No 93, June 23 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟢 Three leave Leicestershire 🔴 Nixon put on 'gardening leave' 🟣 Middx record chase at Surrey but why no coverage? 🟤 ICEC report delay 🔵 Very private equity 🟠 Lancs TV viewers are '70% 18-35yo'
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My father had a stroke on the Saturday of the final Ashes Test in 2005. He passed away the following Wednesday, less than 48 hours after the umpires had lifted off the bails at The Oval to signify the end of the greatest series in recent times.
The last cricketing comment I remember him making was about young Michael Clarke, who, "looked like a decent player". This was high praise, indeed.
I bring this up because the First Ashes Test felt like 2005 all over again. Tough, tight and dramatic. If England can reply with a win at Lord's then we just might be setting up for a similarly special summer.
But will they? Can they? And what would it mean if they did?
This is a county cricket newsletter. It's criticised for being a ‘water cooler’ for sad, old men.
And, in a way, that is entirely accurate.
In the years since 2005, I have had a career, two kids and been around the world. I have also watched a ton of cricket. I watch even more these days because, frankly, I use it as therapy.
The clowns in the football circus do not amuse me anymore. The amoral state of our government, institutions and society appals me. While our media makes me work harder and harder just to separate truth from self-interested spin.
If it was not for my mother, who alas now struggles to remember my father's name, I would look to leave the country again. And county cricket would be the only thing I would miss.
You can almost hear the snorts of "shut the door on your way out" from the emotional pigmies who seem to run this country.
If the only future is franchise cricket they might get their way.
This country and this sport need a classic Ashes series. We do not have to win it because, for those who truly believe in cricket, that is never the sole aim. We just have to compete, excite and play like it means something.
Of course, the full impact of 2005 can not be repeated because this Ashes is stuck behind a paywall. The ripples of that short-sighted decision have undermined the growth of the game ever since. So now we are left looking for the Hail Mary of another classic series to ‘save red-ball cricket’.
My Dad and I talked about the game throughout the summer of 05. To give him some headspace in his latter years, I had started taking him to Championship games again. Men need the distraction of sport to connect so I rolled his wheelchair to the Hayes Close End at Chelmsford and we nattered while Essex flattered to deceive.
I could not tell you who we played on those days or what happened but I hold dear the memories of the feelings I had looking after my ailing father.
And, almost 20 years later and now burdened with some of the same issues that weighed him down back then, I am prepared to cut Dad a little retrospective slack.
I realise now that you slow down with age. Partly because your faculties undermine you but mostly because you realise what is truly important. There’s just no point in rushing around for meaningless shite.
This country and its greatest sport have been on a downward trajectory for some time, our self-interested leaders have let us down.
While lines have been continually drawn in the sand, and continually crossed, it seems that this is another moment of true opportunity for English cricket. But it will take skill, strength, some lucky tosses and more than the odd Australian tripping over a football in the warm-up to move the needle.
Forget Bazball, I am hoping for ‘Dadball’, a series to reconnect me with that brilliant, dramatic, successful but ultimately heartbreaking and tragic summer.
And something to reconnect this country to a sport that some seem happy to see disappear.
Miss you, Dad.
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Transfer news
Last week, I wrote about the move of Dan Lawrence from Essex to Surrey. It is always emotive when the richest counties take talent from the less well-off. However, as I argued, this is sport and, while I am still no fan, the rest of county cricket should look at the success of Surrey off the pitch in recent years before they attempt to drag them down.
There have been a whole raft of transfers announced this week. This story a few weeks ago explains why. Cricket's 'transfer window' opens on June 1 and is an unsettling time (Mail).
The fallout at Leicestershire pains me. I did my MA in the Sociology of Sport in the city and my subsequent sports research diploma involved some work at Grace Road. Also, as perhaps the least supported county in the country, they are a canary in the coal mine for the demise of the domestic game. However, under CEO Sean Jarvis, their metrics are up and they have incredibly ambitious plans for the future. Earlier this year they were being held up as an example to follow. Leicestershire offer parable for English cricket: teams should serve, not just sell (Guardian), How 'little' Leicestershire are proving their worth (BBC Sport)
Also, there are Championship wins in living memory and they have massively overachieved in T20 cricket over the years, with Paul Nixon often at the heart of those successes. While county clubs are much more than sporting ventures and should not be defined by on-field success alone (otherwise we’d all support Man City, right?) you still need to be competitive.
Leicestershire can ill-afford disunity. I sincerely hope they pull it together.
(By the way, these stories broke about 24 hours before I published the newsletter. I looked on the Leicester local papers online to see if they had any updates or insight. There was nothing on the Foxes at all. It was all Leicester City and a bit of the Tigers. It’s very sad to see the demise of local sports coverage in favour of clickbait nonsense. Eventually, this one popped up on BBC Leicestershire - 'Not in crisis' - CEO Jarvis. Also, there’s a thread of quotes here. Quotes from chair, here.
Leicestershire: Colin Ackermann, Callum Parkinson & Chris Wright to leave at end of 2023 (BBC Sport)
Durham confirm signings of Ackermann, Parkinson (Cricinfo)
Paul Nixon: Leicestershire head coach removed from role after six years (BBC Sport)
Leicestershire head coach Paul Nixon placed on gardening leave (Cricinfo)
Danny Lamb to leave Lancashire for Sussex (Cricketer)
Matt Parkinson: Kent to sign England leg-spinner from Lancashire (BBC Sport) Mark Chilton on that decision
Derbyshire captain Leus du Plooy in talks over possible Middlesex move (Cricinfo)
Signings: Fletcher (Glamorgan - overseas, Blast, cover for Ingram), Swepson (Glamorgan - overseas - Champ, cover for Neser), Moriarty (Surrey to Yorkshire, loan, 4 Champ games)
And… Saini (Worcestershire - overseas, 4 Champ games)
News, Views and Interviews
Middlesex chase down 253 in historic T20 triumph (Times)
Middlesex's extraordinary chase overshadows Jacks' six sixes near miss (Cricinfo). (2023).
This was a staggering chase by a Middlesex side who had lost every Blast game so far this season. At one point in the reply, the odds against it were reported as 500/1.
In front of 20,000 at The Oval, the visitors completed the biggest ever Blast chase and the second biggest in all T20s against an attack including Chris Jordan, Sam Curren and Sunil Narine.
But, on the Sky News bulletin at 8.30am the following morning, the run-down was this:
Women's Ashes
A couple of races at Ascot
Rory McIlroy’s hole in one
Carlos Alcaraz win at Queens
Remember Sky covered this game live and, unlike the Women’s Ashes encounter, it was packed. I am fully supportive of the women’s game and record ticket sales show grounds for optimism but this was one night when the county cricket crowd was far greater.
In the past week, Ben Currie and Jacob Bethell have taken two of the best catches in recent years. These are clips made for TikTok and ESPN Sportcenter’s ‘Top 10 plays’, let alone general promotion. Yet I have seen little or no media push beyond the organic.
Why is that?
I err towards cock-up rather than conspiracy in these things. Then again, there was this story in the Mail earlier this week.
ECB recommend changes to report into racism in cricket (Mail)
Harry Chathli in line to become new permanent chair at Yorkshire County Cricket Club (Cricinfo)
The ICEC investigation into racism in cricket was set up in November 2020.
That’s NOVEMBER, 20-BLOODY-20.
According to the report in the Mail, it is being delayed because there is a fear that some of those involved can still be recognised despite their anonymisation. This would leave the report wide open to legal action.
I’ve said before that delay is often a tactic designed to soften the landing of bad news. We can see that in the Covid inquiry, which has just started to gather evidence and will not report until that horrific year is a distant memory.
“It’s ancient history, let’s move on,” the guilty and incompetent will cry when it comes out, safe in the knowledge that enough time has elapsed for them to move on to another grift.
I want this report out now. Likewise the Newton Report into Essex.
That said, read these quotes from ICEC chair Cindy Butts last year in the light of Colin Graves’ quotes last week. (A new chair at Yorkshire is close, according to the story above).
“What is clear is that all is not well in cricket,” Butts said. “Cricket is facing a reckoning. It has to grasp this opportunity to understand and diagnose what the problem is. And then recommend — in an evidence-based way — what the solutions are to its problems. That is abundantly clear.
“Cricket needs to look in the mirror. It has to say, 'This is what we look like and we are prepared to tackle the issues that are prevalent within the sport in a concerted, serious and considered way'.”
There are plenty in English cricket who, like Graves, have seen nothing to change their view of racism in the game. Or more to the point, they have not, cannot or will not see the issue at all.
In that case, you know what? Take your time, Ms Butts and Co. Leave no stone unturned, what’s a few more months between friends.
The work of the ICEC and Ms Newton must be as unequivocal as possible or we will never be able to turn the page.
The Way We Were, And The Way We Are (Rain Stopped Play, Inspection at 3)
Veteran Steven Croft blasts his first T20 century (Mail)
Jack Russell: ‘Cricket and art, you can never crack either – you’re always learning’ (Guardian)
Bazball, Bazchess, Bazlife (Pete Aird)
Online Criticism: It’s just not cricket (Pete Aird)
"County cricket, unfortunately, does not bring in enough revenue to cover itself" (iSportConnect)
This is a realistic piece from the Lancashire Operations Director, Michael Hewson, who almost inevitably came from a hotel background. And very good to see Lancashire’s membership level up to 9,000, its best in a while. The Lancs TV stream is perhaps the best around and with around 70 per cent of viewers aged 18-35. And I argue this is pretty conventional cricket output. David Lloyd and Paul Allott are not going to attract the TikTok generation, meanwhile, BBC commentator Scott Read is one of the best on the circuit but this is not dumbed down, “yoof” cricket coverage.
Who knows? Maybe youngsters just like cricket, well-presented.
Despite that, Hewson still seems to see the county club as something that almost needs to be tolerated, or at least supported but diverse revenue streams because it cannot look after itself.
Of course, the balance sheet would say that is true. But has an emphasis on all the hotels, conferences and other developments taken away a desire to grow the sport at the very point that the fans first connect to the pro game? After all, the average Championship club loses £300,000 per WEEK, yet no one suggests football should not remain the core product.
Professional men's rugby has major financial issues which need to be tackled (The Conversation)
The talk of investment by “private equity” is rife in cricket. It is seen as the financial injection the game needs. I disagree as it is entirely profit-driven and will invest in a sports organisation asking two questions that fans NEVER pose:
How much money will we make?
How and when will we leave?
But, as this piece outlines, apart from its overt capitalistic principles, little defines “private equity”. A fund is managed by a team but it is supported by many and various sources. And, the piece argues, we may not know who they are and what they represent. Only this week, Todd Boehly had to deny his group’s takeover of Chelsea was funded in part by Saudi Arabia. As the excellent Alex Phillips says in the piece, there are a myriad of governance issues here. I did a podcast with Alex where we talked about the huge problem of Uefa being both a regulator and commercialiser of football. Of course, the same is true of the ECB and English cricket.
The other piece is from The Conversation, an excellent site written with academic rigour but in plain English. It talks about the problems dogging English rugby union right now. Private equity invested deeply into the sport a few years ago.
And I’d argue it ended up much worse off.
British basketball in ‘untenable’ position due to lack of funding, warns federation (Guardian)
PS Here’s the story of another sport, that is unbelievably popular with young people in the UK. But the American version, not the UK version. It is worth reading because what happens if Indian money effectively takes over an English franchise league via private equity investment? History has shown that Leagues can not shackle clubs when they are run by powerful foreign interests.
Anyway, let’s lift the mood to finish with…
The story of this newsletter
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Lovely words and so reminiscent of time spent with my late father watching and talking about cricket.
Hi Mr Grumbler,
Reading in No 93 your valedictory comments about your parents, both of whom I remember very well with affection, really choked me up - evoking happy memories of yesteryear brightened by cricket's colours of white and green. It was so life-affirming to realise that you were prepared to give your emotions such a free rein for the benefit of your readers.
On a lighter point, the photo of your bat shows how much loving care you devoted to the maintenance of its condition. Unlike one of Sir Alastair's weapons he showed me recently that looked as though it had been used in some form of combat. Having said that, it is, of course, probable that his will have clocked-up a little more 'mileage' than yours did!
Salutations,
Chris Butler.