Apr 29

Apr 29 COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Week 3 reviews | 12-month IPL contracts offered to England players | Own your mistakes! | Sort out 'reciprocal' rights for county members | Tom Price heroics

In recent weeks, English cricket's ongoing death by a thousand cuts has suffered significant slashes from the ever-sharp blade of overseas money.

SWOOSH - the inaugural Major League Cricket draft takes place, raising the threat of taking players in the middle of the county season

SWOOSH - a mega-bucks League in Saudi Arabia is proposed, another huge lure in an already crowded franchise market

And this week…

SWOOSH - half a dozen England players are offered 12-month contracts with Indian Premier League franchises, meaning their first loyalty would be to them, not their country and certainly not their county.

Each time, I have seen comments akin to "See county cricket fans, this is the result of your “stuck-in-the-muddery".

For me, this is the most maddening victim-blaming. I thought we were "fleas" - a disorganised, flask-clutching, group of grumbling bores dressed by Millets and occasionally emerging from under a rock behind the bowler's arm at Wantage Road to whine pitifully and pointlessly at every change in the game. Not some sort of organised, manipulative, reactionary cabal capable of determining the future of English cricket.

In truth, county fans have virtually no power. We are ignored. That is part of the reason the sport is so divided in the UK. The only sizable decision we have influenced recently was the rejection of the Strauss Report’s two key recommendations on the structure of the county game. And that, in my opinion at least, was only a reaction to being railroaded over the introduction of the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named. We were so upset and mistrusted the leadership so much that, for once, we got our act together. Just don’t tell me it has made the slightest difference to the future of English cricket, especially the red-ball version.

The key drivers of the English game’s increasing irrelevance - the loss of cricket in state schools, the lack of free-to-air television coverage and the failure to 'own' and protect the T20 format - were all decisions taken from above long ago.

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There has been a never-ending list of reports into the future of the game, a mark of poor leadership in itself, so killing off one is hardly a turning point in the game's recent history. But it does serve as a useful distraction for the failures of those above.

In truth, the blazers and the suits have always had their hands on the tiller as they allowed their ship to drift towards the iceberg. The course was set so the Strauss Report may have been an exercise in deckchair rearrangement anyway.

This is not to say that traditional county cricket fans can not pressure their club or vote with their feet. As they did positively over the introduction of T20 two decades ago and, remember, the Blast was breaking records before you-know-what was allowed to eat its lunch.

Nor, once the die was cast, were they likely to have found an alternative route to an island paradise where the tea and scones run freely and indigenous tribes worship Darren Stevens as a god-like figure.

But either we are the most powerful “fleas” in history or the finger of blame must be pointed elsewhere.

And, remember, losing the best T20 players to year-long contracts where they are farmed out to an IPL team’s subsidiaries around the globe will have little or zero effect on the value of my county membership.

They are likely to be all centrally-contracted. So they are either playing for England, resting due to England commitments or involved in franchise tournaments. They are nominally attached to counties but I almost never see them play live.

It caused a flutter at Chelmsford when Alastair Cook faced Jimmy Anderson, but they are exactly the old, red-ball players these contracts will ignore.

Of course, I am concerned about the effect that the inevitable introduction of 12-month IPL contracts will have on international cricket and the entire red-ball version of the game. It feels like some sort of split is coming. I do not believe any leader in English cricket has ever wanted that and it is important to note that many influences on the current crisis were not under their control either.

But a failure to support or not support the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named has NOT been the tipping point either. How can it be when you been have telling everyone it has been a money-making success with great television ratings and finding a vast new audience? Not in any way a loss-making, over-marketed mess that has had to hide its true cost and gerrymandered its popularity metrics while cannibalising the audience of a Blast competition that was growing slowly but organically, without ever having the crucial boost of free-to-air television coverage.

The die was cast long before all that nonsense anyway. So do not dare blame me and my tribe for creating this situation when we are the long-term customers who have been shunned, ignored and belittled.

The truth is simple - key strategic errors decades earlier have rendered the game irrelevant to a large proportion of the younger generation in this country. Then, in typical UK fashion, we have a great, original idea but sat back and allowed others to out-innovate us. Now we are going cap in hand for investment from those very people (now rich and powerful) in the hope that, if we are lucky, we might just become second-best. And, shamefully, we are prepared to lose the last vestiges of control to do it.

We are going to throw all our money at players in a desperate attempt to win a poker game where we have allowed the other cricketing authorities to control the cards and private equity to hold all the chips. We'll also toss in our history and tradition to try and sweeten the deal because, hey, that is not worth much, is it?

These are not the dreams we have been sold by the elitist, shape-shifting leadership of English cricket over the past few decades and, just for once, they need to own their mistakes.

County Championship Week 3 Reviews

Gloucestershire's Tom Price Has Just Had A Day Of Glory Never Matched In Cricket History (Wisden)

County Championship: Tom Price hits ton and takes hat-trick for Gloucestershire at Worcester (BBC Sport)

The England Opening Race Heats Up... Four Talking Points From The County Championship (Wisden)

County Championship team of the week: Who joins Tom Price in our XI? (The Cricketer)

Five things we learnt from Round Three of the County Championship (ECB)

County cricket: Hampshire bounce back and go top of Division One | County Championship (Guardian)

The word of Bazball is sweeping across the County Championship (Telegraph)

Warwickshire's Jacob Bethell suffers stress fracture (The Cricketer)

Northants head coach Sadler weighing up keeping options after McManus suffers broken finger (Daventry Express)

Northamptonshire: Lance Morris ruled out of County Championship stint with back issue (BBC Sport)

Options lined up' as Northants target an overseas replacement for injured Lance Morris (Northamptonshire Telegraph)

News, Views and Interviews

Signings: Roelofsen (Gloucestershire - overseas - Blast and Champ ‘cover’), Parkinson (Lancashire to Durham - one game loan)

Contracts: Hill (Leicestershire - 2yrs), Miller (Northamptonshire - 1yr), Russell (Northamptonshire -1yr)

Matthew Potts: ‘Wisden honour is confirmation I’ve started out on the right path’ (Guardian)

Wisden speaks to cricket’s antiquity against backdrop of a changing game (Guardian)

Retrospective 'Test cricketer of the year' awards are a great idea (Telegraph)

Ben Sanderson Club

The Australians are Coming (and half of them are already here)

Give school children free tickets to county cricket at Edgbaston Stadium, councillor urges (Birmingham Live)

In recent weeks, I've heard a few level-headed observers suggest county cricket is too expensive or argue it should be free for all.

I do not advocate the latter. It pitches the game as "valueless" which is a poor image to present to the media and sponsors. I paid £20 on the gate for the first day of the season at Lord's. That struck me as a lot, even for seven hours of possible play. But then Lord's is a revered place with excellent facilities. It offers much greater value than the £17 that Middlesex fans will pay for the return fixture at a cramped, tatty Chelmsford later in the campaign.

Ticket pricing at sports events is an art I do not pretend to fully understand. My sense is that £10 on the gate makes it an easier spend for the casual fan but, of course, any reduction would have a knock-on effect on membership pricing and a county’s bottom line. Then again, we are told that the ECB central payments supply 40-60 per cent of a county's revenue and membership fees and tickets only account for 10-20 per cent. So if reducing prices led to greater reach and engagement in county cricket overall might that be short-term pain for longer-term gain?

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It has been encouraging to see many counties think differently about their membership deals this season, including offering free reciprocal entry to other counties when your team is not playing. It is a welcome innovation but patchy and a little confusing. It needs clearing up.

My approach refocuses this idea towards fulfilling an area of need.

Every county member can add a £30 "Future of Cricket" supplement on top of their standard fee to their club in order to access the reciprocal arrangement at any county game when their own side is not playing. This money goes into a specific fund to promote the county game among younger generations, especially in state schools. It costs £3 to attend each game. If you watch more than 10 the rest are free, if you do not use up your £30 you can get a refund or donate the remainder.

Perhaps it is a little complex but we can all get behind a scheme that supports the future of the game. And passionate fans get more cricket at a dirt cheap price.

Pep Guardiola 'denied hotel suite' because county cricketer was staying there (Daily Star)

Inside County Cricket: Saqib to hit ground running and Abbas won't move for Pep (Mail Online)

My favourite story of the week - Abbas 1 Guardiola 0

ECB should withhold money from counties that employ Australians before the Ashes (Telegraph)

‘I wanted Shane Warne at Sussex – but signing Steve Smith just helps Australia’ (Times)

Live In-Ground Radio to Launch This Week (Somerset CCC)

Nice to see counties investing in the fan experience.

What James Anderson bowling in a bobble hat tells us about ourselves (King Cricket)

Jamie Smith interview: Ben Foakes deserves Ashes spot... and it would hand me a big chance (Standard)

Stephen Peters joins Northamptonshire Board (Northamptonshire CCC)

Saudi Arabia’s grand sportswashing campaign comes to finish off cricket’s current order (Guardian)

Will the IPL swallow international cricket whole? (Cricinfo)