No 118, Apr 11 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟢 Championship week 2 previews 🔴 Root plays for Yorks 🟣 Abell, Norwood injuries 🟤 Members cut out of franchise sale debate 🔵 Gap to increase between big and small counties 🟠 Lara back at Warks
I feel like I am fiddling while Rome burns.
Now there’s a sentence open to interpretation.
Let me explain.
On Friday, weather and kids permitting, I will get to Chelmsford in the late afternoon on Day One of the first home game of the Championship season.
I will grab a coffee, take my seat on the top tier of the Tom Pearce Stand and sit in blissful solitude while the game washes over me.
If Essex perform half as well as they did on the final day at Trent Bridge last week and the weather is palatable it will be the most wonderful way to begin a season of spectating.
However, in truth, I know the clouds are closing in.
The stories outlined below show that, in all probability, the county game will not exist in its current form for much longer.
The obituaries have been written before. The title of my book, Last-Wicket Stand, was chosen because I thought the 2019 season, supposedly the final campaign before the introduction of the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named, was the beginning of the end.
Nothing since has made me change that view.
But the speed of demise will accelerate if the number of franchises in you-know-what is increased and the sale of those teams creates a greater divide between the haves and have-nots allowing overseas interests to control the most peculiarly English sport we possess.
You can read my views below. But then, you know them already. I have been writing the same stuff for a few years now.
My subscriber list tells me this newsletter is read by senior people at Sky and the county game. But it makes no difference. The situation is getting worse.
Like any institution, the collapse will come slowly and then, all of a sudden, very quickly.
God knows where we will be at the end of this season and how many counties will be on life support.
So for this season, I am going to treat the game like a family dog with failing health.
Simply try and savour the good moments we have left.
County Championship - Round 1 previews
Click on a different preview for each team
Division One
Essex vs Kent
Hampshire vs Lancashire
Nottinghamshire vs Worcestershire
Surrey vs Somerset
Warwickshire vs Durham
Division Two
Glamorgan vs Derbyshire
Gloucestershire vs Yorkshire
Leicestershire vs Sussex
Northamptonshire vs Middlesex
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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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Championship - Round 1 review
Round up of week 1 of the Vitality County Championship | Deep Extra Cover
Essex secure fine win but face wait over possible points deduction | Echo
Surrey irked as strong winds prevent any meaningful play at Old Trafford | ESPNcricinfo
Sussex CCC opt to keep the floodlights turned off at Hove | The Argus
Sussex's bid for opening Championship win cut short after floodlights were deemed too expensive | Telegraph
Let's welcome the return of county cricket - The Bouncer Cricket Blog
Two plans to save County Championship – but which side are you on? – Times
Players news, signings, stories
Signings, Contracts: Pretorius (Somerset – overseas - Champ), Green (Lancashire - overseas - Blast), Van Buuren (Gloucestershire – 2yrs), Dupavillon (Derbyshire - overseas)
Liam Norwell: Warwickshire coach Mark Robinson dubs new injury as 'heartbreaking' - BBC Sport
Tom Abell out injured for first weeks of County Championship | Somerset County Gazette
‘I’ve always wanted to play in it’: Scott Boland relishing championship stint - Yahoo Sport
James Anderson 'unlikely' to play for Lancashire in County Championship before June | ESPNcricinfo
Nathan Lyon hits back at Cricket Australia over cap on England County Championship games | Fox Sports
Darren Thomas: Jersey appoint former Glamorgan all-rounder as women's head coach - BBC Sport
Leus du Plooy - I'm excited to build memories at Lord's that are dear to me | ESPNcricinfo
Surrey consider management restructure post-Alec Stewart | ESPNcricinfo
News, Views and Interviews
ECB in talks to ensure cricketers are compensated if county side go bust – Telegraph
Errr… I thought Richard Gould said that losing a county was a conspiracy theory?
How to fix county cricket - according to the experts – The I
Forget the Kookaburra ball – April starts will drive fans away forever | Times
Profits drop at Warwickshire County Cricket Club as energy bills soar | TheBusinessDesk.com
The Telegraph article is the key read here.
Clearly, money is not just tight for many counties, it is approaching going-out-of-business levels of desperation. This is due to rising costs, which is a global problem, and the static level of funding from the ECB, which isn’t.
At the last Essex AGM, this was blamed on the television deal, which in hindsight looks like a poor negotiation. But because of their bet-the-farm-and-do-what-the-broadcasters-say strategy, the ECB have been pumping more money into the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named and central contracts. The top end is always being looked after and the rest are increasingly cut adrift. But outside events have now made this an existential question.
Forget the Strauss BS, you-know-what has always been the weapon of choice to divide the game. Only international grounds were selected as hosts in the first place and, in the scenarios outlined in the Telegraph, the upcoming revenue distribution will only make it worse.
Part of the current situation is based on events and unintended consequences and, for the millionth time, change was urgently required, not least to mitigate the softening of global media rights.
But so much for all those quotes about “saving county cricket” and the rising tide to lift all teams. When the circumstances have changed so, funnily enough, have the metrics of success and any semblance of collegiate spirit.
Get ready for the “yeah, we tried but the numbers just didn’t work” apology over the demise of several counties in a few years time from those left in post after the real architects have timed their exits.
Perversely, if the post-2005 Sky money had not been used to prop up failing counties it might be a smidge more acceptable. That would have been economic Darwinism yet the ECB intervened. Since then, many smaller clubs have become better businesses. Still dependent on ECB payments for talent creation but, aside from that major caveat, washing their face financially and reducing debt. And the Blast was growing despite having a fraction of the marketing spend of you-know-what.
Yes, times have changed and the market has shifted but, crucially, our leadership have lost their way, their morals and the location of their testicles.
After the Strauss Report defeat, I predicted they would find a way to cut members out of any consultancy in this latest move, let alone the decision-making process.
In the end, they have just ignored us.
This should anger cricket lovers everywhere.
But then again so should the state of the country. And that is the really serious stuff.
For me, the leaders within cricket and the government are cut from the same cloth.
Compare their words to those of Barry Hearn in a video below. He is a serially successful sports entrepreneur but, as a Dagenham council estate boy, would never get near cricket’s higher echelons.
No, our leaders are incapable of the hard work of modernisation, rationalisation and executing forward-looking visions that unite. So they spin, divide and conquer while ensuring the powerful and moneyed know they have their back.
Those running the country and cricket constantly tell us they are creating wealth and growing revenue as if that alone is the answer. But if there is no understanding or scrutiny of the distribution and the powerless get the barest crumbs then this merely exacerbates inequality.
The ECB are happy to spend millions on fireworks for you-know-what and give longer contracts to ageing England stars but will leave the lesser counties to rot.
Which brings us to this charlatan who will leave for a life of luxury in California soon after he finally gives us the election we so badly need…
James Anderson should have done to him what Brett Lee nearly did to Piers Morgan.
Parliament calls on ECB to monitor Yorkshire in wake of Colin Graves' re-election | ESPNcricinfo
Colin Graves has the trust and support of the Yorkshire members | Yorkshire Post
Here’s the Yorkshire Post telling it like it’s not: “On a day when one Yorkshire member quipped, as only a Yorkshire member could, “can’t you just sell the [tournament-that-shall-not-be-named] to the ruddy Americans?”, to which Graves replied with a nonchalant flick for six off his legs, “I can sell the Hundred to anyone, sir”, the 76-year-old performed with the relaxed and confident air of someone back on familiar, if vastly-changed, territory.”
Well, no one has been able to sell the format to any other cricketing country, have they?
And, as yet, no one has re-sold it to the BBC or any other terrestrial broadcaster. The current deal runs out at the end of this season.
At launch, both were trumpeted as critical to the event’s success.
Having failed to deliver, the goalposts have now changed. And, as ever, the leadership are not being held to account. But, apparently, three years of mediocre gains (arguably poor gains if we ever get to understand the true expenditure and opportunity cost) means “it is going nowhere”.
But the Championship (150 years old) and the Blast (20 years old and still growing before you-know-what) are.
Ever thought there might be something else going on?
(While we are on Yorkshire, I read membership has risen five per cent. Good news. And, again, it proves the nature of UK sports fans, coming out in support when clubs are at a low ebb. Durham’s membership also rose when they went they were demoted to Division Two. No doubt Graves will say it is down to him)
Brian Lara set for Edgbaston return at Heroes of ’94 Anniversary Dinner | Warwickshire CCC
Essex CCC: County rename stands in honour of Graham Gooch and Sir Alastair Cook - BBC Sport
Shaun Udal: Ex-England spinner on living with Parkinson's disease - BBC Sport
Finally…
Listen to Barry Hearn say what others will not. Get this man involved in cricket. He loves the game
He will shake it up and, on the basis of this, we know he comes from the right place
The story of this newsletter
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Excellent stuff. I agree that ‘that’ tournament is one too far and endangers red ball cricket. The only real cricket. Since England are unlikely to pick 50 over players from the county tournament why not play it earlier in the season with a red ball. Secondly since one day players are largely a breed unto themselves why not let them be one side of cricket and the county championship play more games to entertain purists. And maybe produce new test players in a way the IPL or 100 won’t