handscomb (Leicestershire - 2 years)
Pat Brown: Derbyshire agree on loan for Worcestershire seamer ahead of permanent move (Cricketer)
Matt Parkinson: Durham extend latest loan stint (Cricketer)
He might be off to Derbyshire. Here’s Peakfan's blog: Samit Patel? (Peakfan)
Ollie Robinson set to miss rest of County Championship season (Times)
“Sussex had been expecting their senior bowler to be available for the County Championship run-in after being rested throughout August but Paul Farbrace, the county’s head coach and Robinson’s stepfather, admitted that they have not seen him since before the Ashes.”
County Championship news
Click on a team for a different preview
Kent vs Nottinghamshire
Warwickshire vs Northamptonshire
Lancashire vs Middlesex
Glamorgan vs Yorkshire
Sussex vs Leicestershire
Gloucestershire vs Derbyshire
Round up of week 13 of the LV County Championship (Deep Extra Cover)
County cricket: Surrey stay above tenacious Essex at top of Division One (Guardian)
Essex see off Middlesex to stay in title race – as it happened (Guardian)
Liam Dawson's persistence sees Hampshire triumph over Somerset (Cricinfo)
Matt Parkinson puts seal on handsome win as Durham all but secure promotion (Cricinfo)
Worrall, Clark complete Warwickshire hammering (Cricinfo)
Joe Leach: Worcestershire seamer says team 'in a good place' for promotion push - (BBC Sport)
Division Two leaders Durham complete 24-point win over Sussex (BBC Sport)
News, Views and Interviews
This all makes sense if you are an IPL outfit. Apart from a brief sojourn Stateside at your Major League Cricket outpost, this will keep your year-round contracted players in the fold throughout the fallow months in the franchise world.
I have a million questions as to how it works, starting with how this would get past the membership unless it is framed as a die-or-sell proposition. Knowing them, even then some might hold out against the hope of something better at the last minute. Because once it is gone, it is gone.
But racism scandals, mismanagement, egos and in-fighting have left Yorkshire vulnerable. I have rising fears that my beloved Essex will be in the same position for the same reasons unless the old guard steps aside for the club to move forward.
Foreign ownership in British football is constantly fraught. The supporters expect their club to be the top, top, top priority for the front office team, despite their other business interests, other clubs and coming from another country. And of course, the supporters expect pockets to be emptied in pursuit of success. They will protest if not.
English cricket fans have only a fraction of this belligerence but they should be well aware a Championship run would be rock bottom of any IPL team’s to-do list.
Hampshire docked three points for 'below average' pitch against Essex in July (BBC Sport)
I bet they looked good on the dance floor but all that boogying and heavy equipment cost Hampshire points.
Lots in this column - Surrey's legacy and the fact that Sir Alastair Cook may only have four innings left in his career. He has not yet signed for next season.
The piece on Surrey talks of paceman Dan Worrall, who is integral to their success. He is effectively a third overseas player because he has a European passport. There are very few quality operators with this key credential in this country and this is where the power of Surrey is brought to bear.
Then again, Yorkshire, Lancashire and maybe even Warwickshire have similar potential. The difference is that the Oval outfit have enjoyed better management.
There is loads more on Surrey this week.
Surrey are a rarity – a truly great county side (Telegraph)
Surrey’s Dan Worrall maybe should have become “English” before he was in his 30s (Kings Cricket)
And the Grumbler Award for Favourite Headline of the Week goes too….
Kemar Roach: Franchise cricket? I’d rather win the County Championship (Times)
But this runs it close…
"Guys can play in the Championship and go through all the different processes - failure, success. That's how you learn. Playing against Surrey and other good county teams is important to get in that frame. County cricket, any four-day cricket, it gives you the balance.
"Franchises are good because they enable the guys to make a living. But, for the guys who aren't in the franchises, it's important you get any cricket you can. And any cricket in England is always challenging.
"You always learn playing any game and [it's] always good playing first-class cricket."
Brathwaite is right but I would like county cricket to be two more things - a proper finishing school for Test cricket and an important competition in its own right. It is neither right now. This is why I am open to discussing changes like three divisions of eight teams, concentrating the best players in the top division and bringing in part-time national counties or European associate countries. It would create an even red-ball fixture list, a pathway for smaller outfits to grow and blur the lines between full-time and part-time. Thus easing financial pressure and allowing organic growth.
The 50-over Cricket World Cup is still the ‘pinnacle’ (Guardian)
Cricket to be included at Olympic Games by International Olympic Committee (The Age)
The announcement was supposed to happen on Friday. It was delayed
ECB pledge to treble number of girls teams by 2026 (BBC Sport)
Only a game – Some musings (Pete Aird)
Tales from the Boundary - Bradman's Last Test (Essex Cricket Society)
The Last Waltz (Rain Stopped Play, inspection at 3)
2024 Membership: Try before you buy! (Somerset CCC)
A good idea from Somerset.
The one-day cup final turns 60 (Wisden blog)
iHawk: How umpires with chest cameras enabled cricket’s latest data revolution (Times)
Rory Burns to cut hair for charity (Surrey CCC)
Thank heaven for that.
Ryan Campbell: How ‘master blaster’ turned Durham into run machine (Times)
Hugh Morris MBE to step down as Glamorgan Chief Executive (Glamorgan CCC)
Here are the options outlined in this piece:
Private investment in the eight you-know-what teams eventually increasing it to 10;
Replacing the competition with a pyramid tournament involving the 18 counties across two divisions, similar to the current Blast.
Sell the current eight you-know-what teams to private investors, would copy similar franchise models around the world, and attract interest from India, Saudi Arabia and investors in the United States.
Clearly, I am with B. It is what Richard Thompson proposed when he was originally interviewed for the role of ECB CEO.
Taking A and C to their natural conclusion sees the end of county cricket, which is the foundation of the game across the whole of the country.
A and C might create more money within the game but it will be in the hands of fewer people in fewer places. Some outside the UK.
This kind of con has been taking place since the 1980s in this country. Over that period, we have destroyed the NHS, the BBC, normalised the existence of food banks and left the poorer parts of our country choosing between heating and eating. Meanwhile, we have more billionaires than ever.
If you believe I am overstating this link then please think again. The UK’s leadership class in politics, business and sport have let us down in the last couple of generations - whether it has been the public school blazers or Loadsamoney suits.
In cricket, we keep on being told 'this change makes more money'. But who for?
The riches of the Premier League (better product, facilities, coverage etc) have been funded, indirectly or directly, by fans. We have got nothing without paying for it. English teams full of foreign multi-millionaires win the Champions League more than they used to. The execs, agents and bloated staff (yes, I used to be one) are much more well-paid. But England’s national men’s team have not won a trophy in more than 50 years. At grassroots level, we have a crisis in clubs closing because none of that money trickles down. Meanwhile, we struggle for referees due to a culture of anger and abuse in the game.
Sport should be better than this.
The piece says investors believe counties are irrelevant to young fans. Well, they were not when the Blast was growing (by 15% year-on-year and 50% over the previous five years) and selling almost 1m tickets in 2019. On a more minor level, you can even point to the healthy ticket sales in the One-Day Cup this year with absolutely no marketing resources.
None of us are born fans of a club or county. Relevancy comes from connections of family, location, team success or a star player at a key moment in our lives.
This is sport’s real marketing.
The kitchen sink has been thrown at [you-know-what] by a governing body who are both regulator and commercialiser. This allows them to invent a needless event, bully through its acceptance by withholding key international games from non-compliant counties and move the Ashes out of August to allow it to flourish.
They did not allow a free, fair and open discussion of a sport they do not own then somehow got everyone saying “it’s going nowhere” when, in fact, the TV contracts they rushed through before their former CEO was forced out kept it ring-fenced.
So how can we ever truly judge its success?
What they promised and what they have delivered are very different and, even since it began, the overall cricket landscape has changed. Plus, of course, all the key leaders were gone (or as good as gone) after only two versions.
How the hell can this be portrayed as the future?
I would welcome a full and frank discussion with the real metrics in front of me.
Why do we never get that?
……..
Finally, it’s the Metro Bank One-Day Cup final on Saturday with Leicestershire taking on Hampshire. Here’s the Foxes’ triumph in the Benson & Hedges Cup back in 1995
Finally, finally…
Let’s hope Freddie Flintoff gets back to 100 per cent fitness soon.
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