So that’s that then. There will be no changes to the domestic structure of English cricket in 2016. Those who ran campaigns to prevent Harrison and Graves from implementing their plans have been victorious. The gruesome twosome will be licking their wounds.
To briefly summarise, Harrison and Graves wanted to cut the number of county championship games from sixteen to fourteen per season. They also wanted to play limited overs cricket in blocks – a bit like they do in the international season.
Unsurprisingly the county chief execs and their members have shoved two fingers up and told the ECB to sod off. Surprise, surprise. The turkeys didn’t vote for Christmas.
Although Gravison (let’s call them this for convenience, even though it’s really annoying) were right to try and reduce the amount of cricket played in this country, the counties had understandable concerns.
For starters, many counties feared that creating blocks of limited overs cricket could be a stepping stone to a dreaded franchise system. Lots of people like the idea of city based franchises. But lots of people don’t.
What’s more most counties – who sniff around for money like starving foxes looking for scraps – have actually reported a significant rise in T20 gate receipts this year. Yorkshire’s crowds, for example, were up a massive 40% – even though they’re still much better at first class cricket.
Many counties believe that the much-maligned NatWest Blast is finally catching on. Now people know there’s a T20 game on Friday nights, they’re more likely to attend … or so the theory goes.
Consequently Mr & Mrs Garrison (I prefer this to Gravison as it reminds me of South Park) always had a hard sell on their hands. Just as the counties started to make a bit more money, the ECB wanted to pull the plug and introduce a new system that allegedly threatened their very existence.
The other problem with Mr Twig’s and Mr Hat’s plan is that a fourteen game county championship is a rather odd concept. There are, after all, nine teams in each division. Playing some teams twice and others once creates an imbalanced (some would say unfair) competition. It’s hard to disagree with this assessment.
So what on earth can English cricket do? I haven’t got the foggiest idea I’m afraid. How exactly does one improve standards and reduce the amount of cricket played in this country without cutting the number of counties – and thus bulldozing decades of tradition?
We don’t often sympathise with Mr Slave & Lemmiwinks, but navigating all the vested interests in English cricket is a nightmare. It’s hard to see a constructive way forward. The word ‘impasse’ was invented for situations like this.
At the end of the day, county cricket remains both the strength and weakness of the nation’s summer sport. It enables a large number of cricketers – some would say too many – to experience first class cricket. But on the other hand, it exhausts these players with a nonsensical schedule that makes the professional cricketer’s life a complete drag. I wouldn’t want to be a professional cricketer (even if I was good enough).
I’ve heard suggestions of three divisions, with the third tier becoming semi-professional, but I’m not sure this would be palatable to the counties either. The most likely scenario is that the English game will simple muddle along, producing mediocre players and a mediocre national team that shows glimpses of promise before falling in a heap. Meanwhile, lots of our players will continue to struggle in their personal and family lives.
Perhaps – and whisper this very quietly indeed – market forces might eventually push one, two or three counties into oblivion. If this happens it will be a very sad day. The great and the good will publically moan about the injustice of it all.
However, in darkened committee rooms and pubs across the land, a lot of people will be secretly delighted. English cricket would be so much simpler of there weren’t eighteen ‘businesses’ to sustain.
James Morgan
@DoctorCopy
Very difficult one this. For once I do have some sympathy with the ECB. They and the counties are locked in a vicious circle – the counties (especially those without international grounds), while they’re maybe making a bit more money than in the recent past, are still mainly reliant on handouts from the ECB – but they in turn are in hock to the counties who have most of the voting rights and will always blocking any meaningful change that doesn’t suit themselves.
Unlike the IPL, who were essentially creating a domestic cricket audience from scratch, the counties are also torn between producing players for England, for which they get financial incentives, and putting on cricket which is watchable and (I hate to use the word) a product marketable in its own right. Though I’m not aware of the exact financials, my general understanding is that the Championship is watched by few and probably runs at a loss – but we need first class cricket to prepare players for Tests. T20, on the other hand, brings the punters in and will make money for most counties so they want to put on as much as they can, at the time of year which sells best. The 50 over game falls somewhere between these on both counts – but (as at international level) could end up being squeezed in the long term.
I tend to agree that 14 games rather than 16 is a bit daft with the current 18-county set up. Three divisions might be the answer though, and it might be a good thing if we admitted some of the more ambitious Minor Counties to the third division to shake it up a bit- especially if they were in areas of England without first class representation such as East Anglia or the south west. But, coming full circle, it’s hard to see the counties seeing past their own self-interest and agreeing to anything as radical as this.
Your analysis is correct – the T20 makes a significant profit for every county, which is then gobbled up by the massive losses sustained by running county championship teams in front of a few hundred fans.
A sensible solution, you would think, would be to increase the number of T20 teams and T20 games so that it becomes an ever-present accompaniment to summer evenings and weekends, spreading the game far and wide across the country with new teams and live FTA tv coverage, whilst reducing the CC organically, halving the number of teams and games but making them special events, like a “regional test series”, and also with terrestrial tv coverage. Perhaps experiment with day-night games with half-day tickets.
It’s a total mess and like James’ refers to, why would the turkeys vote for Christmas? I personally think 3 divisions, playing 10 games each is the only answer, market forces be what may.
The bigger issue is that the ECB doesn’t want to get its hands dirty iwith this mess, whilst it can make lots of money. Mediocre England team? Doesn’t matter as long as the money is flowing in. Defeat in the UAE because we have no spinner? As long as Buxton have renewed their hydration break sponsorship, it’s all ok.
So will this mess continue, until the taps are turned off; otherwise money making mediocrity is the name of the game.
I don’t think the English team is mediocre. Everyone wants their team to win all the time but that’s not possible these days.
At some point, the county first class circuit will have to be chopped. It will improve the chances of genuinely quick bowlers remaining quick for starters.
The county system is need of an overhaul, the way I would change it would be.
County Championship.
3 divisions of 6 – 10 games in each division. With end of season play-offs/grand final
Div 1 Grand final between 1 & 2 to decide title
Div 1 5th plays off with Div 2 2nd for place in Division 1 (and so Div2/3)
Div 1 6th relegated replaced with Div 2 1st (and so Div 2/3)
50 Over competition.
Played solely in April with the final on May Day Bank Holiday weekend
T20.
2 Divisions – a premier league that is hopefully sold for a lot of money to Sky/BT
A second division which is sold for small money (or even given away) to FTA television.
Less cricket, better structured, more competitive and more higher profile.
How will that help us be good at ODI cricket if we only play 50 over cricket in April?
Depends on how you view 50 over cricket I suppose.
If it’s an extension of T20 then moving it to April and putting greater focus on a premier T20 competition which improves players then this will also improve our 50 over game.
If you view it as a separate game then of course it may have an adverse affect.
That’s if we get a dodgy April, we have many a good April, the last 2 August’s have been dreadful. Should we not play 50 over cricket in August.
As for being bored of ludicrous ideas, what we have now is ludicrous. We are flogging the players to the brink, there is too much cricket. There is too much changing between formats too.
In my opinion it needs a radical overhaul.
I just don’t accept that we have to radically change it to avoid flogging players to death. As I have said elsewhere there are weeks that are not acceptable with players playing 13 out of 14 days but other weeks where they aren’t playing much at all especially in the case of counties who do not progress to the limited overs knockout stages. What about all the days where they don’t get on the park due to weather or the days where a side is batting for a day and a half. In addition there are a large number of games that finish on the third day, Throw in the fact that most teams rotate their bowlers across the formats so from a maximum of 89 days in 6 months we are already down in some cases to a long way less than this in reality.
I don’t think there is too much cricket: far from it. In comparison to almost every other professional sportsman, cricketers get a ridiculously light workload. Baseball is a comparable sport and professional players play almost 200 games over 10 months a year. Cricketers whine about playing a fifth of the amount. Its utterly pathetic.
What I do think is that there is far too much meaningless, irrelevant cricket that serves no real purpose and almost no-one wants to watch.
If these games are being played purely for the players’ benefit, fine, but then why are we paying them? They’re not providing anyone with a service.
I am worried about the standard of players that have progressed to the England team. Not being able to find an opener etc however I don’t think just cutting games will suddenly improve this. The ECB want less 1st class games and counties because they can then make more money and that is the main reason and mostly what they are interested in.
I am bored of people putting forward ludicrous ideas. The schedule now just needs a few adjustments rather than an overhaul. Evolution not revolution. Is 89 potential days in 6 months too much? No way. They just need to find a way of shifting a few things around to avoid times when cricketers have to play 13 days out of 14 which I agree is too much. There are weeks in the schedule though where they might only play a couple of T20s in a fortnight so it is these areas where adjustments must be made.
To add to this I understand they might go to a eight team div one which means 14 games and remains a true competition whilst the 2nd div will be 10 teams but not everyone playing twice.
The county system does need to change, but it needs to change to become more popular, more accessible, and more financially independent of the national team. This proposal would do the opposite.
The primary role of any professional domestic league is to attract fans and spectators to the game. If it achieves this, then it should be financially sustainable. The CC doesn’t and therefore isn’t. Something has to change here.
T20 is accessible and brings fans to the game. I don’t see anything wrong with that subsidising the longer form. As was said by Gideon Haigh on DOAG: “Does cricket make money to exist or doescricket exist to make money”?
Professional cricket doesn’t exist to make money, it exists to entertain spectators, because attracting spectators is what guarantees its continued existence in the future, and the ability to make money from gate revenues is actually a pretty accurate proxy for attracting spectators.
The fact that the CC haemorrhages money is just a symptom of the real problem is that virtually no-one attends the games or watches it on tv.
Its fine that its a niche market interest, but niche market interests are generally best served by either a limited set of professional events augmented by enthusiastic amateurs.
People will never attend it in great numbers whatever you do as whether there is 6 games or 16 games it will always be played predominantly on a weekday so you will never get larger numbers to attend.
Save costs on it yes but T20, hotels, conference centres on grounds are there to subsidise 4 days cricket. County cricket does entertain people following it even if they can’t attend.
It only entertains people who were initially attracted to cricket by some other format – either T20s or internationals. It does absolutely nothing to attract new fans to the sport and therefore fails in its basic remit as a professional domestic league.
Day-night games with discounted tickets for the final session might help spectator numbers, as would FTA tv coverage.
But no, its never going to attract great numbers, which is why it shouldn’t be a professional league of the size it is now. Its just throwing money down the drain. The existence of a bloated CC – in which the bottom quarter of the teams are so obviously just going through the motions – does nothing to grow or maintain English cricket in the long run.
I reckon if you gave the counties the option of only entering the 20 and 50 over competitions next year and not the county championship, 5-6 of them would bite your arm off.
An ingenious solution perhaps? Cricinfo are reporting that some domestic games might be played overseas in March. This will ease fixtures congestion later in the English summer.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cricket-2015/content/story/921343.html
Any thoughts on this? Might not be a bad idea.
The point of spectator sport is to provide sport for spectators.
If these matches are played abroad with no spectators either live or on the television, then… really… what is the point of the sport even existing?
We might as well just write a computer programme that produces county scorecards and OBO reports for people to look at on espn cricinfo, it would save a lot of money.
Come to think of it, does anyone know for sure that the ECB haven’t been doing this for years?
I initially thought this was batty, but on reflection maybe it isn’t. If you targeted areas with nice weather and large expat communities (e.g. southern Spain) it could be a real event. If Lancashire played Gloucester on the Costa (poetic, eh…?) at the end of March, with days 3 an 4 on the weekend, all the flights out of Manchester and Bristol could be heaving and a large proportion of expats would go because it would be their annual chance to see a decent game. It could be a cracking affair, a great excuse for a weekend away. I’d probably be more likely to make a trip to Spain than I am to sit in the cold in the UK in June. It really could catch on…
Less than 100 people would go and watch. Its a white flag, an admission of defeat, a capitulation. Lets just give up playing altogether.
You might be right, but you could just as easily be wrong. I remember lots of people who are never willing to experiment saying similar things about 20/20 about 15 years ago.
I think AB could be on to something.
Perhaps the way to restructure the game is go to to franchises for “County” championship. No-one is making any money off it, so there won’t be so much resistance.
And you get a chance to have fewer games, but make them 5 day games, so there’s more chance of developing quicks and keeping them fit for Tests and more chance of developing spinners.
Existing counties become part of 20 & 50 over competitions.
My other ludicrous idea is that it’s time for the ECB to be brave and get ahead of the curve and give up on 50 over cricket. Have a 4-day County Championship and a T20 competition. Send the England Lions out to play the odd 50-over game, but accept that we’ll always be a team who plays to win the T20 WC and makes up the numbers at the other one. 50 over cricket is in trouble the world over, so getting ahead of the strategic situation would be a pleasant novelty for England.
3rd ludicrous idea – 3 divisions, because that way no-one is being closed down, but the number of games is reduced. The number of games has to come down. Once you have fewer games you can have more rain days to reduce weather escapes too….
James here. 50 over cricket is still very profitable in India so it’s going nowhere soon. Part of the ECB’s big plan (the Strauss vision) is to become much better at ODIs and take them more seriously. Bayliss’s appointment was seen by many as an effort to improve our fortunes in ODIs because his record with SL and in Australia in 50 overs cricket is impressive.
Having said that, I can understand why many are keen to dump it as a format. My ludicrous idea is to abolish all 50 over and 20 over cricket and play only one limited overs format – 30 over cricket! I always used to play 30 over cricket on the playstation and it was great fun ;-) There’s enough big hitting to attract the big crowds, but there’s room for a little ebb and flow too. Recoveries are possible. Yes I know it’s daft!
Don’t really care about India. 50 over cricket has never been popular as a spectator event in England and almost certainly never will.
Did you not watch the Gillette Cup & Natwest Trophy in the 70s and and 80s? These games were packed to the rafters, and the atmosphere could be electric. Or aren’t you counting them because they were 60 overs…
Well they’re not 50 over cricket.
But obviously anything on FTA tv is going to be popular and exciting and financially sustainable and grow the game for the future. Every league commissioner in every league in every country in the world understands this…. Except the morons at the ECB.
Why have a specific division 1 and 2, I would go with something along these lines:
18 counties
3 regional divisions of 6 teams.
Play each team once (home and away reverse year on year)
Top 2 from each regional division go to Quarter final draw.
Top 3rd place team joins them and the 2nd & 3rd best 3rd placed teams play each other in a play-off with the winners in the quarters.
Then play Qtrs, semis and finals.
Teams in the final play a total of 8 games. Total games any team could play is 9 (if they have to play the play-off game).
No more first or 2nd division, travel costs reduced through normal season, less games for the pros. More opportunities for limited over crowd bringers. This system could work for the limited overs games as well.
I think it’s possible to reduce the number of games and simultaneously inject a lot more excitement and meaning into county matches. Here’s my proposal:
You keep 2 divisions of 9. Each side plays each other once in the first couple of months of the season. That’s 8 games each. Then, the teams are split as follows:
Championship League : The top 6 in Div 1 play each other once each again. That’s another 5 games each, making 13 in total. Points from the first 8 games are carried over and those from the remaining 5 added to them. The Champions are the team who total the most when all games are completed.
Div 1&2 Promotion/Relegation : The bottom 3 in Div 1 and the top 3 in Div 2 play each other once to determine promotion / relegation. That’s a 5-game league, so again each side would have played 13 games in the season. In this league, all teams would start with zero, i.e. points from earlier in the season wouldn’t be carried. The top 3 are in Div 1 next season, the bottom 3 Div 2. This introduces a lot more excitement into the promotion / relegation situation in my view, having 2 teams who would nearly always be playing for a prize. Most supporters I know (all, in fact) don’t really give a stuff about it at the moment.
What about the bottom 6 in Div 2? Well, in my view one of the problems with county cricket is that it’s a cartel. There are no consequences of failure. Finish bottom, and you’re still in Div 2 next season. It’s like the football league used to be when I was a kid at the bottom of Div 4. I think you need to light a fire under the counties and hang the threat of relegation over their heads. This discourages mediocrity and incentivises them to improve performance. So the final part of my proposal is a Div 2/Minor Counties Promotion/Relegation. At present there are 20 Minor Counties split into East and West leagues. I think this would again need to change into Div 1 and Div 2 (because if a Western Full County got replaced by an Eastern Minor County it would be ridiculous, and also because I think the idea of meritocracy should apply to the Minor Counties, too). The play-off League would comprise of the bottom 6 Div 2 counties and the top 2 counties from the restructured Minor Counties Div 1. That’s an 8-team league , so an additional 7 games for the bottom 6 in Div 2, making 15 for the season. You could structure it in a variety of ways, e.g. everyone starts from zero, or let points from earlier in the season be carried over in some way, depending on how you wanted to weight it – probably it should be structured so the bar for a Minor County to progress is set high. That’s all detail, but the outcome is that the top 6 have full county status the following season, and the bottom 2 are Minor. This also would really give a visionary Minor County incentive to invest and progress.
Is it tom.harrison@ecb.co.uk …? ;)
My god, the rush to get demoted to the minor counties and not have to pay the salaries of 11 professional cricketers to play endless interminable matches in front of empty stands would be unseemly.
Lets be honest, a significant number of counties already “prioritise” the shorter format of the game. If they could just drop it altogether, they’d jump at the chance.
They wouldn’t get Sky’s money if they were a Minor County…
They would if they were still playing in the T20 and 50 over tournaments.
Or are you going to demote them in all three competitions because they finished bottom at 4 day cricket?
The ECB hobble the counties by forcing them to play in a ridiculous antiquated structure that foces them to lose money hand over fist intentionally to keep them dependent upon handouts.
Their approach to running domestic cricket is remarkably akin to Kathy Bates in Misery.
A very interesting question to which the answer, I think, is actually a qualified “Yes”. I’m trying to solve 2 problems with my approach: 1) Reduce the number of games (clearly achieved) and 2) Make the County Games more appealing (something I believe it achieves because it produces more games where teams have something to play for). This is in line with the aim you express above of attracting more customers. Having thought about your question, the threat of losing money from 50 & 20 over cricket as a result of performance in 4-day cricket might actually be exactly the kick up the backside some counties need to take it more seriously. This in turn could increase competition, raise the standard and narrow the gap between County and Test cricket, one of the big problems the game currently faces. It wouldn’t have to be immediate – the 50 and 20 over competitions could be expanded to include any relegated sides for a season or two, and a system of “parachute payments” (as happens for sides relegated from the Premier League in football) used to ensure the taps are only turned off slowly. So if you were relegated, the system would be weighted in your favour to bounce back, but if you don’t do it in a couple of years, you’d become a Minor County like all others. If matches were shown on FTA – they’d be perfect to fill all these wretched FTA commercial channels that exist nowadays, like ITV4 – so much the better.
Given some counties are likely to go out of business anyway in the next few years within the current structure, I don’t see anything wrong with making these changes. I’d also like to see a situation where if some philanthropist has a dream to see their beloved Minor County win the CC before he dies, then a mechanism at least exists to allow it to be achieved. It’s all been too cosy for far too long.
Finally, no system is going to be flawless. We can only hope for something that is measurably more attractive than what we have at present, and involves fewer games. I think my approach ticks both boxes.
Great news, the domestic league is good.
My suggestion would be this: to start with have ALL domestic cricket on FTA tv.
Expand the T20 league to 22 teams in North and South divisions. Play 20 games a year, playing Friday evenings and/or Sunday afternoons, followed by quarter finals, semi finals and finals over three consecutive weekends (all best of three).
Do not attempt to shoehorn the competition into a couple of months, we tried this already and it doesn’t work. Spectators might be willing to attend all 10 home games if they’re spaced over 3 months. They will not attend many games if they’re all played in the same few weeks.
Have the 50 over tournament as a FA cup style knockout spread throughout the season. Any team that wants to enter, can enter. Names are drawn out of a hat. The final is played at Lords in September.
Allow the 5-6 smaller counties who already “prioritise” the shorter formats to just give up the pretence and drop 4 day cricket altogether. Suddenly their wage and expenses bill will fall and they will once again be financially viable businesses.
The remaining counties – mainly the “famous names” – play each other once in a series of “5 day tests”, roughly twice a month. Keep the format simple: the county that wins the most games, wins the league. If possible play the games as day-night fixtures.
You keep saying nobody watches it so it should be changed. If we changed first class cricket to what you are proposing then nobody will watch that either. Why don’t we just abolish the whole thing?
“If we changed first class cricket to what you are proposing then nobody will watch that either. ”
Yes they would, because a) it would be on tv and thus drumming up interest, and b) it would be played in the evenings when people can actually attend.
“Why don’t we just abolish the whole thing?”
Because its not up to us, its up to the counties. We should just allow them to play in whatever competitions they think make financial sense.
At least my suggestion reduces the costs of running the competition by over 50% and converts zombie counties into viable and vibrant businesses.