The county season is back underway and while it was wonderful to have the sound of leather on willow reverberate around the land, the problems of the game remain clear and abundant.
We would like to hear from Telegraph readers on how they would like to see the county game changed to improve it and maintain its vital place in the sporting landscape.
I have outlined a number of problems – and possible solutions – but we want to hear your thoughts with the aim of forming the Telegraph readers’ manifesto to save county cricket.
Schedule
The county season, before limited-overs cricket began in 1962, lasted from the beginning of May until the end of August. In the attempt to shoe-horn all the competitions in, it has expanded from the first week of April – when it is too cold for players and spectators – to the end of September: from four to six months.
The championship itself, the kernel of a county’s season, has never achieved the perfect solution of every team playing all the others home and away. It has always been unequal, or lopsided, or imperfect, and failed to satisfy everyone, whether it has been played over four days, as it uniformly has since 2000, or over three days, or over two, as in 1919.
The introduction of two divisions in 2000 has been the most radical change – to increase competitiveness and the quality of player being nurtured for the England Test team – after Lord MacLaurin had failed to sell the concept of three conferences. A downside of two divisions has been that some neighbouring counties have not played each other for a decade.
So there seems to be no perfect solution, whether or not the Indian Premier League and the forthcoming Major Cricket League in the USA siphon off the better English cricketers during the summer. Like many Victorian institutions county cricket, having grown up organically/chaotically, is too ingrained to be knocked down so that we can start all over again with a blank sheet.
Arguably the easiest reform is to start the season with the 50-over knock-out tournament. The 50-over domestic competition was the nursery of the England players who won the 2019 World Cup, but it has since been downgraded into a competition during the Hundred for also-rans. For England to win 50-over World Cups young batsmen have to learn how to score big hundreds, not quick 40s as in 20-over leagues. (Will Smeed, Somerset’s white-ball specialist, has played one 50-over game.)
If the 18 first-class counties are joined by 14 National (aka Minor) Counties in eight regional qualifying groups of four teams, followed by knock-out stages, the season would be up and running by the end of April. Most of the country would be involved, along with all the best players not engaged in the IPL.
The Hundred
It is emerging that the competition launched in 2021 has made far bigger losses than the England and Wales Cricket Board has been prepared to admit: an estimated £10m so far.
Advocates of the Hundred will argue that launching new products in new markets almost invariably involves initial losses; and that, whatever the sums may be, the double-header has brought in new audiences. The women’s match in the afternoon, which precedes the men’s in the evening, demonstrably brings in far more women and girls, and members of the BAME community, than any county game has ever done.
Critics of the Hundred advance two main arguments. One is that it takes up the whole of August. Traditionally this has been the height of the English season, with the Test team aiming to win a series and the county competitions heading to a climax. Now, nothing but this white-ball novelty, and England’s director of cricket Rob Key has himself said that Augusts without any red-ball cricket must not continue.
The second main argument against the Hundred is the format. It seems to work more or less for the women’s Hundred, perhaps because most players have known no other form of professional competition. As for the men’s Hundred, and the sincerest form of flattery being imitation: no other country has tried 100-ball cricket. It has not caught on, unlike the counties’ 20-over competition which was launched in 2003 and spread like wild-fire. If the first season of the Hundred worked in 2021, the second saw few close finishes and declining audiences on free-to-air TV. Some also argue that the five-ball set reduces the tension of the duel between batsman and bowler, leading to all action and little or no drama.
If the Hundred has to continue until 2028, in accordance with the ECB’s broadcasting deal, it could be reduced from one month by a week, by staging two double-headers on Saturdays and Sundays; or it could be expanded to 10 teams, perhaps by launching South-Western Warriors (at Bristol and Taunton) and Eastern Eagles (at Canterbury and Chelmsford) with each playing the other nine teams once; and perhaps the game could consist of 10 10-ball duels? No game will be dead, even if the chasing side needs 40 off the last 10 balls, because the bowler might crack.
Fan engagement
Unknown and unknowable is the number of people who follow county cricket remotely, who check on their favourite county’s latest score in whatever competition, but who have not watched them live for years. Simply by existing, county cricket surely brings benefit to many.
As for the actual numbers: the number of county members is kept a closely guarded secret by the ECB, because releasing it would reflect a rapid decline. Gone are the days when major counties would have more than 10,000 members: the current informed estimate is that membership now totals 70,000. And the members are spread increasingly unevenly: they subscribe to counties with Test grounds, so they have quicker access to tickets for England matches, while some counties without Test grounds are down to 1,000 members.
In only two settings does county cricket begin to stand on its own financial feet, without the handouts from the ECB’s broadcasting deals. One is when the championship is played at out-grounds like Arundel, Cheltenham and Scarborough, where paying spectators will attend. The second is the Vitality Blast: the seven home T20 games are a county’s lifeline, the time when they put up temporary stands and “sold out” notices, and rake in up to £100,000 in drinks sales in one evening. Sir Geoffrey Boycott has proposed that the Hundred be retained and the Vitality Blast abolished, but what would be left of some counties beyond championship games in front of three men as the dog is no longer allowed?
Quality/nature of county cricket
The 20-over cricket played by the counties i.e. the Vitality Blast is almost as good as any franchise tournament: not so many star batsmen and bowlers as in the IPL but a better standard of fielding.
The standard of 50-over cricket, as noted above, has been plummeting since the 2019 World Cup, to the point where most counties field little more than second XIs, while their better players are engaged in the Hundred.
What can be improved, relatively soon, is the imbalance in the championship between pace and spin. Until 1960 spinners took half of the wickets in the championship. Between 1960 and 1980 they took 36 per cent, and since 2010 less than 20 per cent. When Surrey won the title last season, they took a total of 31 wickets with spin, in 14 matches. Hampshire, third, took 34 wickets with spin, not a single one by their leg-spinner Mason Crane. Durham managed fewer than 20.
There might be some connection between this paucity of spin and the empty stands. Spectators are being asked to sit through 96 overs per day, of which 90 are bowled by seamers – not fast bowlers ripping out stumps but seamers bowling “dry” between 70 and 80 mph.
To address the quality, there could be two divisions, or two conferences, in which a county would play 14 three-day games of 104 or 110 overs with such severe penalties for a slow over-rate that they would have to select two spinners.
Members could even select which conference they would like their county to play in: the four-day conference dominated by seamers, or the three-day conference with an old-fashioned mixture of pace and spin, ideally using more out-grounds where pitches wear and tear more naturally? Such counties would prepare England players for tours of Asia. The champions would be the winners of a play-off. And thus the domestic cricket of England and Wales would provide something for every taste.
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