No 127, June 21 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟢 Time for the MCC to save red-ball cricket? 🔵 Financial health of all counties examined 🔴 Support for 'Syd' Lawrence 🟣 Middx charged 🟤 Racism row at Cricket Scotland 🟠 Worcs' X putdown
Understandably, the conversation around the future of county cricket has always been based upon money. It does, after all, make the sporting world go around.
Most clubs would have gone under decades ago without central funding. So would the ECB and, who knows, perhaps the entire professional sport in this country but for the international game. Yet we all know who supplies the talent for the England team.
This is why so many observers distil the key decisions over the future of English cricket to the most basic question.
What is our fundamental purpose? Growing the sport or making money?
Of course, late 20th century UK capitalism started unpicking previously comfortable arrangements of mutual backscratching long ago. Since then, it has somehow managed to start posing existential questions around institutions of unarguable universal good - the NHS and the BBC.
Money does not just talk these days, it screams so loudly you just cannot think.
In that context, county cricket has no chance. Clubs are impoverished, enticing just 70,000 paying members across the country, mostly drawn from the old and the powerless. Without a series of bribes financial inducements, we would never have got to this stage of chaotic change. But a starving sport has had to grab what it can.
No wonder the vulture capitalists are circling, licking their lips and telling us that only they can save the game.
That is why the MCC might well be the last defence.
They are a rich, well-supported (24,000 members paying top dollar with a 29-year waiting list) and highly influential cricket organisation looking for 21st-century relevance. I am sick of reading flimsy, self-serving, red-faced defences of the ongoing importance of the MCC whenever they commit some sort of social or ethical crime against the very vision of cricket they created, nurtured and feel entitled to own.
Well, here is your opportunity to be the true, undeniable guardians of the red-ball game in England.
Go into bat for the County Championship. Play your best forward defensive. Right here, right now.
The MCC has the militancy, the influence, the money and the defiance to make a difference. Unlike anyone else, they have the luxury of saying no.
Despite intense criticism, the Eton v Harrow game is still played at Lord’s but it has never hosted a women’s test.
This makes much less sense than continuing to support a game-growing but loss-making County Championship competition.
They already have a seat at the table as they host a franchise in the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named and incoming president Mark Nicholas describes the sale opportunity as “monumental”. He would. The former Hampshire captain has form. (Mark Nicholas calls for counties to relinquish first-class status | The Guardian).
If it happens they will have double-dip benefits as a host and a beneficiary from the shareout to the wider game.
The leadership of the Richards back at Surrey was so impressive because they grew their business AND looked after the whole game. Arguably they went against their own interests by standing up against the introduction of the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named and handing back their furlough money. Yes, they could afford to do it but they actually did it. I am looking at you here, big business.
The MCC hold the same sort of power right now. This is their moment should they want to make a stand. Nicholas said members will have a binding vote on the proposed sales even though their constitution does not actually demand it.
Regular readers of this newsletter will know I have always considered class and elitism to be the biggest enemies of progress in English cricket. As such, the MCC have always been in my sights.
Here’s a chance to prove your real value to the game. And to prove me wrong.
Or does the deeply conservative cricket establishment suddenly start to back radical change when there are pound signs attached?
Over to you.
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Players - signings, contracts and news
Eathan Bosch joins Essex for four County Championship fixtures | ESPNcricinfo
The best name ever for an Essex signing?
Conor McKerr: Yorkshire sign Surrey seamer on five-match T20 Blast loan | BBC Sport
Ben Allison: Worcestershire re-sign Essex paceman for two matches | BBC Sport
Lewis’ Leicestershire Loan Extended – Somerset CCC
Rocky Flintoff signs first professional contract with Lancashire | Lancashire Cricket Club
Farhan Ahmed, Rehan's younger brother, signs for Nottinghamshire aged 16 | ESPNcricinfo
Kent make Wes Agar call for 2025 after confirming exit | The Cricketer
Josh Baker: Tribute to 'larger than life' Worcestershire player | BBC News
Chris Woakes back in action for Birmingham Bears | BBC Sport
Derby County hire brains behind England's Cricket World Cup wins in new 'Sporting Intelligence' unit | Telegraph
I know sport now lives in a world of data, logic and sporting intelligence but when do these crossovers ever work?
Heartbreaking news about Syd. Such a cruel twist of fate for a bowler remembered for such physicality and effort.
News, Views and Interviews
Middlesex to be charged over alleged inappropriate behaviour by female employee | Telegraph
Middlesex Cricket Statement From Ceo Andrew Cornish | Middlesex CCC
Later story Middlesex charged after Cricket Regulator investigation | The Cricketer
The outward signs from Middlesex are beyond messy.
Cricket Scotland's CEO calls Blain's public comments 'very disappointing' | ESPNcricinfo
Cricket Scotland confirm Investigation Team's exoneration denial as John Blain case takes another turn | The Cricketer ($)
Azeem Rafiq: Cricketer has no regrets speaking out about racism - BBC News
This is another issue I am going to rather side-step. I do not feel I know enough about the specifics of John Blain’s case. But speaking more generally, it appears that all the discussion around cricket’s racism allegations have descended into the factionalism we see in so many other walks of life.
Of course, it is all very serious - for the complainants and everyone involved. Good people do bad things every day. A person should not be judged on one comment but in the round and over a long period.
My concern is that we will go through all this and learn nothing. In fact, we may become more entrenched in our disparate views.
That is not to say, we must bite our lips. We can only hope the pain endured by the innocents or semi-innocents on all sides of this - those who suffered racism, those sanctioned when they did little wrong, the flawed, the failing and the misunderstood - will be worth it. Even though they might not realise it.
Because the issue is out there now. No one in cricket can claim ignorance anymore.
And we have to believe that will change behaviour
Here’s an example. Well done, Worcestershire’s X admin. Would this presumably young, junior member of staff have posted this five years ago?
Then, there is this…
New MCC chairman Mark Nicholas wants to 'make club fun again' | Telegraph
The two stories above were used in the intro
Howzat! Cambridge University engineers recreate Venn’s historic bowling machine | Express & Star
Iconic Oval gasholder hosts trailblazing cricketing first | South West Londoner
T20 Blast: 'Schedule not sustainable' - Birmingham Bears skipper Alex Davies | BBC Sport
Have you noticed how the T20 World Cup and, to a certain extent, even the election has dropped from the immediate consciousness now the Euros have started? Now you know why the TV execs want the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named scheduled in a regular slot between the summer football competitions and the start of the Premier League. Not that they are running the game, of course.
Stuart Broad sets sights on budding pub chain after retiring from cricket | ITV News Central
Beleaguered Blast hanging in there for now but we could have had it so much better | The Cricketer ($)
Cricket is swiftly becoming America's new obsession | The Week UK
Cricket competition at 2028 LA Olympics could be staged in New York | Whitchurch Herald
The top piece overstates the situation quite wildly. But it should be a huge worry for English cricket as, despite the IPL dominating every financial area of the game, only the US version is currently capable of stealing players from the prime months of the English summer.
Of course, the Indian market was the target for the entire T20 World Cup. Effectively, they built and then dismantled a stadium in New York for one game.
There is IPL money all over Major League Cricket. Then there are the ongoing rumours about the mother competition expanding dramatically. It will happen. The money is just too big and this beast always wants more and more.
The only card that the governing bodies can play is the kudos of international recognition. However, as Glenn McGrath recently warned, that may wither on the vine over the next decade.
Gloucestershire Cricket Chair recruitment process now open | Gloucestershire Cricket
Free Entry: Day One of Sussex vs Leicestershire | Sussex Cricket
Happy 175th to Scarborough Cricket Club, the jewel in the crown | Yorkshire Post
A day out at Durham County Cricket Club | Palatinate
How Durham Became A First-Class County | Wisden
Day steps to the crease as part of £60m cricket ground redevelopment | TheBusinessDesk.com
Lancashire Cricket surplus shrinks despite record annual revenues | TheBusinessDesk.com
'Ask Not What your Fans can do for You': A Fan Engagement Primer for Cricket | LinkedIn
And finally…
Here’s a supercatch from Marnus Labuschagne in the Blast this week. I seem to have seen more of these full-length, diving one-handlers on the boundary in the last three seasons of Blast than the previous 17 or 18 years.
The story of this newsletter
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Well done to Worcs CCC and Adrian Stirrup. Good to see that one person can make a difference and that his club were responsive.
On ticket inflation - I went to the FA Cup Final in 1975, and my ticket cost £5 to stand on the terraces. Prices for supporters of the two finalists this year ranged from £35 to £250, though obviously tickets in some other parts of the stadium, particularly hospitality packages, would have been far greater. Still, it compares fairly favourably with the esscalation in the Cricket World Cup prices.