No 77, Jan 16 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🔵 Patel out at Yorkshire, Graves in? ⚫️ Smith to Sussex 🔴 Bazball blueprint given to counties 🟡 Boycott would scrap Blast 🟣 Keith Barker - local hero 🟤 Roach back at Oval 🟢 Murtagh to coach
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When the waters recede from the pitch at New Road, Worcester, the new season is normally on the way.
But from the look of this picture, we will have to wait sometime yet.
Right now, I’d swap a morning session at Chelmsford with the opposition slumbering to 52-1 for any of the franchise leagues on offer. Thanks to my extensive and expensive satellite subscriptions, I can see daily T20s from Australia, UAE, South Africa and Bangladesh. Games are back-to-back, 10-a-penny and, to me, utterly meaningless. Don’t get me wrong, I love a bit of hit-and-giggle but by the time I have made a post-match brew, I have normally forgotten the result.
April can’t come too soon.
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Players, Signings, Coaches and Contracts
Smith planning career-first move in county cricket (SEN.com.au)
Australia batsman Steve Smith in talks with Sussex for pre-Ashes stint (Times)
ECB’s Mo Bobat happy for Steve Smith to gear up for Ashes in county cricket (Guardian)
Contracts: Dent (Gloucestershire - 3yr), Dale (Gloucestershire - 2yr), Gilchrist (Kent - 2yr), Zaib (Northamptonshire), Evans (Leicestershire - 1yr), S. Cook (Essex - 2yr), Hutton (Nottinghamshire - 2yr), Mills (Sussex - 2yr)
Signings: Santner (Worcestershire - Blast), Roach (Surrey - start of Championship)
Gloucestershire keen for Glenn Phillips reunion in T20 Blast (Cricketer)
Jayden Seales ruled out of Sussex stint through injury (The Cricketer)
Tim Murtagh signs player-coach deal with Middlesex for 2023 (Cricketer)
Apparently, it’s been “one more year” for the last decade.
Neil Killeen: Durham stalwart leaves for ECB pace bowling coach role (BBC Sport)
Mickey Arthur: Derbyshire head of cricket rejects Pakistan approach (BBC Sport)
Shane Burger to join Somerset as assistant and batting coach (Somerset CCC)
Worcestershire CCC: Brett D'Oliveira named Rapids captain (Worcester News)
Alec Stewart takes leave from Surrey role due to family illness (Cricinfo)
Get well soon, Mrs Stewart
The Yorkshire Racism Scandal
Colin Graves confirms interest in Yorkshire return: "I can turn it around in three years" (The Cricketer)
Tanni Grey-Thompson in running to take over as chairwoman at Yorkshire (Times)
Colin Graves exclusive: I'm ready to ride to Yorkshire's rescue again (Yorkshire Post)
Hearing to address Yorkshire racism allegations set for March (Sky)
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Colin Graves just cannot regain his position as chair of Yorkshire. The departure of Lord Patel is bad enough and any new appointment is always capable of stalling their progress.
But bringing back Graves would feel truly retrograde.
Lord Patel has said that when he arrived the club were under an existential threat with sponsors leaving and international fixtures likely to be lost. This makes his most controversial decision, to clear out a significant proportion of Yorkshire staff, more understandable. Though not to the innocent people thrown out with the guilty, who can rightly point to a lack of due process. It is one of the main accusations lobbed at Lord Patel but, if he had not acted, would there have been a club left to work for?
Likewise, Graves’ money has bailed out and propped up Yorkshire but if they are looking for a shrew hand on the tiller capable of skillfully leading the county through the choppiest waters in their history then I would suggest they look elsewhere.
Under Graves’ tenure as chair, the ECB was accused of an “ambush” of the county chairs to push through the tournament-that-shall-not be named. He has denied suggestions of threats to counties but non-disclosure agreements were served. For me, this atmosphere emanating from this approach has set back county cricket more than anything else in a difficult decade. How can you have a working relationship, let alone any trust or respect, with any organisation that acts like this?
While the counties are often tricky and troublesome, good leadership finds a compromise because, as ever, an extreme action has led to an extreme reaction in an atmosphere of animosity and division. Graves got his tenure at the ECB extended but had to give up on his bid to get a similar role at the ICC due to lack of support. Over the racism issue, the Graves Trust has been accused of being a block on change by a previous Yorkshire chair. Graves himself has refused repeated requests to speak to the Select Committee on the issue despite commenting in the media. He was told to “put up or shut up”.
Harrison was pushed out as ECB CEO (with Graves backing his bonus payment) but rushed through a late TV deal on the same money with Sky that tied the hands of the new regime of Richards Thompson and Gould. As you would expect, they seem the polar opposite of those who came before. Meanwhile, county members stung by their lack of inclusion in the birth of you-know-what (and Graves telling another Select Committee they were consulted) have organised themselves sufficiently to suffocate the Harrison-ordered Strauss Review, which protected ‘their’ tournament and sought to cut-back ‘ours’.
So where do we find ourselves after all this?
At each others’ throats.
The camps (whether it be pro or anti you-know-what, Azeem Rafiq, Yorkshire) don’t even attempt to see each other’s perspective and, instead, we spend our time finding arguments to pull apart each other’s vision. We concentrate on destruction and self-preservation when, in reality, we need all our energy to create something better.
This is why Mr Graves is not the leader to take Yorkshire forward.
News, Views and Interviews
Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum pitch Bazball to county cricket teams (City AM)
Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum issue 'how to' guide on 'Bazball' to county coaches (Mirror)
Alan Richardson: County players have been inspired by England’s style (Times)
"England Test cricket captain Ben Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum have given Zoom presentations to county head coaches on the subject of Bazball, according to reports."
Essex fans have been quick to liken Bazball to the approach of Keith Fletcher, who led the county to their first Championships in the 70s/80s by chasing victory no matter what. Although their hard-hitting batters, Graham Gooch and Ken McEwan, did not score at the rate of Stokes' side.
Fletcher and McCullum looked at their team's abilities and made a simple risk/reward calculation. Just like those football managers who grind out points by getting their team to 'park the bus'. But if you start from the perspective that sport is an entertainment, then the rule-setters must change the equation by incentivising attacking play. That is why football moved from two to three points for a win all those years ago and, in fairness, the Strauss Review suggested something similar recently.
The problem is the role the Championship occupies and ‘Lord Brockett’’s report will be dumped on a sagging shelf with previous documents that have always bent to the prevailing breeze. In 2020, England wanted their batters to bat longer so draws went from five to eight points in the inaugural Bob Willis Trophy. Given the revenue the international game provides, it is understandable and perhaps this is just another 'support the England team' move but, in the past, they have tended to be frustratingly short-term.
That may never change but at least this is positive and exciting.
New $1.5 billion broadcast deal confirmed for CA (Cricket.com.au)
Boycott: My manifesto for English cricket: Scrap the Blast and back the Hundred (Telegraph)
As I said earlier, franchise T20 tournaments are fast becoming moving wallpaper in my house. There are so many, they are full of the same players, the same colours and the South African one even has the same team names as the IPL. The Indian version is the Daddy, everything else seems a pale imitation. And we’re talking Mike Yarwood here, not Rob Brydon. The Big Bash has been the No 2 but crowds have been a concern. As ever, the myopic marketers have been trying to overmilk the Golden Goose, which is not only a painful-sounding mixed metaphor but depressingly inevitable. So the next TV deal will see 18 games sliced off in 2024, over a quarter of the current event.
Boycott’s piece takes a similar less-is-more approach. Quite logically he argues that there is no sense in the Blast and the tournament-shall-be-not-named co-existing. However, if the Blast goes then it takes the vast majority of the counties’ funding along with it. And, if they go under, who produces the players?
Which all leads me to this piece…
Demand for English talent abroad is in danger of creating a headache domestically (Times)
Hang on! I thought we were not producing good enough players. When, in fact, "The number of English cricketers playing professional domestic cricket abroad can never have been as high as it is this winter — there are more than 70 players in T10 or T20 tournaments alone, which is about one in five of all England-qualified players on county staffs."
Surely this means the county system works. After all, the market is telling us that.
Hampshire director of cricket Giles White says Kookaburra trial would be 'interesting' (BBC Sport)
Jon Hotten Interview (Rainstoppedplayinspectionat3)
Cricket hero Micky Stewart catches Freedom of the City of London honour (City Matter)
John Faragher not seeking Essex role as defamation case rumbles on (Cricketer)
This is disappointing all-round. Faragher was a popular chairman and, from what he says, the grievance is understandable. But it is in the best interests of the club not to take the legal route.
Sport England Small Grants Scheme returns for cricket clubs (Cricket Yorkshire)
George Garton interview: 'Doctors said I had long Covid – it was a blood clot’ (Telegraph)
Keith Barker failed to make the grade in football with Blackburn, but after 13 years on the county cricket circuit he has been recognised as the ultimate pro... the 36-year-old reflects on swapping sports before becoming a devastating bowler (Mail)
Somerset CCC mourn loss of former president Michael Hill (Somerset County Gazette)
And finally…
As you know, this newsletter will be free forever. However, I always saw it as a springboard to create more cricket content. With The Cricket Paper still on hiatus and no offers from elsewhere (hint, hint), I am thinking of making it happen myself. But I need your help.
Here’s what is on my mind:
Becoming a crowdfunded cricket journalist, one day per week from April to September
Creating content that is free for all - features, interviews, podcasts. The tone would be long-form and in-depth
All subscribers sit on my editorial board and would be regularly named-checked in content
Meetings held once a month via Zoom, all subscribers can attend, contribute ideas and vote on the best
Basically, I am creating the content but the agenda is set by the subscribers.
This one-day’s pay would be funded by subscriptions on Patreon. I am concerned this is a ‘step too far’. People are very generous with their tips for the newsletter via Ko-Fi but, as a freelance/consultant, I sell my time. Still, I’d rather get a small amount to commit a day a week to county cricket than a much bigger amount consulting with sports organisations.
It is all about whether I leap or not. So I am gauging interest.
Please give me your opinions here, for or against, and vote in the poll below. If you are ‘for’ then give me an indication of what you’d pay per month to be involved in this project.
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