No 155, May 22: The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟣 Champ reaches halfway stage 🟡 Woakes, Malan set to play 🟠 Surrey break attendance record, again 🟢 Two counties to survey members on schedule 🔵 ECB strategy critique 🔴 Kohli to Middlesex?
County Champ - previews
Division One
Durham vs Somerset
Jimmy Neesham: New Zealand all-rounder joins Durham for T20 Blast | BBC Sport
Hampshire vs Sussex
Surrey vs Essex
Worcestershire vs Warwickshire
Chris Woakes set to play for Bears against Pears | Express & Star
Beau Webster selected in Australia Test squads | Warwickshire CCC
Hasan Ali: Warwickshire seek clarification over paceman's availability | BBC Sport
Yorkshire vs Nottinghamshire
Yorkshire get former England ace Dawid Malan back for Notts | Bradford Telegraph and Argus
Division Two
Glamorgan vs Middlesex
Will Virat Kohli play for English county Middlesex? | The Indian Express
Middlesex confirm interest in ‘iconic player of his generation’ Virat Kohli | The Guardian
Leicestershire vs Lancashire
Northamptonshire vs Gloucestershire
D'Arcy Short: Gloucestershire sign Australia batter for T20 Blast | BBC Sport
Derbyshire vs Kent
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County Champ - Last round reviews
New 21st century County Championship attendance record at the Kia Oval | Surrey CCC
Week 7 Rothesay County Championship Review | Deep Extra Cover
County Championship R7 Team of the Week - Haseeb Hameed doubles up, three players with career-best efforts | Cricket Paper
County Championship Round 7 | 365 Sporting Days
County Championship Round 7 | Ashes Tourist
County cricket talking points: Notts stay top but Surrey are on the prowl | The Guardian
County Championship: Worcestershire earn big win over Essex | BBC Sport
Ackermann caps Durham victory as Notts unbeaten run ends | Cricinfo
Have A Cigar | Rain Stopped Play, inspection at 3
Green stars again as Gloucestershire end three-year Bristol win drought | Cricinfo
How The Foxes Found Their Teeth: The Pack Mentality Driving Leicestershire's Success | Wisden
Ben Kellaway: the ambidextrous spinner taking county cricket by storm
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News, Views and Interviews
County Cricket Members Discussion paper
So Lancashire are discussing and voting on the new schedule proposals. Middlesex have a “member-requested General Meeting on 26 June giving members a vote on whether the Club shall oppose any proposal reducing the number of County Championship and/or T20 matches”
But according to George Dobell in the Following On podcast, above, a reduction to 12 Championship games seems to be a ‘done deal’.
What is the approach of your county? Have a look at the County Cricket Members discussion paper and survey using the links above.
Glamorgan bowler James Harris warns County Championship cut needed | BBC Sport
I expect the ECB to get right behind this argument once the Rob Andrew Strauss report is delivered. It did not seem to matter that much when they added a needless fourth format a few years ago. But it will suddenly be critical and, funnily enough, only county games will be cut.
NB: It was always important
Football is under threat from new formats like never before
In the presence of the Great English Bore | New Statesman
Hundred deals close to sign-off after ECB cedes power to new owners | Times
I know I put this in last week but now Fanos Hira’s piece is completely free. He is highly qualified to undertake a process everyone else seems to ignore - critiquing the ECB’s strategy.
This week, the Hundred franchise sale won Business Moment of the Year in the Sports Industry Awards. They are not even complete yet and, according to the Times (above), the ECB are conceding a lot of control over ‘their tournament’ to get their hands on that cash. It just shows the appalling lack of scrutiny in this area.
Far from securing the future of county cricket for a generation, Hira calculates that if, as widely discussed, the ECB's 'handout' disappears from 2029, the franchise payouts are, in effect, 7.5 years worth of current income.
So the non-hosts may have 10 years or so to do what they have not been able to achieve in the previous 150. Make county cricket sustainable.
Of course, it should pay for itself. But, let’s be honest, football doesn’t. The Premier League clubs lost a combined £800m last year. Look at the table below of financial returns in the Championship, every red square is a loss-making year. And don’t even ask about rugby.
There is no safety net for non-host counties, no plan if they fail to balance the books by then. As Hira says, you can’t sell the silverware twice. There is a major risk of teams going under. Meanwhile, the franchise owners will be squeezing the ECB more and more to get a return on their investment.
In other news, the governing body has changed its articles of association to allow Richard Thompson an extra year to cement the process.
I don’t care if he is a nice guy. His hand has been on the tiller and if a county goes under in the next two decades, his tenure should be considered an abject failure. You judge a custodian of a sport by how they care for the weakest, not the strongest.
Of course, the county game has seemed to be on a precipice forever. But now the game feels divided and broken. Worst of all, the entire saga means I simply do not care as much as I did.
And this is my 155th free newsletter on county cricket.
England cricket: Richard Thompson term as ECB chair extended - BBC Sport
ECB confirms reappointment of Richard Thompson as chair until 2028 | ESPNcricinfo
Robert Brooke, cricket statistician hailed 'the most painstaking and assiduous' | obituary | Telegraph
English cricket cancelled Gary Ballance but Zimbabwe has embraced him | Telegraph
Twenty years later: how 2005 Ashes marked end of cricket as we knew it | The Guardian
For me, this is the moment the ECB really started going wrong.
Not just in the decision to go exclusive on Sky (there have been big plusses but more minuses) but the grubby way in which they made the move. As the story of the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named has proved, we are always told ‘this money is so big, we can’t turn it down because it solves all the problems’.
But it never does.
And, worse than that, it consigns the game to a mere financial value.
Remember when those £1.3m per year handouts were enough?
The story of this newsletter
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