No 107, Oct 8 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟣 Championship finale - all the stories 🔵 Major change at Lancs, Notts 🟤 Don't criticise Surrey, copy them 🟠 Will cricket really get an Indep Regulator? 🟢 Full county contract list 🔴 Club awards
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I went to the last day of the county cricket season because, well, that's just what I do.
It did not used to be. It has only become “my thing” to witness the first ball of the campaign (Murtagh to Browne at Lords, 11.02am on April 6) and the last (Porter b White at Northampton, 3.11pm on September 28) in the last few years.
But then everything in between somehow means a lot more these days.
Perhaps I have just reached the stage in life when, having been left continually disappointed by modern sport and modern Britain, you revert to what you know.
The Essex season ended with Porter's second dismissal of the day after following on at Northampton. His first had occurred a few hours earlier and, with it, Surrey retained the title. I will mull over a few "what ifs” during the winter but undoubtedly they were the best side in the Championship.
The reaction to Surrey's success felt very British. It was about dragging down not building up. Money, blah, blah, arrogant, blah, blah, posh boys, blah, blah, the Man City of football, blah, blah, blah. Heaven knows I am no Surrey fan but, as I wrote in the Cricket Paper earlier this season, they should not have that much of an advantage over other traditional major metropolitan sides such as Lancashire, Yorkshire and Warwickshire. However, they have been managed much better on and off the pitch. County fans should not waste their energy tearing down Surrey's success, they should ask their own club why they are not pushing them more strongly and following their example.
Next year the challenge might come from Division Two champions Durham who, along with Hampshire, are domestic cricket’s ‘nouveau riche’ having benefited from grounds developed with Test use in mind. Essex are now feeling the effects of the previous leadership's failure to update their facilities, reportedly a factor in Dan Lawrence's move to The Oval. As the only non-Test county in the top six and the closest challengers to Surrey, they have been batting above their average for a while.
The drama of the last day was at the bottom with Kent and Middlesex trying to avoid the drop. Every year something truly special occurs in the final round of games - Liam Norwell sending Yorkshire down last year, Warwickshire's title the season before. Effectively we had Championship deciders in the final rounds of 2019 and 2015, plus a formal one in 2020. Like the 50-over World Cup going on right now, we are told this format is dying, yet the sporting drama continues.
I covered women's football a decade ago when only devotees believed in it. Now it is all over our free-to-air television screens and is utterly mainstream. Boxing, F1 and darts are popular after large lulls that threatened their very survival as major sports.
If only the powers that be truly had faith in the County Championship.
I need April to come quickly.
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Players, coaches - contracts, moves, departures
Contracts: Robinson (Sussex - 1yr), Umeed (Somerset - 2yr), Payne (Gloucestershire - 3yrs)
Umeed is another success story written by SACA.
Moves: Donald (Hampshire to Derbyshire), Garrett (Warwickshire to Kent)
Released: Petrie, Campbell (Hampshire), Blake, Logan (Kent), Gleeson (Lancashire), Barnes, Davis, Lilley, Steel, Welch, Finan (Leicestershire)
Nottinghamshire announce Steven Mullaney stepping down as club captain (Cricinfo)
Chris Wright: Leicestershire bowler pulls out of Sussex deal (BBC Sport)
Sussex in the market for pace bowler after Chris Wright deal falls through (Cricketer)
Glen Chapple ends 31-year association as he stands down as Lancashire head coach (Cricinfo)
Club Statement: Glen Chapple (Lancashire CCC)
Northamptonshire spinner Simon Kerrigan announces retirement (Cricinfo)
Simon Kerrigan: Small part of me wishes they could take England cap away (Times)
Jake Ball: Former England fast bowler to leave Nottinghamshire at the end of the season (BBC Sport)
Essex star Sir Alastair Cook ‘very tight-lipped’ on his future (Echo)
Essex left in the dark over Alastair Cook's potential retirement (Telegraph)
The BBC Ins and Outs page (BBC Sport)
And here is the latest update from the person on Reddit who creates a list of those players whose contracts are expiring. I cannot vouch for its 100 per accuracy but this is great work and the best we have.
See the bottom of the newsletter for appendices.
County Championship
Division One
Surrey’s dominance of unhip County Championship rewards their passion (Guardian)
Surrey’s back-to-back titles are a triumph of leadership (Guardian)
Stewart urges ECB to respect county game as Surrey seal Championship title (Guardian)
Alec Stewart calls for greater respect for county cricket after guiding Surrey to title (Cricketer) ($)
Alec Stewart in The Cricketer: "For me, [the County Championship is] still the one to win. I am old, but I still think that if you lined everyone up and said you have one competition that you can choose that you can win, I hope the majority would still say the County Championship."
And the Guardian: “It is such a good tournament. The County Championship deserves a little bit more respect than perhaps it’s getting at the moment with the amount of cricket being played elsewhere.”
Kent safe after dramatic final day (Kent Online)
England coach Brendon McCullum told 'Bazball' contributed to team's relegation (Mirror)
Division Two
Durham complete Leicestershire rout to sign off the season in style (Cricinfo)
Worcestershire back in cricket’s top flight after five years away (Shropshire Star)
Incidentally, here is the Championship table with the previous system for batting points and draws. Another Reddit find.
Teams of the Season
The five county cricketers of the year - County Championship (Guardian)
Wisden's 2023 County Championship Team Of The Season (Wisden)
County team of the season: Bazballing Lees and rise of Rew (Times)
County Championship: 2023 team of the season as chosen by BBC Sport users (BBC Sport)
County Championship Division Two 2023 team of the season (Cricketer)
Six Breakout Stars From The 2023 County Championship (Wisden)
The season reviews from Deep Extra Cover
See Leading Edge’s tweets for the player averages
Club Awards
Kent, Somerset, Durham, Lancashire, Hampshire, Glamorgan, Essex, PCA
The last 20 minutes of this is brilliant and spot on.
News, Views and Interviews
Here’s the club’s response to the Mail article.
Middlesex pursue former chief executive over alleged expenses abuses (Times)
Middlesex sign MOU with Pakistan Cricket Board (Middlesex CCC)
Strange times at Middlesex. Financial problems, claims of mismanagement and relegation. Yet, signing a memorandum of understanding with the Pakistan Cricket Board that includes, among other things, starting a T10 League.
Glamorgan Cricket: 2023 a year of change at Welsh county (BBC Sport)
"Rarely can a county have seen a chief executive, chairman, coach and captain all depart within the space of less than 12 months"
Michael Hogan: Glamorgan great disagrees with calls for change at Welsh county (BBC Sport)
Michael Hogan’s retirement statement
Liam Dawson admits ‘big decision’ over T20 money if England Test call comes (Guardian)
Aussie Worrall at heart of Surrey's county triumphs (The West Australian)
Somerset CCC head groundsman Scott Hawkins to leave club (Somerset County Gazette)
ECB paid Tom Harrison £1.1million in 2022 (Cricketer) ($)
“Tom Harrison received more than £1.1million from the ECB in 2022 despite leaving the organisation at the end of June.
“Harrison, the ECB's former chief executive, received his salary, understood to be in excess of £500,000 a year (pro-rata), plus a loyalty bonus, a notice period and a severance payment. His total remuneration package was £1,134,425.”
Boycott warns of 'trouble' if Headingley sold to Mike Ashley (Bradford Telegraph and Argus)
Sam Billings steps down as Kent captain to focus on own game (Cricketer)
Jack Leaning eyes Kent red-ball captaincy full time (Cricketer)
The State of the Nation - Summer Championship 2023 (Grockles)
H*ndred salaries set to be frozen for second year running amid ECB money concerns (Mail)
This is the problem the ECB faces now. To make the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named the second-most-important short-form cricket event (which is now the limit of the ambition) they have to throw pots and pots of cash at it. This is what the “pay the players what they want” brigade believes. Most of whom, happen to be ex-players.
But it is a massive drain as it is. Yes, there is the appeal to broadcasters and the subsequent TV deal, which is hugely significant. My uninformed hunch is that it is Sky who have taken off the table the notion of scrapping you-know-what entirely. Careers were staked on it after all. As I said at the time, that hurried, unilateral deal with Sky may be the death knell of English county cricket. Without it, the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named might be on thin ice.
But the bet was so big and the contract so water-tight, that the Richards in charge of the ECB are now left managing an event that does not serve its purpose. It needs more investment to grow anywhere near the size of the original ambition because a kitchen-sink marketing budget and ‘PR disguised as TV’ presentation have been enough to get sections of a new audience interested in the game.
But, again, that is not enough.
You-know-what will never have enough, that is why it will consume everything in order to stay alive. Its success has been the appeal of cricket, packaged for a modern market. But we could have done that without all the expense, the anger and the wasted energy.
With positive change, not divisive dogma, the game of cricket itself was always enough.
MCC president targets H*ndred (Mail)
MCC defers decision on Eton-Harrow, Oxford-Cambridge matches at Lord’s (Cricinfo)
MCC refuses to axe Eton v Harrow fixture (Telegraph)
Mark Nicholas: Natural osmosis will see Eton-Harrow match move away from Lord's (Cricketer) ($)
Why Mark Nicholas is absolutely wrong (Emerging Cricket)
Mark Nicholas has made a number of comments at the start of his year as MCC president.
Pretty much, they are all hogwash.
Like Andrew Strauss, as former players turned commentators what qualifies them to shape the game?
And why should the Eton-Harrow game be allowed to move in its own time?
This is decades overdue. Yes, the MCC is a members’ club but it still has spiritual importance in the game. That is why it is news when a few of the egg and bacon brigade get banned for bad behaviour. Not that Australian cricket should be moralising. While there appeared to be more than three MCC members involved, the bans themselves were longer than the Aussie players received for sandpapering the ball. There were many more involved in that too, it had been going on for some time and the guilty players they still needed were welcomed back.
I digress.
While the Eton v Harrow game has continued its elitist tradition, we have normalised the need to positively discriminate towards state schools. (Trials for Surrey State School Cricket Programme (Surrey CCC))
Let’s wait a minute. That’s 93 per cent of the population needing special help to get involved in the pro game and yet some still argue cricket is not elitist!
Therefore the MCC President should use their ceremonial mouthpiece role to push for internal change at one of cricket’s most important bodies.
Otherwise, let’s forget the ICEC report because, in truth, cricket is whistling in the wind.
This piece takes them to task.
Cricket and Conservatism: all too cosy bedfellows (Idrottsforum.org)
Which all brings us to this…
ECB unveils new measures to tackle discrimination in wake of ICEC report (Cricinfo)
ECB to establish independent regulator, increase investment in women's game (Reuters)
ECB fails to commit to independent report’s equal pay targets for men and women (SportsPro)
The ECB published its response to the ICEC report on September 25. Here are the key points:
Invest £25m per year above the revenue it receives from the women’s game into growing women’s and girls’ cricket at all levels
Removing finance as a barrier in the talent pathway by 2025
Developing action plans to tackle specific barriers facing state school and Black children
Setting up a new cricket regulator independent of the ECB, to act as prosecutor in disciplinary cases, in time for the 2024 season, and commissioning annual assurance checks to ensure the regulator is truly independent
Enhancing equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) standards for counties, including more ambitious targets for gender and ethnic diversity
Assessing counties’ performance against minimum EDI standards, and having the power to reallocate matches from venues if there is evidence of non-compliance
I admit I was surprised when the Independent Regulator was still on the list. Though I still worry about its remit given the wording above. Especially as Clare Connor made dismissive comments in the press conference just after the ICEC report was released.
An independent regulator is my key change because so many other positive results flow from it. In the same way, I believe social class should be the game’s primary point of attack in the diversity debate.
To be honest, I will believe the establishment of a true independent regulator when I see it. The “osmosis” of which Nicholas speaks is really the delay and prevarication that normally allows little to change. The same people with the same background can work an angle to retain control or influence. An independent regulator with scope and teeth should be a check on that. But the same body was recommended in football after the European Super League fiasco yet, a couple of years later, it has not been brought into being yet and most of the key figures are back on the committees they stabbed in the back. When it has come close, the Premier League suddenly find the bravery to hit Man City with 115 charges in order to show they can police the game. But I’d wager high-price lawyers will delay and obfuscate to ensure these penalties never truly really harm the mega-rich treble winners.
Still, let’s cut the Richards at the ECB some slack. If they can deliver much of this list above then the game will be in a better state.
However, in the SportsPro piece, Gould stresses to the primary importance of television money. Especially in equalising pay between the genders. Teflon Tom Harrison’s greater experience in media rights meant he pipped the Surrey man to the job of ECB CEO in the first place and, with the backing of a board famously devoid of cricket experience, went on to wreak so much destruction. And, most unforgivably of all, tied the hands of the new regime with a unilateral deal with Sky to 2028 just before he left (though does the mention of severance pay confirm he was pushed out?). Something surely beyond his mandate.
To be fair to Harrison, the original deal with he delivered was record-breaking. That underpinned his bonus (see above) and, one presumes, was a major factor in landing a job at the Six Nations. Yes, television money is critical to oil the wheels of the sports industry as it currently stands
But it feels just like that super shiny politician telling us about record investment here, there and everywhere.
Why does nothing improve then? Even allowing for the myopia of nostalgia, why has everything got worse?
Media rights deals have been “saving the game” since 2005.
If that is the case why, almost 20 years later, does it still need saving?
World Cup is still the main event in cricket – forget franchise leagues (Telegraph)
The 50-over World Cup finds itself at a turning point.
It has just started amid stories of poor crowds and shabby facilities.
The first-mover advantage of one-day cricket over T20 and the unwieldiness of the Test World Championship means the longer short-form has always been the sport’s prime global prize.
But, increasingly, 50-over is a seaside end-of-the-pier show compared to the West End box office of the major T20 Leagues. Of course, there is a short-form World Cup but I predict the Olympic title might eventually usurp them both if, as expected, it returns for LA 2028.
And finally…
PS Here are all the appendices from the long list of contracts above
The story of this newsletter
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