No 47, Apr 28 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟣 All the Champ previews 🔴 ECB chairman farce 🟠 Kent and Surrey profits 🟡 Is Wisden woke? 🟢 Pakistan’s stars loving Championship 🔵 Depeche Mode's brush with cricket 🟤
Here we go again. Games are coming thick and fast. The conversation among the fans in the last week was around the promotion of the county game, especially when it seems the Australian governing body could see more value in a County Championship match-up than ours. The @CountyChamp Twitter account is very good in my opinion but the red ball game is clearly not a priority. It is played from May to September while the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named features only in August but just consider their relevant visibilities.
A Match of the Day style show has been discussed by fans on Twitter. It is a big and resource-heavy undertaking if you want to do it right and these days you need to consider its value for social media and clippability. I’ll write about my views next time.
Until then enjoy the game, promote the game and tell your friends. (Just like the fans at The Oval at the bottom of this newsletter)
Word of mouth still counts.
If you like this newsletter (and you can afford it) please consider buying me a coffee. Full explanation at the bottom. All coffee buyers are name-checked in the next edition.
County Previews
Nottinghamshire vs Worcestershire
Essex vs Northamptonshire
Gloucestershire vs Surrey
Hampshire vs Lancashire
Somerset vs Warwickshire
Yorkshire vs Kent
Derbyshire vs Glamorgan
Sussex vs Durham
Middlesex vs Leicestershire
Signings: de Grandhomme (Surrey), Crane, Beard (Sussex)
Contracts: Woakes (Warwickshire) Ahmed (Leicestershire)
News, views and interviews
Fast bowlers on the clock as ECB trials radar guns to satisfy England's need for speed (Cricinfo)
How are Pakistan’s stars faring in the County Championship? (Wisden)
The short answer is pretty darn well, Shan Mashood's runs shows the value of signing a batter trying to reclaim their Test place and the most exciting talent, Shaheen Shah Afridi, has only just made his debut.
County Cricket Natters podcast
Surrey coach Gareth Batty was on fine form in this episode. Hugely enthusiastic for the county game.
Welcoming Daisy Cutter - an alternative cricket fanzine
Now this is not really my thing but I warmly welcome its introduction. At first glance, Daisy Cutter appears light and breezy, artsy if not kitsch, young and female-focussed. I love the cabal of committed and eloquent county commentators but, like me, they are mostly white middle-aged men. It speaks to the county game’s core audience but we must be looking more widely than that because for many reasons (mainly the Sky deal and loss of of the game in schools) cricket fandom in the following generations has become alarmingly sparse. I have been teaching sports marketing and CRM to Masters students at a Football Business University for the past few months. They are a nice, bright bunch of future sports execs but there is almost no connection with cricket. It simply does not resonate within their generation.
Staying with ‘yoof’, the concept of ‘woke’ is not beyond criticism and it is utterly wrong that society seems to ignore you when you pass 40 but far too often the label just seems to be used as an all-too-familiar and thinly-veilled attack by the old on the young. That is why I found Simon Heffer’s piece about Wisden in the Telegraph so pompous, even though it clearly spoke to his paper’s audience. For me there is nothing wrong with trying to be fairer, kinder and better… and different… and young.
I am now middle-aged myself but no-one has expressed it better than Bob Dylan in a song released five years before I was born.
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times, they are a-changin'
Surrey CCC announce £5.4m pre-tax profit for 2021-22 financial year (London News)
Kent made nearly 400k last year, that includes £70k from winning the Blast and £30k from supporters donations. Of course, the ECB payments are the majority of their £7.3m turnover but more and more counties are showing profit and paying down debts.
PAUL NEWMAN: Essex are thrown into further turmoil as racism whistleblower Wasim Haq QUITS (Mail)
This is so messy and so disappointing given Essex’s success in recent years.
English Cricket - My Manifesto (Dan Weston)
There is so much talk about the need for outside thinking in cricket. It is mostly hot air. Dan Weston, pro gambler and poker player turned cricket analyst, approaches the game in a different way. I had a long chat with him on my podcast and here he is answering questions on his blog. I do not agree with some of his ideas, partly because he is more player and game-focussed than fan-focussed. Numbers do not account for emotion, history, tradition and identity. However he is clever and has a different take. Well worth a read.
The usual bit about the ECB
Ron Kalifa set to be next ECB chair (Cricketer)
Ron Kalifa: Man leading ECB search set to get top job himself (Times)
This smells. Just read Nick Hoult's excellent piece on the development of the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named. It was an utter a failure of governance. Another sporting governing body occupying the dual role of regulator and commercializer abusing its position but, more importantly, betraying trust. Not that the counties are blameless. The whiff of stitch up has not left the corridors of the ECB since Graves and Harrison bulldozered through their idea. Resentment lies deep with county fans and I suspect many executives.
So when you get stories suggesting 'we can't find a new Chairman so we'll appoint from within' your nose starts to tingle again. Harrison's replacement will be found by this person. Look at where we were seven years ago when he was appointed and where we are now. Vast growth in the Blast has been ignored for a loss-making event that creams off the top, over claims its triumph and undermines the fabric of the game.
Another five years of this and the county game will not be dead. It will be speedway.
And why are there no quality candidates for the ECB chair role? Likewise, the England MD's position was given to Rob Key because he seems to be a no-nonsense, sensible, good bloke rather than any specific skills.
These should be plum jobs. The ECB chair role is £150,000 for three days a week.
It is another indication of how far cricket has fallen.
And the net result of all this - Teflon Tom stays on for even longer!
Tom Harrison: Wisden condemn ECB’s chief executive over £2.1m bonus scandal (I News)
Wisden calls on ECB to return £2.1m bonus pot after ‘annus horribilis (Guardian)
Wisden offers sobering critique of ailing English game (Independent)
I'll just leave these here.
Remember, Telfon Tom is only still in his post because everyone around him has gone and there is a fear of a vacuum at the top.
His final year in post will see him earn around £1.5m, 50 per cent of that is salary and 50 per cent a bonus, presumably because he has considered to be a success.
And yet the bible of the game says cricket is on its knees and has just suffered an "annus horribilis".
I think our governing body is in denial.
Are these the most famous Essex cricketers ever?
Depeche Mode, Basildon’s finest export, playing cricket with a broom before their gig at the Hollywood Bowl.
And finally…
Classifieds
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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.
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