No 96, July 14 - The Grumbler's County Cricket Newsletter
🟤 Find out every player out of contract in 2023 & 2024 🟢 Get ready for Finals Day... but no Narine 🟠 Brilliant round of Champ games 🟣 Yorks sign eight 🇺🇸 US League starts 🔴 English spinner woe
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Contrary to popular opinion, the true threat to county cricket may have come covered in stars and stripes.
Major League Cricket started this week and, as the only franchise event taking place in the middle of the domestic campaign, its disruptive powers were always likely to be the strongest.
So it has proved.
Surrey are “disappointed and frustrated” that Sunil Narine will not be making his planned 9,000-mile trip back from Dallas to Birmingham for Finals Day on Saturday. LA Knight Riders needed him for their opener against the Texas Super Kings on Thursday. (By the way, the names give you a clue about the true nature of this Stateside adventure).
Thankfully for Essex, Daniel Sams will be at Edgbaston, not lining up against Narine for the SuperKings. Who knows if it was loyalty, the lure of a big final or cold hard cash that secured his services.
As a fan, Final Day is now THE event of the season, taking the mantle from the Gillette Cup showpiece at Lord's back in the day. It is so important to me that I have set myself up for a stupid Saturday that, to cut a long story short, may turn out as a cross between the Cannonball Run and one of those farces where the flustered hero has to attend an important family meal when he needs to be somewhere else.
Here’s my podcast on Major League Cricket from last year and all the launch stories
Major League Cricket 'wants England's best players' (BBC Sport)
Multi-millionaires, influential businessmen bet on cricket as next big American sport (Al Arabiya)
Major League Cricket Hopes To Build Legacy In America (Forbes)
I had similar drama on the way to Edgbaston in 2019 but the memory of Simon Harmer's offside smear to win the trophy off the last ball forced me to nab a ticket as soon as Essex qualified. Any sports fan knows you need a long-term investment strategy to get a full return on your sporting memories.
But what value they bring.
Gloucestershire are holding a dinner to celebrate 50 years since the 1973 Gillette Cup final victory (see video below). It was the club’s first one-day trophy and first silverware of any kind in 96 years. It sounds like a posh do with tickets going from £85 to £100.
So, let’s think about this.
FIVE decades later, the memory of a sporting success is being used to generate thousands of pounds, in this case, going to various Gloucestershire cricket trusts.
For me, that is real power.
Of course, that was a Gloucestershire side full of local lads and spearheaded by Mike Procter, a swashbuckling South African all-rounder who spent 13 years as their overseas player.
But cricket is different now.
Can we blame Narine or anyone else for hopscotching around the globe from franchise to franchise, even foregoing a night of glory to secure their next gig? Theirs is a temporary world, therefore any loyalty is only a temporary transaction.
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Blast and Championship news
There were a couple of excellent finishes in the Championship this week. Here are the final-day reports.
Lancashire Fail With Glory As Rob Jones' Pursuit Of 430 Falls Heroically Short (Cricinfo)
Rishi Patel Continues Bumper Season With Fourth Century As Welsh Rains Supreme (Cricinfo)
James Rew: Somerset's teenage wicketkeeper 'ridiculously' good, says coach (BBC Sport)
Surrey's Gareth Batty describes Kookaburra balls trial as 'silly' and 'illogical' (Cricinfo)
More criticism for a Strauss Report recommendation from two very experienced coaches. From what I have seen, the ball loses hardness so quickly that the game becomes benign for long periods.
Paul Tweddle to Coach One-Day Cup Side (Somerset CCC)
County cricket: south dominates the north as T20 Blast reaches semi-finals. (Guardian)
Sunil Narine Out Of T20 Finals Day (Surrey CCC)
Contracts
This is not my work. It comes from here. I re-published it last year and it was pretty accurate but, I stress, it is fan-created. The messages below the post talk about some corrections.
Who is the out-of-contract player your county should sign?
*: Player has contract in perpetuity as long as they want to play | **: Player has 1 year extension available to their club
Following moves agreed at the end of the 2023 season: 1: Dan Lawrence is joining Surrey | 2: David Lloyd is joining Derbyshire | 3: Danny Lamb is joining Sussex | 4: Matt Parkinson is joining Kent | 5: Colin Ackermann is joining Durham | 6: Callum Parkinson is joining Durham | 7: Chris Wright is joining Sussex | 8: Dillon Pennington is joining Nottinghamshire | 9: Josh Tongue is joining Nottinghamshire
News, views and interviews
Yorkshire remove club’s Roll of Honour to promote ‘inclusion’ (Telegraph)
Inside County Cricket: Daniel Bell-Drummond On Making History (Mail)
MCC recommends 'significant reduction' of ODI cricket after 2027 (Cricinfo)
Once T20 took hold I always thought the 50-over format might struggle to survive in the long-term. All fast or all slow works. And, somewhat perversely, every ball seems to matter in both. However, the first 25 overs of a one-dayer often lacks the same intensity.
What do you think?
High-profile group to drive forward £60m cricket stadium redevelopment (Business Desk)
‘Cricket is our soul’: park teams unite people through love of the game (Guardian)
British Library acquires ultra-rare cricket book thanks to anonymous donor (Guardian)
Having used crisps to try to sell this nonsense, now they are to use meerkats. By signing this deal it looks like we’re stuck with it until the TV deal runs out. Teflon Tom Harrison’s unilateral, unstrategic plan has worked. And, of course, he, Colin Graves, Sanjay Patel and others will be in post to deliver all the benefits they promised and rebuild all the bridges they burnt.
Or perhaps not.
Here’s that game…
Women's sport simply works harder in fan engagement. It may well be out of necessity but it is something county cricket can learn.
All-Female First For Kent Cricket! (Kent Cricket)
Spinners for England? The most talented cannot even keep their county contracts (Telegraph)
Well, this is a tale of woe.
"It is almost a decade since Middlesex’s Ollie Rayner was asked his advice by a young spinner, and responded, “learn to bat”.
And finally…
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In all the first & second innings of Hampshire's two matches with the experimental balls, 31 wickets (75%) fell in the first 35 overs and 10 (25%) in the next 45 overs from that point up to 80 (new ball available). I didn't track after with that new ball as not always clear if it was taken immediately but it seems clear what was happening - on the other hand, spinners were more effective (Liam Dawson 16 wkts in three innings etc.)