What fun the new-format County Championship is turning out to be. Covid has been horrid, but live streaming has saved the day, given us new pleasures. If your game of choice is not too engrossing, or has finished early, just fly over to Trent Bridge, or Southampton, or Old Trafford, as I did. At Trent Bridge, I watched an old favourite Tim Bresnan steer Warwickshire home in a tight finish. At the Ageas Bowl, I saw Craig Overton and Josh Davey swing it round corners to prise out determined...
Raw numbers paint the picture. The viewership of Yorkshire’s live stream hovered consistently around 3,500. As the afternoon ticked along, so too did the flow of viewers. The steady click of electronic turnstiles turned into a stampede, as people raced to view the climax of Northamptonshire’s visit to Headingley. As soon as Northants lost the ninth wicket, attendees arrived en masse. The numbers whirring upwards like an odometer fraud in reverse. 3,981, 4,121, 4,333, 4,550, 4,670...
Doug M recently contacted TFT about membership refunds for the ‘lost’ 2020 season. He doesn’t think the counties are playing fair. Do you agree? What has your county offered you? Doug sets out his case below. Let us know what you think in the comments … This is my first go at writing a piece for The Full Toss so trust you will all bear with me. Most of you will be members of county clubs I suspect, so you will probably be aware that there is a bit of an issue arising...
Today Billy Crawford talks about his favourite county cricket outground. What’s yours? There are few pleasures in life quite like a day spent at a county outground. I am sure you all have a favourite one. Perhaps it is the picturesque surroundings of the Cheltenham Festival or historic Scarborough where the history of Yorkshire cricket drips from every blade of grass. Mine has always been the Guildford Cricket Club, where Surrey have played most seasons since 1938. From the outside the...
First we had Andrew Stauss’s tactless ‘mums and kids’ comment. Then we had Tom Harrison’s ill-advised and rather defensive claim that The Hundred wasn’t for existing cricket fans. Soon afterwards we had that laughable launch ad with a picture of an all-male audience of twenty-somethings at an American rap concert. And then we had the completely avoidable controversy over the ECB’s decision to make KP snacks the official sponsor. Only the ECB could think...
So then my pedigree chums. It’s time to digest the 2020 county fixtures which the ECB announced with a whisper yesterday. As we predicted it’s a complete dog’s breakfast. In fact, it’s a particularly unappetising dog’s breakfast with bone marrow and entrails overflowing Fido’s bowl and slopping all over the floor. Let’s make no bones about it. This is an appalling schedule. County cricket fans will be restricted to a diet of Vitality Blast and...
