Jul 20

Jul 20 COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Why first-class county cricket will be gone in six years

This week’s newsletter is slightly different. There are all the usual stories. The Blast is covered, so are all the player moves, as well as the usual weird and wonderful tales from the county game. But I have only written one opinion piece of any consequence. It is right at the top and undoubtedly the most important section I have ever put in this county cricket newsletter.

Read it and tell me what you think.

I am desperate to be wrong. But, truly, I don’t think I am.

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The TV deal and its ramifications

The Hundred to be played until 2028 under new ECB-Sky Sports deal (BBC)

ECB and Sky Sports extend English cricket rights deal until end of 2028 (Cricinfo)

IPL window extended; England and Australia make space for Hundred and BBL (Cricinfo)

The Hundred gets prime slot in international schedule – at Test cricket's expense (Telegraph) ($)

New English cricket TV deal leaves several questions unanswered (Cricketer)

So, that’s it. We’re done.

County cricket, as we know it, will be over soon.

I know this obituary has been written on an annual basis for most of the last century but hear me out before you dismiss this as hyperbole.

The new Sky deal means the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named will continue until 2028. On the back of one season. One season in which few independent observers went further than describing it as a “qualified success” and much of that surrounded its impact on the women’s game. After all the rancour, disruption, North Korean PR and hollowing out of the game’s finances, they have green-lit an extension on the back of one season. Again, that’s one short, difficult season. OK, the Covid delay meant the deal was ripe for renewal. But so much is unknown. Then again, we have always lacked clarity on the research behind its development, its criteria for success and, finances aside, how it truly supports the structure of the game in the UK.

The two men who drove this charabanc, Colin Graves and Teflon Tom Harrison, are now gone from the ECB. The latter’s parting ‘gift’ was this television deal. Reportedly he wanted a 10-year package as his legacy and left to bank his bonus cheque when that was not agreed. So much for those noises about staying on to steward the game through its power vacuum. The ECB have no permanent chair, CEO and, it seems, little direction but those remaining have strapped the sport to this horse and will be whipping it raw until it starts to gallop towards the sunlit uplands everyone seems to be promising us these days.

The deal will have been rubber-stamped by county chairs and, yes, they agreed to the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named in the first place. But with a £1.3m annual sweetener, it will have seemed a risk worth taking when they were deep in debt and their arms were being twisted to breaking point anyway. Despite the structure, it is clearly wrong to see the ECB as subservient to the counties. Quite the opposite. But the ECB is now sheepishly tugging its forelock at Sky and, it seems, the crass, boorish manchild of a tournament to which they jointly gave birth.

Like a Roman boy-emperor, the event peers down at the rest of the game from a satin pillow while laconically nibbling on Skips and getting fanned by fawning ECB suits.

“Scheduled at the best time of the season? Certainly, sire.”

“All of the promotion the rest of the game has been crying out for? Absolutely, your highness.”

“Subsidised tickets, top talent, squeezing the pips on the counties? Yes, yes and triple yes, your magnificence, and might I add how beautiful you look. Salty snack chic is back in fashion these days.”

However, there is no natural superiority to the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named. There is nothing natural about it at all. In modern sports marketing terms, it is a lab rat. Engineered to maximise sporting jeopardy, attraction to key demographics and, above all, revenue. Meanwhile, non-monetisable issues such as dealing with racism and the cost of grassroots cricket have been overlooked.

The county game has been set aside to rot and, by 2028, time will have taken its toll and ‘their game’ will be the better option. Not because it is good, not because it is right but because they have made it so.

Of course, the march of short-form cricket is inexorable on a global scale. The 50-over game looks like being the immediate casualty. The tournament-that-shall-not-be-named has made it a second-class event in English domestic cricket and Ben Stokes retired from the international version this week citing an “unsustainable schedule”. South Africa have gambled a place at the next 50-over World Cup to get their domestic T20 off the ground. And, in a telling portent, if the ECB look for investment in you-know-what, the franchises were snapped up by IPL teams as subsidiaries. That event utterly dominates the cricket world. It has been pulling out players from the county seasons for years and now it is even pulling out teams from Tests at the last minute.

The ECB’s High-Performance Review will come down from game’s high table at some point. That is the perch from which the posh boys always tell us what’s best for us with those oh-so-helpful reports every few years.

The English season was squeezed before last season when they added a fourth format and ring-fenced its importance. Its effects have been swift. We have just enjoyed another vintage Blast competition but crowds were 15 per cent down and, unsurprisingly, the straight-away scheduling of the quarters and Finals Day meant they struggled to get their usual attendances. That competition was growing steadily until 2019 but will be scheduled out of relevance soon. Two short formats seem one too many and, with the ECB acting as regulator and commercialiser, there will be only one winner. Without that money, counties will struggle to survive and, anyway, the High-Performance Review might put some of them out of their misery well before that.

Look how far we have moved in a year. At this rate, another six will see almost all the resources shifted towards those grounds hosting franchises. By then, the artificial teams might even be playing in a red-ball tournament designed solely to feed the England team.

This is why I think it’s over for first-class county cricket as we know it.

So Sussex, the oldest sports team in the world, I fear you may be done sometime in the next six years. Kent, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire too. Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Derbyshire, alas we always feared you might be the first against the wall. Somerset and my beloved Essex, as arguably the biggest counties without Test playing grounds, you might be saved if they expand the number of franchises. But do not count on it. And even if you are, I may not be watching anymore.

All these great old names could still be fielding teams beyond 2028 but, I fear, only as part-time, non-League style entities playing unnoticed, unloved cricket in run-down arenas. As a spectacle, it will be something akin to speedway or greyhound racing. Nothing near to ‘first-class’ anything.

Television rights revenue rules every major sport these days. For years, football fans have been moaning about kick-off times and the popular “big six” bullies wanting everything their own way. But English cricket has allowed itself to be entirely refashioned by television, inventing new teams and new formats. It has been a spectacularly spineless collapse borne out of a lack of skillful governance. They did not know what to do so they let someone else come up with the plan.

I say yet again for the cheerleading commenters and commentators eating crisps at the back. Change was needed and that involves letting go of the past. There are benefits to the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named but the vast majority could have been achieved via the existing county structure and a bigger, better Blast, albeit with a different attitude and the understanding there would be less of an immediate return. As it stands, long-term resilience has been sacrificed for short-term cash with precious little explanation, transparency or accountability.

Many of us have already reached the stage in life where we occasionally catch ourselves in the mirror and are shocked to see the tired, grey, forlorn facade of a dear-departed parent staring back. Time creeps forward in the shadows while we are busy doing other things, only revealing a glimpse of the truth when you catch it off-guard. From here on in, county cricket will collapse slowly and imperceptibly then, when it is sufficiently weakened, collapse quickly and finally because of a seemingly random spark. However, in reality, it will be because this television deal has accelerated the aging process for a game that was already displaying all the dodderiness of Joe Biden approaching the lectern.

I pray to be wrong but if the ripples from this deal play out as I suspect then traditional county cricket should now be treated as an endangered species. Over the next six years or so enjoy the last chance to see this wonderful waste of time in its natural habitat while you can.

But, mark my words, the countdown clock has been set in motion.

Looking back on the Blast

County cricket: last-over drama in Championship and T20 Blast final (Guardian)

T20 Blast team of the tournament: Who shone in 2022? (Cricketer)

BLOG: Neil Snowball – Plenty of reason for optimism after bumper Vitality Blast summer (ECB Pravda)

ECB defends dip in Blast attendances as Finals Day feels schedule squeeze (Cricinfo)

T20 Blast Attendance – A Boring Maths Post (Being Outside Cricket)

There are crowds and then there is money. Last Friday, I took my family to England v Northern Ireland in the women’s Euros. Four tickets, two adults and two children, cost £45. That is roughly half as much as it would have cost me to go to Edgbaston the following day had Essex made it to Finals day. That’s one cricket ticket equating to eight football ones. Bear that in mind when crowd figures are simplistically compared as a measure of success.

Alas, Edgbaston was not quite full. Setting aside a summer Saturday (and Sunday to recover) at a few days’ notice is hard for anyone with a family.

But what of the coverage? There were 25,000 people paying top Premier League football prices for a ticket to watch the pinnacle of the domestic cricket season.

Why did it not get Premier League coverage?

Player news and moves

Signings: Saini (Kent - 3xChamp, 5x50ov) , Rickelton (Northamptonshire - two more games), Roach (Surrey - rest of the season), Saqib Mahmood (Lancashire - two years) Chappell (Gloucestershire - loan Cheltenham games)

Blake (Surrey CCC) - There’s a nice story behind this one.

Hill, Bean and Cliff (no, not a firm of solicitors, all signed contracts with Yorkshire)

Matt Taylor ruled out for remainder of the season (Gloucestershire)

News, Views and Interviews

ECB allow counties to shift Championship start times to avoid worst of heatwave (Cricinfo)

MCC members can remove their jackets but not their ties. Pillocks

Ricardo Vasconcelos steps down as Northants captain after four months (Cricinfo)

Will Young 'the right man' for Northamptonshire captaincy (Northampton Chronicle)

This comes after Adam Rossington walked out abruptly to join Essex at the start of the season, tossing the armband behind him and singing "I think I’ve gotta leave right now."

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Compton calls for greater focus on mental health in cricket (Ealing Times)

Somerset all-rounder Suppiah reveals battle with anorexia (Powys News)

A couple of troubling stories about mental health issues within the game.

Former Yorkshire all-rounder Hood opens up on life-changing accident (Pebbleshire News)

Simon Harmer: Can Essex's prolific South Africa spinner worry England like he does county batters? (BBC Sport)

Short answer: yes

Durham thoughts and the Godleman 'situation' (Peakfan)

In New York, America's Oldest Cricket Club Turns 150 (Barrons)

Finally, like a sharp summer sorbet, let’s cleanse our cricketing palette with tales from its greatest competition…

County Championship team of the week: Who joins Colin Ackermann? (Cricketer)

It’s been a good week for the county game and outground cricket (Morning Star)