No 67, Sept 15 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟢 Should high-performance mean high-priority? 🔴 Royal London Cup previews 🟠 You-know-what 'least enjoyable' competition 🟤 $10m fine shows ECB the way on fighting racism 🔵 Lancashire's penalty pts
One of the main issues I have about the High-Performance Review is... well... it is all about High Performance.
Don’t get me wrong, we all want top-quality, truly competitive, ever-improving sport. This is the entertainment for the fan, the endeavour for the athlete and underpins the business model for the organisation. It also supports the ideals of physical play, hence the Olympic motto - "faster, higher, stronger".
However, sport is much more than merely high-performance. It is about meaning and identity, something that is conferred through the generations by storytelling.
To put it another way - I like cricket because my Dad did. I am an Essex fan because my Dad was. And, as regular readers will know, I have tried my darnedest to pass on these passions to my kids.
This is what ‘inspiring generations’ really means.
Having worked in elite sports organisations, it is clear they believe, as one of my former CEOs put it, "a winning team solves everything". And from their perspective, it ticks most of the major boxes - more money through media, commercial and tickets, greater prestige, greater glory and a massive ego boost.
But ‘everything’ is an all-encompassing, immovable word while ‘winning’ is always temporary. Manchester City have been more successful than Manchester United for the past decade but the latter remain the bigger club. City still get ridiculed over the number of empty seats at the Etihad Stadium and the financial source of their success. Essex have won more trophies than any other county since 1979 but have they stolen any fans from their rivals because of it? Not one, I suspect.
Look at this major survey from the European (Football) Club's Association (4,000 respondents spread across Europe, N America and China). It tells us that family connection is the most important reason for interest in football across all demographics bar one, where content and story take the top spot. Team success is only No 3 or No 4.
My point is not about using the majority of your focus and resources to try and be successful on the pitch. It is about using almost all your focus and resources to the detriment of other key drivers. I have seen stupid money gambled on that flakey player who "might add a bit" and featherbedding their foibles when redirecting just a fraction would have created a best-in-class marketing and content team.
This survey would suggest a High-Performance Review is needed but only after one covering content/story and, most importantly of all, the How-To-Get-Your-Kids-To-Support-The-Same-Team-As-You report.
In this graph, “favourite club was successful’ was the fifth most important reason for a fan following football in Europe. In the US and China, it was not in the top five
Of course, success is relevant to that last venture. The late primary school years are considered key in the consolidation of lifelong fandom and my personal passion was surely based partly on the fact that I was nine when Essex won their first trophy in 1979. I distinctly remember listening on the radio when we won the Championship again a couple of years later.
But all this was mediated through my Dad. He told me what it all meant and seeing his excitement rubbed off.
The ECA survey adds that, in relative terms, younger fans are less influenced by family, less devoted to clubs but more likely to be lured by social media, content and the fitness gained by participation.
Selling anything to the young is a very different beast these days, especially sport. For a start there are strict laws about marketing to pre-teens and, though it is almost entirely ignored, most social media platforms require users to be at least 13.
But, above all that, sporting stories are different now. Footballers are known as much through their ratings on the online game FIFA than anything they do on the pitch and YouTuber creators-turned-boxers are selling more pay-per-views buys for their fights than world champions. We all know the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named is so similar to T20 as makes no difference but the sizzle sold around it is light years beyond the way the ECB has ever marketed county cricket.
The experience (72%) is what 16-24 year-old fans crave most from a football match but identity is close behind on 62%
The irony of all this is that the High-Performance Review was prompted by our failure in the Ashes, a regular occurrence that, yet again, does not make me less interested the next time it comes around as memories of sporadic successes still provide hope. Yet Test cricket seems well down the agenda for the ECB, moving next year's Ashes to accommodate you-know-what would seem definitive.
Over the past couple of cricketing decades, as we have lurched from crisis to crisis, nadir to nadir, review to review, we have never got a clear sense of the priorities in the game from our governing body. Surely that should determine where you put your time, money and focus.
And now, having lost control to franchise tournaments based on their very own invention, they are desperately trying to regain a foothold with a big review, with a big name running it.
The review to end all reviews.
This is it.
Final.
No more.
Nope.
All done.
…errr, until the next one.
If ‘character is destiny’ it will be the same brand of bollocks we have seen before and, because we have no agreement or understanding on the priorities, the execution will be fudged due to competing pressures.
The ECA report shows clearly, what is apparent to everyone, high performance is very important but NOT all-important.
It is folly for the ECB to think otherwise.
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Signings, contracts, departures and player news
Signings/Contracts: Ashraf (Sussex - end of season), Goldsworthy (Somerset - to 2024)
Released: Harry Sullivan, Josh Sullivan, Loten (Yorkshire)
Ashley Giles in talks over county cricket return (Cricketer)
Rory Burns admits he is dreaming about Surrey lifting County Championship title (LondonNewsOneline)
Sam Cook tipped as the heir to James Anderson: "He's absolutely world-class" (Cricketer)
Lewis McManus out for rest of Northamptonshire's season after operation on broken finger (Cricketer)
We're not safe yet - Yorkshire boss Ottis Gibson in rallying call to troops (Yorkshire Post)
Royal London One-Day Cup Final
Let’s look back on Lancashire v Kent finals from the past.
First up, the Benson and Hedges Cricket Cup final 1995.
Departing Kent all-rounder Darren Stevens hopes Royal London One-Day Cup final is not his last match for the side (Kent Online)
Wells determined to end 2022 season with Royal London Cup glory (Lancashire CCC)
Joey Evison braced for his accession as Kent prepare to bid Darren Stevens farewell (Cricinfo)
That Jack Bond catch was clearly great in 1971. But with fielding standards having gone up so much it is kinda ‘normal’ today.
Campaign to Save County Cricket
Ed Warner was Chair of UK Athletics and knows about running elite sport. But, sorry, the ECB is NOT going to hand over the value of the franchises in you-know-what to the 18 counties. As Mike Atherton said, the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named is not about growing the game or serving the existing one, it is about creating a viable and valuable product as their existing revenue streams, such as Test cricket and bi-lateral series, are losing value. They will not want counties anywhere near that.
ECB at fault for domestic schedule (London News Online)
“Not a single day of the last four rounds of the County Championship take in a Saturday or a Sunday.
“As for the players, more than half of the Surrey side likely to line-up against Northants next week have not seen any action for 45 days.”
The Hundred is English cricket's least enjoyable competition, fans survey finds (Cricketer)
This will be dismissed as 'well, they would say that wouldn't they?". But it is wrong to put the entire membership of the Cricket Supporters Association in a box marked "old fogies".
You cannot say 34 per cent of respondents under 44, 22 per cent over 65 and 92 per white is that far out of keeping with national demographics. However 90 per cent male is both disappointing and certainly a skew on figures.
A survey taking 25 minutes to complete suggests the 3,700 respondents are among the most passionate fans. Look at the small print on those make-up adverts on television confidently proclaiming "78% of those surveyed noticed fuller lips in 24 hours" and you will realise this is a huge number of replies which cannot be ignored.
It is no surprise to see the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named fail to resonate with the passionate. To purloin a famous phrase "it is not for them". It is pitched for the passionless when it comes to cricket. Fake teams, meaningless fluff sold as important and shiny, flashing things designed to attract people who don't care about the game. Or at least haven’t done until now. By definition, this is a new audience. Of course, the plan is to make them care. At least enough to open their wallets.
But emotional ties take time.
And even you-know-what can't fake that.
Thoughts on the Strauss Report (Peakfan Blog)
Clearer vision and cheaper tickets needed to enhance Premiership allure (Guardian)
Like many others, I use cricket and football comparisons a lot, see intro. This might work at League One level but the Premier League teams, let alone, the Champions League elite are way over the sporting horizon. Different profiles, different businesses, different audiences, different everything. And the aspirant Championship clubs who mortgage and then re-mortgage their future on joining the big boys merely serves to illustrate the dazzle of the top-flight.
Rugby Union is more comparable to county cricket. Not only in size and impact but the contorted positions they have taken to maintain relevance. And, it must be said, the financial problems, see the sorry story of Worcester Warriors.
The different versions of rugby in the UK have gone through some of the steps proposed for English cricket such as franchising and private equity investment. It does not seem to be a pretty sight with crowds down post-pandemic and some were falling before.
This Guardian piece suggests the sport needs to be “affordable, accessible and run with far more clarity”.
One thing cricket has over rugby is price. The Guardian is reporting it costs £50 for a ticket behind the posts for a major Premiership rugby game. Blast matches have been half that and one of the key drivers of the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named is dirt cheap prices. It is one of the reasons it is making such a loss.
But as for “accessible and run with far more clarity”, we need that desperately. Especially the latter.
Somerset CCC Board statement (Somerset CCC)
"The current domestic playing programme, which resulted in only four one-day matches being played in Taunton over 43 days in the height of summer this year, with 17 Somerset players unavailable, is unacceptable."
Somerset have opened the batting against the Strauss review with this statement. As the strongest counties without Tests grounds it is no surprise they and Essex have always seemed the most vehemently opposed.
But I wonder. With the Welsh franchise struggling for impact could the south-west county be silenced by having their own team in the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named. Likewise, could Chelmsford be given a sweetener as the London/South-East home of England women's white-ball cricket.
We have seen reports of these levers being pulled or threats of such 'gifts' being taken away. Frankly, if I was the ECB that is what I would do. It’s classic ‘divide and conquer’ tactics.
News, Views and Interviews
Prince William now owns the Oval cricket ground: here’s how (Indian Express)
Essex 50s are County Champions again! (Yellow Advertiser)
This is a good question. Many of cricket's data crunchers would be inclined to say yes as they like to pick specialist players for special conditions.
Pitch invader who collided with England cricketer guilty of aggravated trespass (Standard)
A shallow, attention-seeker who should feel the full force of the law.
How Yorkshire CCC has made great strides under Lord Patel - John Grogan (Yorkshire Post)
Azeem Rafiq set for new MPs' hearing over Yorkshire County Cricket racism claims (ITV)
Suns owner Robert Sarver banned one year and fined $10m for misconduct (Guardian)
Now, here’s a sport sending out a message regarding racism. The NBA have banned an owner from any involvement with his club for 12 months and handed him the maximum fine of $10m for misconduct, much of it racially discriminatory.
OK, it all took a year but the US is the most litigious country in the world, the owner fought it and yet the NBA managed to reach a strong conclusion in less time than it has taken to punish Yorkshire.
Club Statement: Cricket Disciplinary Committee Hearing (Lancashire CCC)
Lancashire hit with six-point Championship penalty following disciplinary hearing (Cricinfo)
A strongly worded statement from Lancashire, albeit they “respect the decision”. I can’t remember as much open dispute about disciplinary issues as this year. That may be because they are tightening the rules and interpretations.
Lancashire’s Luke Wells tweeted that "hitting my bat on the ground after being bowled last year v Glamorgan at Cardiff and shouting in frustration whilst inside the changing room at Northants" was a part of this.
Personally, I find the long, staring back at the umpire and failing to move when given out a much clearer sign of dissent. Although, that takes you down a difficult road of interpreting body language and determining what is contempt and what is disappointment.
However, I was truly saddened in Hampshire's conduct in this regard at Chelmsford this season. In contrast, this week’s game at Yorkshire, a wafer-thin, one-wicket win for Essex, was played in excellent spirit.
Exclusive: Steve Finn and Nick Knight leading contenders to be new England selector (Telegraph) ($)
Steve Harmison exclusive: Criticising the Hundred could cost me England selector job (Telegraph) ($)
Are we just recruiting selectors from the Sky commentary box now? I know they run the sport these days but this is getting ridiculous. With all the emphasis on data, sports science and the need for diversity in decision-making groups, we still just appoint from within a small cabal. This is what the public school blazers used to do when they ran cricket.
The only difference is these guys have got better tailors.
And, finally…
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The question isn’t whether the ECB is going to hand control of The Hundred to the counties but whether it SHOULD hand it over. My view is it should. Hence The Fix…