No 70, Oct 7 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🔴 Angry reaction to Yorks' relegation 🟤 County Awards 🟣 Teams of the season 🟠 All the county contract news 🔵 Will counties vote against Strauss Review? 🟢Should we split cricket into two codes?
I miss it already.
At 10.30am on Monday, I wanted to be worrying about the toss, the complexion of the pitch and whether the oppo had included that young talent everyone was talking about.
Now, with the Championship over for this year, my concerns are more fundamental. Like what will be left of county cricket after next season. We know the structure of the 2023 campaign will mirror this one but the decisions taken in the next 12 months may mean 2024 is the beginning of the end. Or at least a sharp acceleration in the ongoing decline.
I know what you are thinking, we have been writing postmortems about the Championship for years. I penned my own 'last-chance to see' in 2019.
But the decline is obvious, the pessimists only have to be right once and never has a governing body seemed so hell-bent on shrinking the game it is supposed to grow.
Regular readers will know I link the decline of county cricket with the decline of this country as a whole and particularly our political class. This week, Mike Atherton's excellent piece urged the authorities to respect the 'downtrodden county diehards' when they shape the future. But just look at the UK's inequality, poverty, number of food banks, failing services and general anger. Whatever the soundbites and spin, our leaders have spent much of the last 30 years with their boots on the heads of the many for the enrichment of the few. No-one cares about the downtrodden, especially if they are old. Unlike other countries, we have outsourced the care of our elderly for decades and, when Covid hit, their treatment was beyond callous.
One central plank of the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named and the Strauss Report is that concentrating resources in the ECB's favoured areas at the expense of the county game will increase revenue at the top end allowing them to support and develop the sport as a whole. This is dangerously close to trickle down economics, a theory somewhat undermined by the fact that precious little trickles down. It seems nobody does benevolence anymore.
The common link between 'leveling up', 'austerity' 'Truss's push for growth' and 'the Strauss Review' is the preferred route to prosperity never seems to involve the powerful giving up anything. It is all very well to 'grow the pie' but if you don't have your hand on the knife it will never be divided in your favour.
So it is time for the counties to stay strong, vote against this plan and withstand the inevitable pressure to divide and rule.
Despite everything, the first-class game must retain some power otherwise others would not be wanting to take it away.
In the off-season, this newsletter will be published every other week.
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Players’ contracts, deals and releases
Contracts: Montgomery (Nottinghamshire 3yr), Paterson (Nottinghamshire - 2yr), Rawlings (Sussex), Westley (Essex - 3yr), Sales (Northamptonshire - 3yr), Berg (Northamptonshire - 1yr)
Signings: Lamb (Warks to Derby), Karevlas (Sussex)
Released: Azad, Griffiths, Bates, Bowley, Evans, Sakande (all Leicestershire)
Players of the Year awards: Derbyshire, Glamorgan, Hampshire, Northamptonshire, Somerset, Warwickshire
Steven Patterson: Former Yorkshire skipper retires from professional cricket (BBC Sport)
Here’s an update on the list of players’ contracts.
This is not my work. Here’s the source. It is from a Reddit post by a fan and all the indications are that it is pretty accurate but it might not be 100 per cent. For full notes, see the end of the newsletter.
County Championship Round-up
Here are the final tables.
For me, draws and bonus points are still far too influential. Wins should be so important that going for them is nearly always worth the risk.
Surely this is good for the county and Test game.
Gallery: Surrey lift County Championship trophy (Surrey CCC)
Teams of the Year: Wisden, BBC Sport, PCA Team of the Year, PCA MVP rankings, PCA Player of the Year shortlists
Liam Norwell saves Warwickshire's necks with nine-wicket haul and sends Yorkshire down
It is ironic that, for all the think tanks behind the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named, the event was criticised for having few good finishes this season. But the Championship ended with two crackers - Yorkshire’s defeat and Warwickshire’s survival. These will be savoured and, unlike most short-form cricket, remembered.
You can’t fast-track history and meaning.
Season-closing thoughts (Peakfan - Derbyshire)
Somerset County Cricket Club 2022 season review (Somerset County Gazette)
Nottinghamshire will soon eye Division One title, says captain Mullaney (BBC Sport)
Forumidable Season report (Middx Tell We Die)
Scroll through to the lunchtime chat on the final day of the Championship season. An excellent discussion hosted by the peerless Kevin Howells.
Yorkshire CCC: a club relegated and a club destroyed (Yorkshire Post)
I have been mulling over whether to include the Yorkshire Post’s coverage of their club’s demise. It is not just because I dislike their approach. It is mainly because I am not sure if it is the oldest and most tiresome trick in the journalist’s playbook, creating controversy for readership. The above piece and the following tweets from the Yorkshire Post editor and George Dobell illustrate the issues.
For me, the story is quite wrong in its fundamental assertion that all was well at Yorkshire two years ago. Instances of “appalling racism” were going on, see tweet below. Implicit in their stance is that the victim-cum-whistleblower has created the problem. This is not true. And Azeem Rafiq’s own character flaws do not lessen this fact in any way.
The failure of the ECB to properly run and/or police the initial inquiry has piled pressure on an already fraught and difficult process. Meanwhile, Lord Patel has made a number of mistakes in his attempts to clear up the mess left behind. Like many, I am impatient for a resolution but due process needs to be followed. But I know these positions are at odds with each other. However, the forces blocking change are using errors or early assumptions to cry ‘witch-hunt’ when, in fact, the entire point of this process is to uncover prejudice from the other direction.
All this is a bad look for Yorkshire and cricket. Every camp in this seems to have made mistakes but, ultimately, each one must decide what side of history it wants to be on.
Oh and if you believe all such racist complaints are mainly ‘hurty words’ and ‘banter’ there is an unsubscribe option at the bottom of the page. Feel free to use it.
And all this comes into focus once more when the team fails.
Joe Root got his fair share of criticism for missing Yorkshire’s final game and playing in a pro-am golf event with the likes of Piers Morgan and Kevin Pietersen. While my impression is that Root has been one of the better high-profile England players at returning to the county game, David Hopps makes a strong case for the prosecution.
Joe Root puts golf before Yorkshire, in symptom of system in crisis (Cricinfo)
Meanwhile, Yorkshire took the unusual step of issuing their social media guidelines, presumably because of the flak they have been getting for going down.
County Championship top run-scorers and wicket-takers
All the batters who scored more than 900 runs and bowlers who took more than 40 wickets.
Division One
Division Two
Campaign to Save County Cricket
The Sports Desk - English cricket’s club v country battle
Majority of counties set to reject Andrew Strauss high-performance review (Times) ($)
“Lancashire have become the latest county to say publicly that the Strauss proposals are “unworkable”, and that they will not even put them forward to their membership for discussion until they are reworked. They join Middlesex, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Leicestershire in saying that they will not vote for this reworked schedule or structure. Derbyshire, Northamptonshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire are expected to make similar public statements after discussing the proposals with their executive boards and members.”
Downtrodden county diehards deserve to have their voices heard (Times) ($)
Andrew Strauss' review will kill county cricket – it must be stopped (Telegraph)
Jos Buttler says proposed reductions could raise standards (BBC Sport)
Right on cue, a couple of the flashy elite players come out in support of Strauss’ plan to pear back county cricket. Having benefitted from its education, they now seem happy to reduce the size of the school when they should be helping to build a new wing for the benefit of future generations.
Perhaps, like a glorified student loan, elite players should pay a percentage of their wages to back county teams until a certain threshold is met.
Excellence to treasure – so why would you cut games? (Times) ($)
Should cricket split into two separate professional codes? (Full Toss)
News, Views and Interviews
Remembering Robin Marlar | 1931 - 2022 (Sussex CCC)
Sussex Cricket mourns death of Robin Marlar (Sussex World)
Robin Marlar, former Sussex captain and Sunday Times correspondent, dies aged 91 (Cricinfo)
Delroy Rawlins - See you back at Hove in 2023 (Royal Gazette)
Ian Salisbury leaves Sussex coaching role (Argus)
Cricket bosses claim 'progress' being made on tackling racism (BBC Sport)
New Masterplan and Levelling-Up Fund bid to transform Edgbaston Stadium (Edgbaston)
Masterplan Unveiled to Transform Edgbaston (Insider Media)
Five receive county caps (Peakfan)
The unique culture of English county cricket (Economist)
Claude Henderson appointed full-time Leicestershire director of cricket (The Cricketer)
‘I want to make a difference there’: Shan Masood ready to lead Yorkshire (Guardian)
High cricketing drama unfolds in Worcester as its magnificent cathedral looks on (OneCricket)
Speaking of Worcester, their rugby team have been wound up. Wasps are in financial trouble too. If they can go bust then so can a county or two. Worcester Warriors, Wasps & Premiership Rugby - key questions answered (BBC Sport)
Indian Premier League cricket team defends global expansion (FT) ($)
On the ever-excellent TalkSport Cricket Collective podcast, Neil Manthorp made a point about the way the new South African T20 draft had been run. He argued that IPL owners, who bought all the available franchises in the new competition, were often acting to support their big teams back home.
According to reports, franchises in the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named are being primed for outside investment. Surely, most of this will be IPL money and they will act the same way. OK, the UK market is bigger than the one in South Africa but the IPL team will always be the mother ship.
Finally…
Notes on County Cricket Contracts
Classifieds
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County Cricket Matters - Buy the magazine direct or on Kindle
Guerilla Cricket - irreverent, online commentary and jingles all the way
Finally, yes, I am still plugging my book on county cricket and midlife.
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