No 161, July 8: The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟠 Key meeting on county schedule 🟣 H*ndred deals set to be finalised 🟢 World Club Champ next Sept in England? 🔴 Surrey sign Indian spinner 🔵 Gloucs lose seamer 🥱 Kookaburra round reviewzzzzzz
This week, finally, the completion of franchise sales in the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named is expected to be announced.
You can tell because the CEO Vikram Banerjee is doing forward-looking interviews ($). I suspect that only Honey Monster’s larder will see more sugar puff pieces in the coming days.
This has always been a competition in which you ‘sell the sizzle, not the sausage’.
How else did they manage to win a business award in May, well before the final contracts were written, let alone the ink dry? But it certainly covered over some pretty ropey viewing figures last year.
We will never know how much power has shifted towards owners in negotiations since the fanfare over the original deals, because, with some important exceptions, our cricket media have been too easily placated. ‘Everything is fine’, ‘just small details’ we have been told. Yet we know there is always devil in those. The footballing press would have painted this as five months of turmoil and crisis, justifiably or not. Even rugby has covered the remuneration issues surrounding its top brass more effectively.
One of the very few things I like about working in academia more than sports journalism these days is that you are likely to be held to account by your peers. It is not perfect but bias and sloppiness are more likely to be called out.
For example, read this piece from an industrial economist on the effects of the sales on county cricket. With cold facts behind him, he states the blindingly obvious, see below. (Then again, his bio says he aims to “improve competition policy to regulate collusion and cartels”. Fill in your own punchline, here.)
It has been understated that the money will NOT hit the bank accounts of the counties a week later. Or anytime soon, in fact. It is staggered (understandable) and must be applied for (not the impression that has been given). We know this is effectively a ‘golden goodbye’ to non-host counties. If they squander it, then they are toast because there is likely to be precious little more money from central sources after 2029.
But this ECB leadership will be gone by the time that plays out. Who knows, the next one or the one after may have different priorities. So will the money still be available?
At a recent Essex members meeting, this question was posed by the board itself.
It is a perverse irony that the Professional Game Committee is meeting this week to discuss the schedule. Given that the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named is the ‘new’ addition that burst the seams of an already stuffed fixture list.
(See here for the County Cricket Members Group info on the meeting and where your county stands)
Ridiculously, the ECB have not yet ruled out making the changes apply to next season. A surprise relegation battle involving Essex has been occupying my thoughts and screwing up my working weeks but, in fact, it may not matter. It is likely we would be in the second group of a three-conference system and outside a first division of eight teams should they be implemented.
So the rest of the campaign might not matter. Ludicrous.
The Hundred: how might private investment in the tournament change cricket? | Economics Observatory
Lancashire: Interim T20 head coach Steven Croft questions 'stupid' schedule | BBC Sport
How Surrey are bucking trend for declining crowds at county matches | Times
Statement on the domestic schedule review | Surrey CCC Kia Oval
Domestic Playing Programme - Message from our CEO and Chair | Somerset CCC
And then there are reports that a World Club Championship may be introduced in September 2026, possibly in England. It will involve the winners of you-know-what of course, not the Blast, but will screw up the last month of the Championship either way.
It is the gall and disrespect of all this which disappoints me the most and surprises me the least.
The ECB have defined their high-value and low-value games. They have created a situation where some of the latter must be extracted to make space for more of the former. Player welfare is a flag of convenience they will fly to put pressure on the counties to contract their own operation and ambitions.
As part of this process, they have not only created high-value and low-value teams (franchises/hosts and non-hosts) but high-value owners and low-value owners (franchise owners and county boards). Despite all the protestations to the contrary, members are ‘no-value’ owners.
This was the inevitable cost of courting external investment. You will not get this amount of money without allowing the spenders the freedom and control to make their profit their way. The fine details of which haved caused the five-month delay between announcement and confirmation.
And, while wanting change, the price paid has been far, far, far too high for me.
The last time the rank-and-file achieved anything significant was in stopping key elements of the Strauss Report. There has been precious little democracy since then. And, as we all fully expected, they have just revived those same elements in a different guise and tried to present the impetus as not coming directly from the ECB.
We have seen bullish public statements from Surrey and especially Somerset over the schedule. Everyone from the ECB to the counties is paying lip service to loving the very members who have been labelled ‘fleas’ and portrayed as millstones to the game’s ambitions for years.
A bruising career in sports business has taught me to ignore every word and instead study every action, especially when there is game-changing money involved.
I was working in Premier League football when a flood of detached, overseas money arrived in search of a global reputation and a high return. It made the game bigger and better. Plenty of people got rich. But it also sucked out its soul.
And, remember, football is a sport that can bring fans to the streets in protest if changes go too far and possesses the money to attract the best executive leadership. English cricket is far from that. If the county game was looking forward to such a bright, vibrant future, then why are Kent, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire all looking for CEOs at the moment? From memory, Gloucestershire, Yorkshire and Essex changed theirs last year. That is a third of the first-class counties in 18 months or so.
The recent history of English domestic cricket has been woefully managed. Full of short-termism, vested interest, half-truths and outright lies. Yes, counties have not helped themselves.
But I have no trust in a game celebrating its ‘fake-it-till-you-make-it’ approach to an event designed to ‘save and grow’ the game at the very same time it also decides precisely how to shrink it.
Was it all worth it, then? Did the marketing geniuses at the England and Wales Cricket Board just manage to sell eight bananas for half a billion pounds? Well, kind of. For all the whiff of novelty and gimmick, of course the Hundred was not created out of thin air but carved out of the existing architecture of English cricket: those precious August holiday weeks, the Twenty20 Blast that was the financial lifeblood of so many counties. Built on the toil of the schools and clubs and academies and coaches that produced these market-ready players in the first place. Forced through with bullying and threats, secrecy and often just plain lying.
NB: It is important to stress that the money going to the recreational game and the new state schools competition is, of course, extremely welcome. (That is notwithstanding my perennial question over a cricketing structure that leaves 93 per cent of the population needing special assistance.)
Some of this money could have been generated via other means but, much more importantly, it does not make up for the disillusionment and division created in the game. As Liew points out, so much of recreational and school cricket relies on volunteers. Parents, grandparents, teachers, club stalwarts and mere ‘believers’ putting in hours for free. This is EXACTLY the generation who feels most disenchanted by the way English cricket has been managed. I have just finished a six-year spell managing my kids in three different football sides. Each time, the teams folded not due to a lack of players or referees but volunteers to run them.
NB2: Banerjee is trotting out the “cricket is the second most popular sport in the UK” line. It is being pushed a lot these days but, for me, does not pass the smell test. Just ask your nearest teenager to name a few current cricketers. Of course, it depends on how you define it. For example, darts is second to football in Sky Sports viewership, Luke Littler was the UK’s most Googled athlete last year and the money in the sport is skyrocketing.
As for participation in the UK, we are being told there are more cricketers than ever. Hmm and hmm. Again, definition is key. The All-Stars is an excellent scheme and a critical gateway. But do not equate one of those kids playing eight hour-long sessions to my days as a club colt playing most weekends from April to September (often Saturday and Sunday) with practices in midweek. Or the crucial introduction previously provided for everyone by state schools.
Of course, the world is different. So many more entertainment options, social media, internet, blah, blah, blah.
But in that environment, sport has developed an intense, heightened level of cultural value and importance. For me, cricket, especially the long-form variety, is distinct from the rest. That is the primary reason I write this blog every week, even when I said I was stopping.
It is because I want that specialness to be savoured. Not sold.
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PS If you want to get involved in any groups to change this situation. Then there is the County Cricket Members Group and, of course, the Cricket Supporters Association.
County Champ - Last-Round Review
Kent cling on to deny Northamptonshire record-breaking win in tense final hour | Cricinfo
Surrey hit club record 820-9 dec against Durham | BBC Sport
County Championship: Yorkshire leapfrog Essex with 10-wicket win | BBC Sport
County cricket: who cares for records when almost every match is a draw? | The Guardian
County cricket: Why Kookaburra ball is proving hard work for bowlers | BBC Sport
County Championship - Test Speculation - Round 9 | Reddit conversation
Chesterfield's Festival of Cricket proves an all-round success | Derbyshire Times
Around 2,500 for the first two days at Chesterfield
Merv Colenutt discusses changes to Kookabura ball mid-season | Somerset County Gazette
Players - signings, contracts, injuries
Surrey sign India spinner R Sai Kishore for two-game County Championship stint | ESPNcricinfo
Keith Dudgeon: South African bowler to rejoin Kent for 2026 season | BBC Sport
Dom Goodman To Join Sussex After 2025 Season | Gloucestershire CCC
Reportedly, this is one of many impending departures from Bristol.
Ben Sanderson: Northamptonshire seamer extends contract | BBC Sport
What a Blast he is having.
Chris Rushworth: Warwickshire seamer eyeing September return, says Ian Westwood | BBC Sport
Moore ruled out for remainder of the season | Derbyshire CCC
…and one piece of coaching news. It seems all is not well at Lord’s.
Mark Ramprakash: Ex-England batter leaves consultant coaching role with Middlesex | BBC Sport
News, Views and Interviews
Lancashire could be deducted points after Phil Salt uses oversized bat | Times
Here’s a new blog on Lancs..
Lightning sneak over the line against Steelbacks in Blast thriller | Lancs Report
The Second Golden Age of cricket | Peakfan’s Blog
Perception, perspective, recruitment and overseas roles.. | Peakfan’s Blog
'Large group of travellers' forces Taunton Vale Sports Centre to close | Somerset Gazette
Somerset 2s play here.
Hampshire Cricket Opens Doors To Local Businesses | Hampshire CCC
Cricket, Christianity and the search for English identity | FT
USOPC calls for immediate resignation of USA cricket board | Times of India
Cricket an expected TV draw for LA28 | Inside the Games
USA Cricket seems to be a permanent state of crisis. It would not matter normally but the LA Olympics are three years away and it seen as a major platform to grow the sport in one of the world’s biggest markets
‘Unlike any cricket ground in the UK’: the London oasis every player should visit | The Guardian
Online clip shows Newcastle United midfielder take wicket for local cricket team | Shields Gazette
Peter Trego: Meet the former cricket star...now playing pro golf! | Golf 365
Finally, Mulder put the game above himself this week by declaring when Brian Lara’s world record was in sight. He paid a lot of credit to county cricket. So many overseas players do.
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