No 160, June 29: The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟣 County Cricket Day 🟢 All the Championship previews 🟠 RIP Wayne Larkins 🔴 Transfer rumours 🟡 Schedule discussions rumble on 🔵 Coming soon: members v boards 🟤 Bairstow bowls
County Championship - previews
Click on each team for a different preview
Division One
Hampshire vs Worcestershire
Chris Lynn: Hampshire sign Australia batter for T20 Blast - BBC Sport
Callum Parkinson joins Worcestershire on one-match loan deal. - Durham Cricket
Somerset vs Nottinghamshire
Surrey vs Durham
Adam Zampa: Australia spinner joins Surrey for T20 Blast | BBC Sport
Durham: Jimmy Neesham set for first red-ball game in three years | BBC Sport
Sussex vs Warwickshire
Brad Currie and Troy Henry Sign Contract Extensions | Sussex Cricket
Jofra Archer recalled by England for second Test vs India against county’s wishes | Telegraph
Yorkshire vs Essex
Khaleel Ahmed signs up with Essex for County Championship and One-Day Cup | ESPNcricinfo
Division Two
Derbyshire vs Lancashire
Lancashire: Jimmy Anderson confident wins will come with positive approach | BBC Sport
Glamorgan vs Gloucestershire
Free U17s on County Cricket Day | Glamorgan Cricket News
Gloucestershire Celebrate County Cricket Day With Special Deal | Gloucestershire CCC
Kent vs Northamptonshire
173rd Canterbury Cricket Week: Your Fan Guide | Kent Cricket
The Derek Underwood Fund to officially launch during Canterbury Cricket Week | Kent Cricket
Leicestershire vs Middlesex
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County Championship - last round
Week 9 Rothesay County Championship Review | Deep Extra Cover
Yorkshire coach Anthony McGrath against Kookaburra ball | BBC Sport
County cricket: balls bring bore draws and Blast needs a boost | The Guardian
County Championship Round 9 | 365 Sporting Days
WA Trio Making Waves In County Cricket | Western Australian Cricket Association
News, Views and Interviews
Shaping the Future of County Cricket Together - Worcestershire CCC
Counties to vote on radical shake-up to cut matches from domestic cricket | Cricket | The Guardian
For me, the two most-sought after players will be Gloucestershire bowler Ajeet Singh Dale and Kent batter Tawanda Muyeye.
I’ll bet you £1 that they go to host counties.
While many may advocate the benefits of a franchise system to compete with the IPL, enticing the necessary external funding would always open a huge chasm between the haves and have-nots.
And it will only become bigger because the power differential is so large and the need for a return on investment so great that the new entrants will bend a weak, compliant governing body to their demands.
English cricket’s ‘Overton Window’ of acceptability has shifted beyond recognition. Remember when £1.3m for each county was enough and counties were pushing back against the Andrew Strauss report?
Anyone could see it would be repackaged and resubmitted in a few years.
But now, the ECB have engineered the situation to such an extent that county boards are pushing their members to agree to a cut in the schedule.
Yep, that is right. Counties who have been trying to grow the game for decades are trying to sell their paying customers a future where they play less men’s county cricket. And that remains the primary reason for paying their fees.
Worcestershire can use “Together” in their headline all they want.
It is anything but.
At a member’s meeting this week, the Essex chair was worryingly and predictably dismissive to my question over the possibility of a binding vote like some other counties. Personally I do not want one but we all know they can be enforced if enough members want them. And we all know that most would vote against a cut to the schedule, which is why few such ballots are taking place. But they are only following the ECB’s lead, who barely ‘do’ democracy anymore when it comes to the county game.
So, do not insult our intelligence with “together”.
I am no expert but boards may end up in a position where, to comply with their fiduciary duty, they ignore what would normally be seen as a binding vote from members
That would be almost unprecedented, leaving counties and members at loggerheads and in the midst of a constitutional crisis.
And, shamefully, the ECB on the sidelines watching on as the consequences of their deliberate actions play out. Remember, boards are volunteers too and, like almost everyone in county cricket (see previous sentence), most are trying to do the right thing for the game. Though the hosts seem to be increasingly looking after No 1.
Often, I get emails and WhatsApps when I write about this stuff. Often it is comments, thoughts or additions.
Unless I have dropped a real clanger. Please don’t.
I am weary of all this. I feel I have done my bit over the last five years and nothing has made a blind bit of difference.
It was so clear that the existing county game was going to be collateral damage in the changes the ECB wanted to make. Now I can see a few months where so many who should be united in growing the game will be stacked up against each other: membership vs their boards, hosts vs non-hosts, players vs fans.
But, as ever, the vast majority of supporters will moan for a bit then, after a while, shrug their shoulders. And the power-that-be know this.
The Essex meetings are a case in point. There is more concern over the scoreboard stats, stewarding checking bags and mucky seats than the possibility of death or irrelevence.
I take a different approach. For example, I am not involved in County Cricket Day because I am not going to patronise Yorkshire CCC, where Essex are playing, while Colin Graves is in charge. It is not about the club, its players or fans, just about his leadership and conduct at the ECB and beyond.
All these changes were supposed to grow the game.
But right now, ‘my cricket’ seems to be getting smaller and smaller.
Though, as I always say, maybe it is just me.
So let me get this straight.
Now large pots of external money, designed to grow the sport and create the best v best, is bad right? Because some of this sounds very similar to arguments put forward by the ECB around the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named.
Yes, I know, clearly there are huge differences too but you get my point.
One of my fundamental concerns about the path UK cricket has taken in the past decade is that they have made money their North Star yet, in global terms, they are never going to occupy the richest seat in the boardroom.
Saudi Arabia has enough money to make no-objection certificates or any other safety net entirely irrelevant.
They have tried to take over many sports in recent years but the most success has been in boxing because it has no effective governing body and it is unapologetically money led. But the Club World Cup is being staged due to the less obvious influence of Saudi money.
If you look at the reaction to that event, it is really only us Brits and some Europeans who look down on it. The US, Brazil and Asia are largely embracing it. Remember this is year one.
If the power of money justifies the growth of franchise cricket in England then do not complain when richer countries come for your sport.
Because you picked your poison.
Chris Peacock open letter post AGM | Lancashire Cricket Club
Northamptonshire commentator Andrew Radd wins prestigious award | BBC News
Good to see a commentating stalwart recognised.
Remembering Wayne Larkins | Northamptonshire CCC
Cricket: From sheep fields to global sport | The Argus
State schools to play cricket at Lord's ground in new tournament | BBC News
Nice to see the 93% given a foothold.
It is like when they used to have a women’s page in national newspapers. Mrs G used to say to me: “So who is the rest of it written for then?”
Ben Peverall: the youngest professional UK cricket umpire | Great British Life
We’re back says Yorkshire CCC chief as he blasts ECB over Ashes snub | Yorkshire Post
Says the architect of you-know-what, an event that snubs all the non-host counties.
Ben Stokes and his team save us from banality of TikTok and YouTube | Times
Bumble: If Test cricket is dead, then why are UK grounds full? | City AM
Matthew Syed’s piece in the Times supports a point I have championed for some time.
We worry about the attention span and media addictions of young people. Yet we feed them with constant dopamine-hitting content because it makes money. Or seems to. This is why Test cricket is dying and T20 is everything. Or so we are told.
But read this from the Times, last week. ‘Grow a Garden’ has become the most played game ever. It is on Roblox, a very playable and collaborative platform but, like Minecraft, not visually slick.
The subject of the game is cultivating apples. About as far away from Call of Duty as you could get.
It was not made by a major game publisher but a 16-year-old and has been barely marketed.
Attention spans for young people have not reduced. Interest spans have.
They binge-watch shows, play video games for hours and read 700-page Harry Potter books.
As Syed points out, red-ball cricket is by far the most exciting form of the game if you appreciate its slow boil. This is where the loss of the game in state schools hit home because there is little base knowledge upon which to build interest.
And kids do not just want bang, crash, short and loud content.
They are more sophisticated than that.
The story of this newsletter
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