COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Blast preview | Foxes put meaning over money | Should Essex house Tigers? | Lancs v Somerset declaration row | Roach goes home | Lancs try to change rules at AGM

COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Blast preview | Foxes put meaning over money | Should Essex house Tigers? | Lancs v Somerset declaration row | Roach goes home | Lancs try to change rules at AGM

Rich Clarke
CricketPaper


The Championship is alight at the moment. As detailed below, Leicestershire are flying, Yorkshire are struggling while Somerset and Lancashire are rowing. The Ashes is close and, whatever you might think about counties taking on Australian stars before the series starts, this week’s clash between Steve Smith (Sussex) and Marnus Labuschagne (Glamorgan) is pure box office.

On Saturday, the Blast begins. Everyone will have played by the time of the next newsletter.

The first fixture is a doubleheader at Edgbaston. Derbyshire Falcons vs Lancashire Lightning (2.30pm) followed by Birmingham Bears vs Yorkshire Vikings (6.30pm). At the start of this week, they were boasting 12,000 advanced ticket sales. It may set the tone for a tournament that was already breaking attendance records for group games before the pandemic in 2019 but seems to be selling itself a little harder this year.

There are all sorts of stuff going on:

A ‘Family Day’ double-header at Derbyshire, men’s and women’s. Ditto at Northampton, with young All-Stars and Dynamos players getting in free (creating a crucial connection between these fine schemes and the county game). If they arrive early enough they could be a mascot on the field. Durham have a Pride Night for one of their games, Leicestershire are knocking out their tickets for £15. I have seen seven games for £70 elsewhere. Essex had virtually sold out their Friday night fixtures well before the season began.

Doubling down on this money-spinning event was always my strategy for building resilience back into English domestic cricket. You might not be able to obtain the quick buck required to lure the top talent when the franchise leagues come calling. But, increasingly, this looks like a fool’s errand when you are trying to compete with money from India and potentially Saudi Arabia.

The Blast has always been a fine event which, as leaked figures last year showed has been in part cannibalised by the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named. However, contrary to the PR puff, the British public has always backed it despite it never having been on terrestrial television and being deprived of anything like the requisite marketing push.

Whisper it very quietly, but I can see the effect of you-know-what in the marketing of this year’s Blast. We all know men’s and women’s doubleheaders were an accidental success of that event so the counties are copying. Likewise, the pricing policies seem more flexible, albeit they have rightly stopped short of the seat-filling giveaways of you-know-what.

Like the most annoying summer tourist, the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named is still allowed to place its towel on the sun lounger in the nicest spot, August, and then bugger off to the bar for 11 months. But if it has kicked county cricket into more innovative ways of selling its most lucrative tournament then, when it hopefully slides back into the gutter from whence it came, the domestic game may well have benefitted from its existence.

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County Championship Week 6 Review

County Championship team of the week: James Rew and Ben Raine... but who completes the XI? (Cricketer)

Nine County Championship Talking Points: Rushworth Leads Warwickshire's Title Charge And A Controversial Finish At Old Trafford (Wisden)

LV= County Championship – Week Six Round up (Deep Extra Cover)

County cricket talking points: Surrey and Warwickshire go clear of the pack (Guardian)

Rishi Patel: Leicestershire opener reaping benefits of practice trip to India (BBC Sport)

Cheteshwar Pujara's Remarkable Conversion Streak Ends, Finally Records First Sussex County Championship Half-Century (Wisden)

Teenager James Rew is leading a new golden generation of English keeper-batsmen (Telegraph)

'I Bet You're Fun At Parties' - Lancashire And Craig Overton Clash Over Declaration Offer After Somerset Bat Out Farcical Draw (Wisden)

Searching for the spark: The plight of Yorkshire CCC (Yorkshire Post)

Winless in 18 matches and bottom of division two: Yorkshire sink even deeper into crisis (Telegraph)

Honestly, the state of the comments under this story. Fans seem to be blaming Azeem Rafiq for Yorkshire’s current crisis in form and ownership issues. Of course, his stand on racism has damaged the club. But it is one of many influences. And racism damages society so what are we prepared to do to stand up against it?

What about his anti-semitism, you say? Yep, guilty as charged and there are other issues too. He is both the wronged and the wrong-doer in this tale. However, he's grasped the nettle, spoken to those he hurt and built bridges.

That is what this is supposed to be about. Others have put up walls.

I fear the wider cricket public has learned nothing from all this.

News, Views and Interviews

Contract: Coles (Sussex - 3yrs), Alsop (Sussex - 3yrs)

Signing: Khan (Derbyshire - overseas- Blast), Brooks (Somerset to Worcestershire, two-week loan), Middleton (Gloucestershire - short-term), Davey (Somerset to Leicestershire - loan), Turner (Durham - overseas- Blast)

Kemar Roach returns to Barbados (Surrey)

Josh Cobb left 'shocked and disappointed’ as he loses Steelbacks captaincy (Northampton Chronicle and Echo)

T20 Blast 2023: All you need to know (Cricketer)

INSIDE COUNTY CRICKET: Guide to this year's Vitality Blast (Mail)

King Charles urged to back the return of historic county Middlesex that was wiped from maps in 1965 (Mail)

Bangladesh find a home away from home to breathe life into Ireland's series in exile (Cricinfo)

Around 3,000 Bangladesh fans made for a passionate, colourful spectacle at Chelmsford last week for a game that was, technically speaking, a home tie for Ireland.

The crowd was a testament to the rarity of such a fixture, the proximity to London and, as the article states, the fine work done by Essex in inner-city communities. Cramped and tatty, Chelmsford will never host a major England men's international. Indeed, if the deal was right, I'd reluctantly support selling up and moving to something better elsewhere in the county.

But ‘other’ international games can become critical income streams for counties. Essex have hosted numerous women's international games. As the buzz around this summer’s women’s Ashes suggests, these are becoming more significant in resonance, television revenue and gate receipts, hence the suggestion that, in the past, the ECB have used the threat of taking them away from counties in order to get what they want.

The obvious move for Essex is to try to become the adopted home of Bangladesh cricket in the UK. Could this extend to the county signing an overseas player from that country?

It is not that simple. In 2003, Leicestershire signed Virender Sehwag in the hope that it would "change cricket in the county forever" given that, quite incredibly, only half their 4,000 members had been to a game in the previous 12 months.

It did not work. Last I read, Leicestershire’s membership was now under 1,000. (Correct me, via the comments if I am wrong)

However, as this story suggests, they now have a different and highly commendable direction.

Leicestershire offer parable for English cricket: teams should serve, not just sell (Guardian)

Here are a couple of choice quotes

“CEO Sean Jarvis talks a lot about “identity” and on some level, he appears to grasp what English cricket as a whole has largely forgotten: that any sporting team worth its space must exist not merely to sell, but to serve.”

And…

“What do we want sport to be? A pure consumer good, escapism on demand, a direct debit that you forget to cancel? Or can it be something more? Can it bring people together, provide a sense of pride and ownership, give people a stake in their town and their town a stake in something larger? You don’t have to be a Leicestershire fan, or even like cricket very much at all, to recognise that this is a vision of sport worth fighting for.”

Here, here.

(By the way, remember this story from last year? No runs, no wickets and little hope - do Leicestershire deserve to survive? (Telegraph) ($))

I realise that franchise cricket may be able to assemble the most talented players but I just can’t care about games when there is no emotional investment.

Which is what this article alludes to…

County cricket’s long-form stories offer something IPL just can’t match (Guardian)

Glamorgan Cricket: Club braced for early Michael Neser exit (BBC Sport)

Peakfan's blog: So is this the first choice side? (Peakfan)

Harry Brook expected to be awarded freedom of Bradford (Rombalds Radio)

Lancashire cricket legend David 'Bumble' Lloyd collection up for auction (Lancashire Evening Post)

Not seeing the trees for the wood: willow shortage could spell end for Kashmir’s cricket bat industry (Guardian)

Devon craftsman making bats the traditional way (BBC News)

Popular cricketer who became Scotland’s first National Cricket Coach (Herald)

The Australian legends in Sunderland (Sunderland Echo)

How Worcestershire County Cricket Club grew (Worcester News)

Eton v Harrow: Father Time draws near for annual schoolboy Lord’s jolly (Guardian)

Yes, the MCC is a private club. They can do what they like. But this is an awful, elitist look at the home of cricket. And remember this is a sport that has plummeted in the public consciousness in the past generation. One of the ECB’s major slogans in recent times was “cricket is a game for me”. How can you square that with this fixture of the floppy-haired, which somehow manages to receive major coverage every year?

I noticed that, in this interview, Somerset chair Michael Barber (who attended Bootham School, current fees around £20,000 per year) suggested the role of public schools in cricket was “underestimated”. When did one of the relatively few senior figures in public life from a state school support the status quo in the same way?

That is not to say Barber’s political background makes make him anything but a fine candidate for the role. And that makes this quote about the key relationship in domestic cricket when he joined last year particularly alarming.

“It was remarkable to me how little trust existed between the county chairs and the then ECB leadership. I served in the Blair administration and I’ve seen some very tense meetings in my time but the quality of the relationships in that meeting was very disturbing.”


As I have written before, sports executives do not like to feel as if they are 'beaten' by fans. Consequently, I fully expected counties to start changing rules to avoid a repeat of the 'fleas' revolt' that stymied the Andrew Strauss report.

There was a fascinating passage that exemplified this in the Lancashire AGM earlier this month, which to their credit the county has put up on their YouTube page. (Click on the video above to go straight to it. Scroll back to around 30 minutes in for the start of the entire event.)

To cut a long story short, last year the Lancashire fans forced a Special General Meeting over the Strauss Report. Then there were concerns about, among other things, when the meeting was being staged. Led by the Lancashire Action Group, some felt the club were, at best, not listening and, at worst, deliberately working around them. (I expect to be picked up on the exact details here so feel free to put your views in the comments)

At this latest AGM, Lancashire attempted to increase the number of members required to petition an SGM from 100 to 250 (around three per cent of membership), citing that other counties have a threshold of 400 and, in general business, it is often around five per cent.

The fans did a fine job of pushing back on this, correcting some of the key 'facts' presented, so the issue was "paused".

Apart from disagreement over 'facts', my concern is that quarterly fan forums were pitched as an alternative method of fan engagement and a fair substitute to raising the bar for an SGM.

They are not. They are talking shops; important, useful but limited. Given that obfuscation seems to have become an important part of a sports execs armoury these days, they are much easier to ignore than an SGM, which will include binding votes.

And, by their very nature, these meetings are ‘special’. Last year’s was only the second held by Lancashire in 50 years so why the urgent need to change?


Because cricketers are worth it. Greed, ego and contract negotiations

Because cricketers are worth it. Greed, ego and contract negotiations
COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Marketing trends in County Cricket | Week 6 Previews | Chaos at Derby | Cricket Paper back this weekend | Why invest in Yorkshire? | Tom Harrison paid £1.13m in final four months

COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Marketing trends in County Cricket | Week 6 Previews | Chaos at Derby | Cricket Paper back this weekend | Why invest in Yorkshire? | Tom Harrison paid £1.13m in final four months
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