No 29, Sept 9 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
Title race hotting up | Farewell to Houghton, Mitchell and Meaker | Ripley steps down at Northants | Early finish at Scarbados cost £30,000 | Windies talent drain | Scheduling the county season
The County Championship title race is bubbling up nicely. All three of this week’s games in Group 1 were lavished with huge dollops of drama. We did not quite get any final day classics but they were hard-fought and intense. The next two weeks could be memorable.
The title race
County cricket: the Championship hits the business end of the season (The Guardian)
Nottinghamshire v Lancashire - final day report (Cricinfo)
Warwickshire v Hampshire - final day report (Cricinfo)
This week’s fixtures
Hampshire v Nottinghamshire
Somerset v Lancashire
Yorkshire v Warwickshire
Glamorgan v Gloucestershire
Northamptonshire v Durham
Surrey v Essex
Derbyshire v Kent
Leicestershire v Sussex
Middlesex v Worcestershire
Departures
Worcestershire hero Daryl Mitchell confirms retirement at end of the season (The Cricketer)
Dave Houghton: Derbyshire head of cricket to step down at end of season (BBC)
Derbyshire have had a tough season but I do take the point that Houghton's tenure may have left them in a better state than when he joined.
Stuart Meaker to retire from cricket (The Cricketer)
News and Views
Financial concerns grow for Yorkshire CCC’s picturesque outground at Scarborough CC (Yorkshire Post)
Scarborough has suffered from a spate of two-day games in recent years. This report says the early finish against Somerset this week cost the host club around £30,000 in lost revenue.
Then VP Bill Mustoe added this: “I think the structure changes, with The Hundred impacting on the 50-over competition, means that one-day games at Scarborough will be less well attended [too]. This is because the quality of the sides that are appearing is less because of contracts for The Hundred, so that is less appealing (to spectators) and we’ve certainly seen that in the numbers this year.”
The crowds were 2,317 on Day One of the Somerset game and 2,554 on Day Two. They had hoped for around 4,000. Compare this to Man United v Reading in the first game of the Women's Super League, which drew 2,111 on Friday night. It was live on Sky and had numerous national newspaper reports. The best crowd of the weekend in the division was 4,500. Now, let’s be clear, I love the progress of women's football in recent years and covered the game when it was not trendy. My concern is the comparison in media coverage. Likewise the Blast quarter-final at Trent Bridge saw more paying spectators than any game at the venue in the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named. We are consistently told county cricket is dying and other sports are taking its place. The optics appear clear but plenty of metrics undermine this notion. It annoys me.
MPs tell Yorkshire to make public full findings into Rafiq’s racism allegations (Guardian)
The delay over the release of this report is only adding to the expectation that its findings will be bad for Yorkshire and the whole of county cricket. The statement at the end suggests legal restraints are a concern.
Roland Butcher calls it straight. English counties are enticing West Indian youngsters over to the UK with the promise of free education in private schools. Then, like Jacob Bethell, they end up playing for England.
The long road to success (The Cricketer)
More thoughtful words from Paul Edwards. His writing really is a joy. Alas, I fear no-one with any influence is reading or, at least, taking heed.
T20 Blast Finals Day returns to July in 2022 (The Cricketer)
“When people say that The Hundred is going to threaten the Blast, I just don’t see that,” said Neil Snowball, ECB MD of County Cricket.
But then he adds this. “What we may be able to do next year is actually do a full Blast before The Hundred, which would also be an interesting comparison to see how that works, where it goes maybe through to a full conclusion: you play Finals Day and then you go into The Hundred. It might just be interesting to see how that blends.”
When the Blast (strong legacy, record crowds, full priced ticket) has to adapt to you-know-what (no legacy, less crowds, less ticket revenue) there is only one winner. Surely making the Blast always the inferior partner, coupled with wider moves to expand the tournament-that-shall-not-named is a threat to the Blast’s spectacular, unarguable success.
A look at how to better schedule English cricket's domestic competitions (It Could be Said)
There is lots to like in this blog addressing the thorny issue of the the domestic cricket calendar. It is a piece I want to write too. But it needs a lot of time and consideration. Not least because many of us, including this writer and myself, would extract the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named. The prevailing message seems to be "it is here to stay". But that seems based on the fact it failed to fall on its face. Given the vast reserves spent on marketing and decisions made to secure BBC coverage, that was never going to happen. But, of course, there have never been set criteria upon which we could judge its success. And the simple ones like attendances, revenue and TV ratings suffer from excessive PR spin and cannot be trusted. One criteria many of us had was a ‘positive hangover’ to grow interest in the domestic game. From this distance, the event has utterly failed in this regard. Here’s a small example, the BBC took two rounds of Championship games to create meaningful, updated tables of the final stage groups on the website. Yet you-know-what received blanket coverage and was advertised well in advance.
Joe Root says Test team were ‘hampered’ by this season’s domestic calendar (Independent)
Then there's this to consider. When the Test fails, somehow it is county cricket’s fault.
We love seeing the youngsters play but it helps county finances too (The Cricket Paper)
My column from The Cricket Paper at the weekend.
We interrupt this newsletter for a game of county cricket
The 1993 Benson and Hedges final. Lancashire needed 11 off the last over. Frank Griffith was bowling. It was a memorable conclusion.
Tweet of the Week 1
Ok this is one of mine. But it hit a nerve and has received 32,000 impressions so far.
Links I like…
Join the Cricket Supporters Association, it’s free
County Cricket Matters - Buy the magazine direct or on Kindle
Finally…
Nottinghamshire are the team of the moment so here’s a Pathe film of Larwood and Voce et al in 1935. You’ll wince at the keeper’s fingers.
Finally, finally…
Yes, I am still plugging my book on county cricket and midlife.
Buy through Amazon or through me for an autographed copy
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