No 156, May 29: The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟣 Blast gets underway - Previews 🟢 Champ pauses at halfway 🟠 Crisis at Lancs as coach follows captain exit 🔴 Schedule changes - where do you stand? 🔵 Player workloads 🟡 Umpires and social media
Vitality Blast - Preview
T20 Blast, South Group - Can Gloucestershire replicate emotional maiden Blast title? | ESPNcricinfo
Men’s Vitality Blast 2025 preview | Deep Extra Cover
T20 Blast 2025: All you need to know ahead of Blast Off weekend | BBC Sport
Vitality Blast 2025: Five young overseas players to watch | Cricket Paper
Derbyshire Cricket: Final words on the Blast | Peakfans Blog
Warwickshire: Beau Webster & Hasan Ali not being replaced for T20 Blast - Ian Westwood | BBC Sport
Anthony McGrath: Yorkshire coach hopes T20 Blast can boost fortunes | BBC Sport
County Championship: Lancashire suffer innings defeat at Leicestershire | BBC Sport
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County Championship - Weekly Review
The run of early Championship games is the highlight of my season. As ever, we have seen great stories and finished.
County Championship R8 Team of the Week - Chris Woakes and Sam Curran impress on red ball return
Mickey Arthur: Derbyshire head of cricket 'hellbent' on success - BBC Sport
Festival of Red Ball Cricket sees record crowds - Kia Oval
Spinner Tom Hartley back after winter of shifts in garden centre | BBC Sport
Sam Curran states Test case with impressive Surrey return
Rehan Ahmed shows batting progress as Chris Woakes impresses on return | Cricket Paper
Lintott signs new deal with Bears | Warwickshire CCC
Head coach Lehmann keen to bring leg-spinner Harrison back to Wantage Road | Daventry Express
Proposed changes to the Schedule
Do you know your county’s view on the proposed changes to the schedule?
Any alteration needs 12 votes from the 18 counties. Remember Durham, Northants and Hampshire are privately owned with no formal membership influence over their decision.
As for the rest. In theory, our views should matter.
By hook or by crook, Middlesex, Glamorgan and Lancashire have committed to membership votes.
Other counties may just talk over the issue in a general meeting and take an overall view. For example, Essex have a Members’ forum on Tuesday which will include a discussion of the schedule.
As previously stated, I am pretty resigned to a reduction of Championship games. They have spent the last six to eight years laying the groundwork for a seismic shift and, by liberally throwing around money and lies, they have got what they wanted. The Andrew Strauss group could not get this change done so the Rob Andrew one will.
Rob Strauss, Rob Andrew, Andrew Andrew, frankly it is the same old shit from the same old people.
When the money runs out in football (and it always does), we will see the European Super League repackaged, rebranded and revived, having learned enough lessons from the previous failure to squeak it through and, more importantly, used their power to wear down any remaining resistance.
English cricket is just a little further down the road in this process.
A couple of points re: Membership
The cost will have to come down because we will have fewer Championship days, coming hot on the heels of reducing the 50-over competition to a second-class event.
To renew at Essex cost me £235 this year. Call me sexist, but right now it is the men’s team that makes me fork out that money.
So, suddenly I am doing my sums. The price for a day at the Championship is £22 on the gate, £16 advanced. For the 50-over Cup, it is £24 on the day, £18 advanced. With work, rain and Championship games not going the distance, it might not be cost-effective anymore.
Counties can appeal to loyalty and patronage but membership in its true sense as ‘ownership’ does not really matter anymore. In part, this is a result of boards ignoring the membership on many key issues in recent years. Not that the paying public is not overly demanding, curmudgeonly and wilfully self-deluded regarding the perilous finances of the game.
I never said it was easy.
As I have argued before, membership as a concept is now broken, outdated and we need something new.
But right now, it is still the standard of county cricket fandom.
And I know that membership revenue is often only 10 to 15 per cent of a county’s turnover. While the ECB’s contribution has been 40 to 60 per cent. Though it is dwindling in real terms and may be all but gone by 2029.
But membership has a role much greater than that. Remember, it is still the family connection that creates fandom. With cricket, unlike other sports, someone needs to not only take you but spend time explaining to you what the hell is going on. Normally, that person will have been a member.
And once the connection is gone, you cannot reattach it.
The Crisis at Lancashire
Good discussion around the deep-seated problems at Lancashire and how the toxic relationship between the leadership and the fanbase has shocked the franchise partners from the IPL. And, the stark contrast with little old Leicestershire.
County Championship: Lancashire suffer innings defeat at Leicestershire | BBC Sport
Dale Benkenstein leaves Lancashire as Steven Croft takes over as head coach | ESPNcricinfo
Lancashire: Head coach Dale Benkenstein leaves by mutual consent | BBC Sport
Lancashire CCC are tearing themselves apart on and off the pitch | Telegraph
News, Views and Interviews
As I mentioned last week, it is politically expedient for the ECB to emphasise the PCA’s call for safe, appropriate workloads for players. They were less bothered when they were shoehorning a fourth competition into an already busy schedule. But, to them, the new games in the new format are high value. So they are in the process of fanangling the reduction of what they consider to be low-value games, i.e. red-ball Championship fixtures, to make space.
But the above is what happens when a player has back-to-back high-value games in different countries, and is prepared to ride roughshod over formal guidelines and good sense to realise it.
I trust the PCA will not allow this from their members. And the ECB will hand out penalties for flying out, say, from the Blast to play in Major League Cricket games the following day. Something we have seen in the recent past. The IPL has strict punishments straddling seasons for those who go back on commitments.
Player safety is paramount. And that cuts both ways.
After all, rules is rules.
Club cricket side bowled out for two after conceding 426 | Telegraph
Making cricket the conversation starter with Mental Health organisation NotOut* | Kent Cricket
Man City news: Alleyne explains decision to play football over cricket - BBC Sport
Crackdown on counties criticising umpires on social media | Telegraph
Bravo. This is exactly what an Independent Regulator should spend its time doing.
And not say… errr… plucking something from thin air… holding the ECB to account as they reshape the game. A process founded on a bed of lies (see below).
This organisation is a tabby cat when we need a tiger.
Far too close to the ECB.
Read the intro of my newsletter from 10 months ago for what they should be looking at.
No 131, July 30 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
Thanks for reading The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
IOC hoping for ‘clarity’ over Great Britain team as cricket eyes Olympic return | The Independent
Cricket club in Bath celebrates 200 years by raising £200k - BBC News
Want your daughter to play cricket for England? Send her to private school | Telegraph
Replace the word “daughter” with “child”. And it still isn’t news.
Despite all the reports, the MCC schemes and all the other stuff, the 93 per cent are never truly in the majority.
The story of this newsletter
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