No 44, Apr 6 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
All the County Championship previews | Fantasy League tips | Bumble speaks out | Latest player moves | ECB chairman and England MD candidates | And 'Teflon Tom' wants to secure 'his legacy'
County cricket is back. So, for one edition, I am going to try to forget the ECB’s incompetence, the farce at Yorkshire and all the other nonsense so we can celebrate the return of this glorious game. I sat through a snowstorm at Merchant Taylor’s School last week to watch Essex play a… well… warm-up… against Middlesex. But I came back in my best mood for months.
I’ll be at Chelmsford on Thursday for the first ball against Kent. Even if we are 57-5 for at lunch, I’ll be happy just watching Essex play because that, my friends, is what it should be all about.
In line with start of the new campaign, this newsletter will revert to weekly publication until the end of the season, hopefully every Wednesday evening. But bear with me on that.
Also I intend to add a little video into the mix from now on. So here’s myself and the excellent @EdmundBayliss (read his blog here) discussing what the data tells us about the new season. If you have not got your Fantasy League picks sorted out this maybe worth a watch.
The way to watch this preview.
Download Ed’s spreadsheet (see link) and toggle between two screens (the data sheets and the video) and we go through each one.
If you like this newsletter then please consider TIPPING ME A COFFEE. Full explanation at the bottom of the newsletter.
County Championship
County cricket schedule 2022: County Championship fixtures list, dates & venues (Wisden)
‘Bold and ambitious’ – hopes are high for County Championship revamp (Guardian)
Nottinghamshire left snow-blind amid uncertainty over Championship future (Cricinfo)
Nottinghamshire went very close to winning the title last year. They start this season in Division Two and, if they have a bad campaign, might be in the ‘stranded six’ if Andrew Strauss' report decides to cast adrift some counties into Division Two. See this story ECB considering creation of a 12-team first-class Premier League (Wisden)
My two cents:
a) Why are there so many leaks about the content of this report? It smacks of kite-flying to test ideas and/or softening the blow as they land.
b) Why not create two divisions of 12, supplementing the ‘stranded six’ with strong national (previously minor) counties or regional U23 sides drawn from the best counties (EG Kent/Sussex/Hants, Yorks/Notts/Durham). This division could be a mix of pro and semi-pro players to manage costs. It expands the game rather than contracts it. Also, I’d argue it would be a better finishing school than Second XI cricket.
A Yorkshire CCC Grumbler (@YCCC33) put together a whole schedule.
Signings, contracts and moves
Khan (Yorkshire), Rossington (Essex), Bailey (Lancashire), Davies (Somerset), Turner (Durham), Allen (Yorkshire), Guest (Derbyshire)
Captain: Bopara (Sussex T20), Vasconcelos, Cobb (Northamptonshire)
Previews
We used to have great Championship previews in national and local newspapers, magazines etc. But fan content is filling the void and the majority of it is excellent. Here are some I have picked out. Many are published in parts so I have not linked to all them but you can navigate through as required.
The below is a Twitter thread statistically analysing the 18 teams in the County Championship.
Open it up. Really fine work.
Deep Extra Cover previews - All the counties covered
County Championship 2022: team-by-team guide to the new season (Guardian)
Shaheen Afridi, Tom Haines and 5 players to watch in 2022 County Championship (Independent)
Young players to watch out for in the 2022 LV= Insurance County Championship (ECB)
Yahoo over Cow Corner looks at Hampshire and Gloucestershire
News, Views and Interviews
Alec Stewart insists county cricket is producing ‘high class’ Test players (Guardian)
Alec Stewart is such a sane voice. He has discounted himself from a more senior role due to family commitments. That’s fair enough but it is a shame for UK cricket.
This was posted on April 1 and it can only be a joke. Four contenders 'ruled in' - two are commentators who have not run senior teams and barely been in a dressing room since their playing days, one is a 'divisive figure' who has been tried before and then there’s Marcus North, who ticks all the boxes but is an Aussie. Not that this should count him out.
Surely there are better contenders out there.
As for the ECB chairman, here’s the latest.
‘If England are smart, they’ll pick older players’ – Ben Brown on his Test ambitions (Wisden)
Ben Brown calls it straight. “I do get frustrated by our own governing body speaking negatively about the product,” he says. “I don’t think any other business would do that. County cricket is a great product, there are some amazing matches that go on, but if they’re scheduled in the middle of the week, and a lot of the time played in cold conditions in April and September, you probably won’t find it being championed and being watched as much as it could do."
Paul Farbrace: Warwickshire boss defends County Championship after England failures (BBC)
Farbrace has worked at international and county level in the recent past. He has a well-rounded view of the game and therefore his opinion is worthy of respect. Farbrace also spoke really well on Talksport Cricket last week.
But Lord Patel won the day anyway.
Yorkshire board restructure approved as members back Lord Patel proposals (Cricinfo)
If Lloyd really believes the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named has wasted money and should be scrapped then why did he not say it when he worked for Sky? After all, they were broadcasting it and he was their leading voice. Indeed, there are occasions where he had appeared to 'take on' its detractors.
Any, in keeping with the ‘happy’ tone of this edition, I have left this until last.
ECB closing in on new ten-year deal with Sky Sports (Times) ($)
So Teflon Tom Harrison is trying to ‘secure his legacy’ with a 10-year media deal with Sky, including the Tests and the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named.
HIS LEGACY!
It is not about him. He is being pushed out the door with a fat bonus cheque in his bulging wallet because, under his reign, the game has plumbed greater depths than ever before. Yes, the television deal he secured was lucrative and counties rode out the worst of the pandemic with relatively few alarms. But the Test side are awful, county cricket is in disarray and you only have to consider David Lloyd’s comments this week to believe many are biting their lips with regard to ‘his baby’.
And this is my main point. Nothing should be considered ‘his’ or even ‘his legacy’. He is a custodian, a servant, he should be working for the game, not himself.
My experience of senior sports execs is that they are so ego-driven that many seek to create events, build buildings or sign long deals so they can go into their next job interview saying ‘see, look what I did’. But, as with Harrison, they leave long before the real ramifications of their decisions are felt.
Of course, ten years of the same money and security would be valuable (though quite why Sky would sign for that long I don’t know) but the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named has only been staged for one year and ticket prices have been hiked this season. It is very expensive to stage, there is little sign of international interest as yet and the opportunity cost is huge. And don’t get me started on its long-term effects on the resilience of cricket in this country.
And of course it is only around 17% of the £220m per year from Sky/BBC. That is still a chunk of money but not enough reason to kill off the county system.
And there was me trying to make this a happy edition.
Finally…
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Just a quick note. This newsletter was proposed as a one-year experiment during 2021. I am going to continue with it - weekly in the season, fortnightly outside. It is free forever and your data will never be misused. But I am opening it up to digital tips partly because it takes me hours and, in an ideal world, I’d like to return to sports writing full-time and make more cricket content (videos, podcasts etc). The modern way of doing that is coffee tips. It is basically busking for writers. Please feel free to contribute if you want to and you can afford it. Click here to tip.
My monthly coffees: Gary Prail, William Dobson
Coffees since last edition: John Webb, Malcolm Sparrow
