No 78, Feb 2 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟣 Loads of big, new signings 🟢 Stevens wants a new deal 🔵 Strauss in 'backing establishment' shocker 🏉 Teflon Tom joins Six Nations 🟠 ECB's new tactic - talking to counties 🐶 My dog and cricket
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This is my dog. His name is Finn.
He wakes me up in the middle of the night, often leaves morning ‘messages’ under the dining room table and impinges on our choice of family holiday, restaurant or any other form of day out. He constantly needs me to open the back door so he can bark at birds that invade our garden’s airspace and has escaped under the neighbour’s fence so often we have started to buy bridge-building tins of Quality Street in bulk.
I love him.
Finn is the first dog I have ever owned. And, without a meticulous PR assault by my 14-year-old daughter, the thought would never have entered my head. I could have bought a decent second-hand car for what we paid for him and the monthly vet insurance costs more than we spend on Netflix, Amazon and The Times combined.
But now I not only want him, I need him.
We had contacted a breeder well before lockdown and he joined us at the end of the summer in 2020. By then Covid had sent Britain dog crazy. Around 3.2m pets were bought in the first year of the pandemic, with Millennials leading the trend. There was a run on dog and cat food and we were even advised to be wary of dog-knappers when we took Finn for a walk.
Despite returning to something that passes for ‘normality’, this year the UK will still spend £8bn on its pets, most of the owners live in cities and a third are under 40.
Why do we do this? Dogs are a drain on the three things modern society seems to value the most – time, money and freedom.
Clearly, the answer is emotional connection.
No one else raises an eyebrow when I bundle through the front door after a stressful day. But Finn rushes up to greet me as if I have just returned from a six-month expedition to the North Pole. He’ll sit by the window for hours while we are out, waiting for the familiar hum of our car pulling up to the drive. He wakes me up with a morning nuzzle and snuggles into my lap every evening in front of the television. Most poignantly, he sought me out and stayed by my side throughout an agonising, sleepless night in the spare room when I was suffering from gallstones.
Animals do this because they care and, unlike humans, show it constantly. They teach us the importance of an uncomplicated, unconditional connection.
A senior policeman once told me how horses were purposely over-deployed during the bad old days of football hooliganism as, no matter the nastiness spewing from rival thugs, the animal would be the centre of friendly attention.
Finn and county cricket are two things pretty much guaranteed to improve my mood. Both are eccentric, make stupid decisions and can be an immense frustration. But it is worth it because they simply… make… life… better.
At the end of last season, I stole a day at a meaningless game at Northampton because I was depressed. I threw the ball back to Sir Alastair from the boundary as I walked in, saw Ben Allison’s Championship breakthrough on a fine day for Essex and returned much happier for some late summer sun, a chit-chat and watching this wonderful waste of time once more. It was either that or a trip to the doctors. But with my mood lightened, I would argue my productivity was much better over the following few days. I was more connected and less grumpy with my family. Everybody won.
After two years of dog ownership, I appreciate why the UK reached for the collar and lead during lockdown. It was much better than reaching for a bottle or something much more destructive.
In truth, more of us should have done it because, in the past two years it has become clear that a small but significant proportion of our population - young and old, successful and ordinary - have never properly returned from that period of uncertainty and enforced isolation. A part of them was left idle for so long that it has ceased to function in the way it did.
Meanwhile, many of us who did return decided to abandon the furry friends who helped us through those dark, dark days.
Mental health is a trendy topic these days. Yesterday’s “grumpy bastard” is today’s “depression survivor”. But we need to look at ourselves, our actions and what we really value. Personally, I am sick of people beseeching me to ‘be kind’ while their actions are that of Gordon Ramsey before his morning coffee has kicked in. The adverts might tell us ‘we’re worth it’ but society (and especially social media) still screams judgement via the usual criteria - money, status and appearance.
My dog has enriched my life and, though troublesome at times, continues to soothe the soul of my family. For its devotees, the gentle yet ultimately pointless hubbub of county cricket acts in precisely the same way.
This is how and why they should be valued.
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Players, Signings, Coaches and Contracts
Signings: McAndrews (Sussex - Overseas, until July), Siddle (Somerset - Overseas, 2023 season), Khan (Sussex - Blast), Narine (Surrey - Blast), Munro (Nottinghamshire - Blast), Whiteman (Northamptonshire - Overseas, until end of August), Glover (Durham), Abbott (Surrey - first half of season), Mitchell and De Grandhomme (Lancashire - Overseas, Championship and Blast), Rahane (Leicestershire - Overseas, last four months), Haider Ali (Derbyshire - Overseas, all season)
Contracts: Rhodes (Warwickshire -1yr), Raine (Durham - 2yrs), Qadri (Kent - 2yr), Lintott (Warwickshire - 2yrs), Muyeye (Kent - 3yrs), Lenham (Sussex - undisclosed),
Darren Stevens holding talks with first-class county: "I would snap someone's hand off" (Cricketer)
Hmmm... so Stevens feels he was eased out by Paul Downton.
Ian Salisbury: Middlesex appoint former Sussex and Surrey head coach as consultant (BBC Sport)
Donovan Miller appointed as bowling coach for Essex's Pathway programme (Cricinfo)
Keaton Jennings named Lancashire club captain (Cricinfo)
Tom Curran: Surrey and England all-rounder takes break from red-ball cricket (BBC Sport)
News, Views and Interviews
Sir Andrew Strauss: "The rise of franchise cricket is one of the great steps forward"(Cricketer)
Ebony Rainford-Brent holds the aces in quest to diversify English cricket (Times)
Well, he would do, wouldn't he?
The ultimate establishment cricket player-turned-administrator backs exactly what the modern cricket establishment wants.
What a surprise.
With the English game about to apologise for racism, Essex fined and awaiting a report, the Yorkshire saga well into its second year and still to have its day in court, other more meaningful voices suggesting a major problem over class (see below), let alone the bitter division caused by you-know-what and the governing body's politicking (demonstrated by the fact that Strauss' own long-awaited report has been kicked into the long grass), please forgive me if I don't listen to a player whose nickname was Lord Brocket telling me everything in the garden is rosy.
In the immortal words of the mighty Betty Boo, Ebony Rainford-Brent is ‘doing the do’. Her ACE programme is now three years old and has got 10,000 youngsters from ‘targeted schools’ playing the game for the first time. Some are starting to be picked up by counties. (Note that, Mr Strauss. Counties pick up talent, not franchises). Her aim has been fixed on improving racial diversity but, having got down into the weeds, she has seen a different route to fullfilling this.
“I think the bigger problem in cricket is really around class,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, racism exists in society, and there are a lot of layers there, but when you look at the provision in low socio-economic areas, that is the void I want us to fill as a game. If we did that, we would solve the race problem and we could help solve the lack of diversity in the female game. If we got into that one area, diversity would automatically flow. We know a lot of these problems can be solved because we are seeing day-to-day successes in everything we do.”
For me, class should be cricket’s primary target because, as Rainford-Brent says, it is the foundation stone. Change that and more change, at a much greater pace, can follow.
Speaking of boardroom appointments, here’s a piece from Ed Warner on being passed over for a similar role at Middlesex. Given that he was Chair of UK Athletics during London 2012 and has a life-long interest in cricket, he would seem very well-qualified. You can sign up to Ed’s newsletter by clicking the link.
A rancid melody has been directed at Azeem Rafiq but he’s not the only target (Guardian)
Matthew Hoggard: 'P---' was 'widely used' in Yorkshire dressing room (Telegraph)
Michael Vaughan's 'you lot' comment never happened, says witness (Telegraph)
Much-delayed report into racism allegations at Essex due in February (Cricketer)
Playing a straight bat with nature (Sustainability)
“Every day I go around with a shovel and I’m removing fox poo.”
Glamorgan Cricket: County to play at Neath, but no Colwyn Bay return yet (BBC Sport)
Counties hold meeting over fears T20 leagues will trigger player exodus (Telegraph)
Martin Bicknell (above) sums up my thoughts. The financial clout of the IPL teams, both in their own league and the franchises they hold in other competitions, means you-know-what will always play second fiddle. Or third, fourth or fifth. And, of course, the growth of franchise cricket threatens the future of the red-ball game and the established international structure. So the English game seems to be between a rock and a hard place.
February summit for county chairs in bid to find solution to summer schedule (Cricketer)
[You-know-what] to begin at Trent Bridge, four-week window confirmed (Cricinfo)
So the ECB are going to sit down with counties and actually discuss the schedule. Thanks, we need a little more ‘jaw, jaw’ and less ‘war, war’ these days because the previous regime’s tactics seemed to be:
decide on the plan between yourselves in advance
produce report/data using handpicked people to support this (if it does not, make the findings opaque and barely public) (eg You-know-what data, Strauss Report)
bash, bully and PR heavily to push it through
get some high-profile voices (who just happen to be beneficiaries) on board
denigrate anyone who disagrees (eg ‘It’s not for you”, “Fleas”)
Who knows, maybe talking and discussing might lead to a little less bitterness and division. Also, let’s file the reduction of the window for the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named by the ‘new’ ECB regime under "look at the actions not the words”.
Having said all that, counties need to be open to positive change and play an active part in making their own future. If they don’t, it will be made for them.
Warwickshire's ticket scheme is huge boost for County Championship (Telegraph)
Tom Harrison, ECB's former chief, takes up new role as head of Six Nations Rugby (Cricinfo)
County cricket spat out a metaphorical mouthful of tea at this news.
Nothing sticks to Teflon Tom Harrison, does it?
Not his appalling record of governance within the game.
Not the regular, embarrassing performances in front of the DCMS Select Committee.
Not the accusations of personal misconduct.
I’ll leave aside the stupidity of that concept itself and the damage it has done to the county game. And it is important to add that, given the economics of the world game, the ECB were right to ask this question of themselves. They just got the answer wrong and its clumsy, arrogant execution has created a civil war. Also, we must add that Harrison was swift and decisive in his response to Covid-19, keeping the lights on in the county game and staging two crucial Test series that summer. Though the ECB’s morals were again questioned in reciprocating Pakistan’s effort in coming over.
But this still amounts to a huge net loss of personal and professional failings during his time in charge of the ECB. It was hard to find a good word written about him when he was pushed out.
Yet it does not seem to matter, because Harrison can deliver a television deal.
The ECB’s media rights package in 2017 was big (£1.1bn) and strategically crucial as it returned cricket to free-to-air television. Never mind that this only corrected a hugely damaging mistake by a previous ECB regime, the new element (you-know-what) contributed only 16-18 per cent so the vast majority of the value was the old-fashioned international game and most of that the really old-fashioned Tests.
And never mind that, despite all the PR bluster, this money is unlikely to be properly spread around all areas of the game but instead make the richest players and executives that bit richer.
Landing big-money television deals is Harrison’s trump card. It was the criteria for that bonus and, reportedly, he had been advising other leagues in this area since he left the ECB.
Running a governing body is hard. You will never please all the stakeholders all the time but you can lead without leaving such wreckage, division and resentment behind.
Media rights deals underpin modern sport but, I worry for the Six Nations if they think they are a sufficient substitute for proper governance, leadership and moral courage.
And I worry for UK sport that no one seems to care.
…finally, this book looks great, if slightly depressing…
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Another fantastic, thought provoking blog!
I can relate to the dog story, I think our daughter was about 14 when we eventually acquiesced to her relentless pestering and bought a dog. Of course, 99% of the time it is me that takes the dog for a walk and 100% of the time if it’s a cold, wet miserable winter morning!
But it’s great, it makes you get out of the house, take some exercise and on occasion visit a coffee shop or pub towards the end of the walk!
Just a minor correction to your contracts information, Pakistan International Haider Ali has signed an all formats contract for the entire season for Mickey Arthur’s Derbyshire.
Let’s hope he will be as successful as Shan Masood!
Kirk Jones
Matlock