No 133, Aug 15 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟢 Metro Bank groups conclude 🔴 Processing Thorpe's passing 🟣 Stokes' injury 🟤 A chance to play Worcs 1st XI 🟠 Northants, Warks, Gloucs and Hants make signings 🔵 Championship returns this week
Graham Thorpe’s daughter: He loved us and his life before illness took over | Times
Graham Thorpe struck by train, family confirms he 'took his own life' | ESPNcricinfo
The death of Graham Thorpe has affected me deeply.
My book, Last-Wicket Stand, was partly about the mental and emotional plateau men reach in their 50s, especially when their lives appear fine to everyone on the outside.
The subtitle on the cover reads: “Searching for Redemption, Revival and a Reason to Persevere in English County Cricket”.
I could have added “…and life”.
Here’s an excerpt.
I’ll leave you with it.
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Metro-Bank 50-Over Cup
Here are final group standings:
One-Day Cup: Pears v Bears in quarters - Glam & Somerset to host semis | BBC Sport
Worcestershire bank 'home' quarter-final despite defeat | ESPNcricinfo
Warwickshire to host One Day Cup quarter-final against Worcestershire | Warwickshire CCC
The Championship is back on Thursday.
There are six weeks to go. Here are the fixtures.
Division One
Durham vs Nottinghamshire
Hampshire vs Essex
Surrey vs Lancashire
Warwickshire vs Somerset
Worcestershire vs Kent
Division Two
Derbyshire vs Glamorgan
Gloucestershire vs Leicestershire
Middlesex vs Northamptonshire
Yorkshire vs Sussex
Players - moves, contracts etc
Yuzvendra Chahal: Northants sign India spinner on short-term deal | BBC Sport
Sonny Baker joins Hampshire | Somerset
Warwickshire re-sign fast bowler Michael Rae until end of the season | BBC Sport
Liam Norwell leaves Warwickshire | Edgbaston
Warwickshire re-sign paceman Michael Rae as Liam Norwell leaves | BBC Sport
Curtis Campher: Ireland all-rounder joins Gloucestershire on short-term white-ball deal | BBC Sport
Raphy Weatherall: Northamptonshire seamer signs contract until 2027 | BBC Sport
Jordan Cox: I recovered from 'disgusting' injury to earn England call | Telegraph
News, Views and Interviews
Is the H*ndred at risk of wasting its shop window? | Times
Ian Chappell - Cricket needs IPL money, but is it good for the future of the game? | ESPNcricinfo
Why the H*ndred remains so divisive | Telegraph
Elizabeth Ammon’s piece on the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named in the Times was very balanced.
I pitched an article this week pontificating on what would happen if it WAS scrapped. Of course, it won’t be - contracts, money but, most importantly, ego prevents that - but indulge me.
That would be the start of the hard work.
The hard work of coming together, creating consensus and building something better.
As Mike Atherton says in the video below, market forces have been left with far too much influence in shaping the future of UK cricket. There has been too little regulation and proper governance. Key conversations should have nailed down some sort of broad agreement on the priorities a decade ago. It is a very long, very hard process involving real leadership. Something we were sorely lacking back then.
Instead, Sky and the consultants have shaped the event and now a continual fix of outside finance is needed to fund it. The previous regime at the ECB compensated for their lack of imagination and governance with belligerence and a belief in the power of a pound note. So much of what they told us has been wrong or morally dubious. It only makes sense through the lens of money.
So we are going to get T20 teams owned by highly-capitalistic overseas interests, supposedly being used to support the wider, uneconomic parts of the English structure.
This is an unrealistic, unmanageable worst of all worlds.
Of course, players will get much, much more. Execs and consultants will do well too. Staff will get better and bigger. And there will be big money to be made for some in those franchise sales. Of course, there is a sizeable upside and the game desperately needs change but these costs are too high.
Many will suggest Atherton, Hussain and Morgan’s chat was a good one. For me, it just articulates a problem we have all identified over and over again but offers no solution.
We know something must be cut from the schedule for the good of the game.
I am crystal clear on what I want gone. Everyone else is saying ‘we all want 18 first-class counties to survive….” and then offering fence-sitting platitudes that do nothing to change the broken status quo.
And so nothing happens. Again.
It is getting beyond tedious. Part of me feels like it would be better for a working committee to grasp the nettle and fashion a new Championship structure, away from the existing one. Part-time if necessary on pop-up festival grounds. Forget the franchise players. If they do not want to play my type of cricket then I do not want them. No harm, no foul.
Heaven knows how it would work and it is certainly not affordable and practical. But then neither is the current domestic structure.
If you consider it to be ‘non-League cricket’ compared to our current form of ‘lower league cricket’ then there is some hope.
The National League (formerly the Conference) is full-time, so are most of the north and south divisions below. Apart from Luton Town, no one has been capable of bridging the gap to the Premier League. But it is still meaningful, resonant, community sport.
I am happy to chair a committee and write a report. As long as I can exclude Andrew Strauss, Mark Nicholas, Clare Connor and their like. One of the biggest problems in UK cricket, and a reflection of the country as a whole, is their entitlement to run the game and the obsequiousness ingrained within the rest of us.
Take the above with a heavy dose of salt. I am amusing myself to make a point.
But there is many a true word said in jest. And it might be better to take control of a smaller future than accept the meagre crumbs, limited scope and unintended consequences from the long-term fallout of the battle to fund the franchises.
Ben Stokes: England Test captain to miss Sri Lanka series after hamstring tear | BBC Sport
Ben Stokes injuring himself in meaningless H*ndred one of English cricket's dumbest moments | Telegraph
Chris Woakes - ECB pull allrounder out of the H*ndred | ESPNcricinfo
James Anderson: I may play franchise cricket – including H*ndred | Times
So Ben Stokes gets injured playing in the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named and the traditionalists pile on. Simon Heffer’s piece in the Telegraph summed up the mood of many, but not me.
Injuries happen at any time. If Stokes was in the ‘red zone’ then he is big and ugly enough to say no.
But I can certainly believe he was encouraged to make himself available. We are in the final weeks in which potential buyers can peruse the merchandise before bidding and this year’s version has been worryingly low-key. Few stars, even fewer tight finishes, and little drama. The Olympics has dominated its precious window and the sales process is under pressure.
So getting Stokes playing in the days after that Olympics ended makes sense. Teasing Jimmy Anderson’s returns was another headline slotted nicely into that window between the end of the Paris games and the start of the Premier League.
It is hardly Ronaldo, the Brazilian striker, at the 1998 World Cup final.
But it amused me to hear Richard Gould chastise the press for being naive and manipulated over headlines suggesting the sales of you-know-what were becoming a “car crash”.
They have been doing exactly the same thing throughout this process.
Cricket fan sees team play at Edgbaston for first time in 50 years | Yahoo
A lovely story.
Northamptonshire CCC: Club reports pre-tax profit for 2023 | BBC Sport
Cricket Ireland: Irish government grants approval for national cricket stadium project | BBC Sport
Ken Palmer: Ex-team mates and friends pay their last respects | Somerset County Gazette
Ken Palmer obituary: cricketer and umpire | Times
Jonathan Wilson: When football replaced cricket on the back pages | ESPNcricinfo
Time for Alec Stewart to be champion of all county cricket | The Cricketer ($)
“What could we expect from Stewart, known as the Gaffer, if he is given such a role?
“Well, he will seemingly be stuck with The Hundred. Gould, who opposed it when he was CEO at Surrey, has had a Damascene conversion on that (to be fair he now has to look at things from the perspective of all the county sides). It will certainly stay, probably as an eight-team tournament, until the Sky deal expires in 2028 (their head of cricket is its No.1 fan – although there is still no word on whether the Beeb are renewing their deal from 2025–28). Now that the ECB are flogging it off, one would assume it will continue after that as well.”
I have written before about Alec Stewart being a staunch and sensible defender of county cricket. Therefore the above makes sense.
But so were Gould and Thompson at Surrey. Then they changed when they moved to the ECB. Funny that.
The piece implies, once again, Sky are the reason this event has ‘gone nowhere’. Remember they bankroll the English game.
I have personally witnessed sports organisations retroactively create arguments and ‘evidence’ to support predetermined decisions that were made on personal preference, ego, politics and gut reactions.
Pardon the double negative but nothing “goes nowhere” without someone making an active decision.
Do not adjust your reality: how slick Team GB played its part in dividing Britain | The Guardian
An interesting piece on the hard-bitten decision-making behind the creation of Team GB.
It is a sobering take as the revival of Britain’s Olympic fortunes could be some sort of blueprint for other sports, including cricket. Albeit the Games is unique.
I thoroughly enjoyed Paris 2024. It felt like proper competition by proper people. For once, the hype was commensurate with the glory and money was not at the heart of every moment. And there was joy, real joy.
After its conclusion, we have been left with the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named and, this weekend, the start of the Premier League.
The contrast could not be more stark.
Olympic cricket: Great Britain still the gold medal holders | BBC News
Olympics news - ECB and Cricket Scotland in talks over LA28 Team GB | ESPNcricinfo
Toby Albert, son of Olympians: I was too young to realise how cool it was | The Cricketer ($)
And finally…
An incredible knock. Graham Thorpe’s stand with Nasser Hussain in Pakistan in 2000. The Test won in the dark…
The story of this newsletter
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I’ve long thought there will always be county cricket but probably as amateur or semi-pro and more like the National Counties set-up. And while that would be a shame, actually I think I’d have far more enthusiasm for that than I’m currently feeling for cricket.
Jeez - come on Sussex!