The County Treadmill

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When I created the 'Wheels have come off' thread the other day I intended it to be more an observation than a criticism.

An observation of how our season is tailing off into nothingness following such a promising start - it's been a feature of previous seasons that we tend to come good as a team as the season wears on, the trophy cabinet of the past decade is an obvious sign of that.

This term however I think the 'hard yakka' of the county season has caught up with us. I've no idea whether anything will be done in the immediate future with regards altering things, but I know it definitely should.

It's been highlighted in recent weeks by the media that it's nigh on impossible for bowlers to be coming in constantly over 90mph due to the sheer workload they have to get through. Personally I feel there's some truth in that, although we've produced genuine fast bowlers before - with often just as much hard work in place.

Burnout is another word that's been used to describe cricketers wellbeing. I think that's just as important if not more important an issue than the speed capabilities of bowlers.

The county season needs tweaking. That's for sure. Yet it's remarkable that this years format has been 'agreed' upon. We've been told that players/coaches/management have all had their input into the scheduling. Whether or not they were listened to is another matter.

I've got my own opinion on the subject, it may not be what you would have in place and I don't imagine anyone in a position of power will ever care about my views on it but I'm bored and thought I'd share it -

I'll start with the Championship, because that is the gold standard. I hate this suggestion that it should be reduced. I also think a three tier system would end the existence of a number of clubs. I'd be more inclined to go back to one division than I would to three. For now I think it's fine at two. To spice things up I'd consider a playoff between 7th place (D1) and 3rd (D2) in the last game in September to determine whether a third team is relegated/promoted but I wouldn't be bringing that in straight off the bat.

On the subject of fixtures I think the spacing is pretty good as it is, I love the variety of conditions and the natural wearing of pitches throughout the summer so I'm all for having 2/3 games a month from April to September. I also think the CC should be the mainstay of the season and that no matter what month there's always a game on the horizon.

The One Day competition isn't right IMO, nor is it scheduled very well. In fact, the current format is frankly, f***ing awful. The whole group phase of the tournament is going to be shoe horned into about 3 weeks in the school holidays. Personally I think we should go back to how it used to be, with that lasting throughout the season. I think the best plan for it is actually to go back to the days of Sunday League. Not necessarily on the Sunday, but with a one day fixture following a four day game. I'd make the competition into two groups, identical to the CC Divisions so that clubs could take a mountain of travelling out of their seasons. For example you'd only make one trip to Somerset a season, one trip to Hampshire, etc. Then you could take the top 4 from each group and have your knockout format.

It's more one day games than currently, but I believe the cutting down of travel time would allow for more rest days on the whole. This week for example is a disgrace for Durham. I'd imagine Monday was traveling to Bristol, game today, travel to Leicester tomorrow, game Thursday, then straight up to Scarborough to start a four day game on Friday. Utter carnage.

The T20 has been a joke this year too. The best slot for this has to be July, middle of the season/summer, if clubs want to put money into household names they can do it much easier IMO on a short term basis. It's got to be easier logistically. I'm not sure I'll ever be a massive fan of T20 but it doesn't take a clever bloke to see that we need to follow the Indian/Australian model of having it altogether in one go.

I'd also like to see a return of a 50 over knockout competition, I'd make it as inclusive as possible too, all minor counties and Universities in the early rounds, Scotland, Ireland, Netherlands etc. 28 teams of non-first class status competing the first round with counties coming in at the second round stage with a seeded draw.

All just a personal fantasy I admit, I just can't get to kip :lol:.

If anyone knows the ECB fixture secretary - give him a copy of this :p.
 


I personally don't think the ECB could ever replicate the IPL or Big Bash without switching to franchises. With 18 teams competing, it just gets clogged up with a ridiculous amount of fixtures
 
I personally don't think the ECB could ever replicate the IPL or Big Bash without switching to franchises. With 18 teams competing, it just gets clogged up with a ridiculous amount of fixtures

It's a fair point, one which I agree with. I don't want to see franchises however and in my opinion the best way of getting somewhere near to India and Australia in terms of exposure is to make the T20 a standalone 3/4 week event.
 
Ah I love a good structure of the county season debate. Agree with most of this, the CC must absolutely not be reduced in any event, lots of debate on the Yorkshire forum about this, with many fearing a reduction to six home games could mean the end of Scarborough as a county venue, and the structure of the 50 over competition is utter madness, although I could just about understand it if it was split into north/south, but still too many games shoehorned into a short period (as an aside, it's quite interesting to note that the teams doing well in the 50 overs, Yorkshire, Surrey, Notts, Gloucs, all failed to qualify in the T20, can't exactly put a finger on why but can think of a few theories)

The T20 and 50 over schedules need to be swapped, T2o in a block around school holiday time and 50 over games spread across the season, although if the ECB want to keep the "Friday Night is T20 Night" spread across a few weeks, and don't introduce the franchise model they could revert back to the North/Midlands/South groups of six teams, with each team playing each other once. This would of course mean less revenue for counties though, with only three home games, and one of Yorkshire or Lancashire would miss out on their annual Roses sell out.

Regarding the knock out tournament, our captain Mr Gale was speaking out in favour of this last week. I have to say I prefer the group format, as you're guaranteed a certain number of games, but it's something they could perhaps look at if the franchise T20 stuff is brought in, as an extra competition for the counties to replace the county T20 tournament.
 
It's more one day games than currently, but I believe the cutting down of travel time would allow for more rest days on the whole. This week for example is a disgrace for Durham. I'd imagine Monday was traveling to Bristol, game today, travel to Leicester tomorrow, game Thursday, then straight up to Scarborough to start a four day game on Friday. Utter carnage.

Bloody hell.
 
I'd like to see the old Natwest format. Back. Redball 60 over cricket starting 10am featuring all the minor counties, University XIs, Scotland, Ireland etc, even England U19s & England U21s?
 
It is strange that the 50 over is shoehorned into 2 weeks, but that 20/20 is massively spread out

Its also changing formats too much, forget about how tired the players are, its impacting their skills. Been a glut of low scores for all counties this year, and its not just pitches. Playing a 20/20 Saturday, and a 4 day county game the next day is just crazy.

I guess what is more important though, the players development or the spectator

My Dad and his mates are casual cricket fans compared to me, but they have absolutely loved going to the 20/20 on a Friday day, so I think it has worked for a lot of people.
 
An excellent and thought provoking post, mate, not even Mainze could have come up with something as good!
My concerns about English cricket are threefold.
I'm worried that the ECB put money before everything, including tradition, whereas I consider that there needs to be a balance.
I detest the way the ECB shows near contempt for the counties by denying them players unnecessarily and I'm concerned by the noxious attitudes towards cheating, highly prevalent on Sky, who employ two of the leading cheats in the modern game, Atherton and Hussain.
Also, I cannot fathom the current fad for asserting that there is too much cricket, including your own comments Brandon about the fixture schedule.
If we take the 1960s, the counties then generally played 32 3 day first class matches in the championship, either one or in several cases,two matches against the tourists, and a match against each of the universities, plus assorted games such as against te MCC, or Scotland and so on. All the counties played 6 days a week the length of the country and had to travel by their own cars - no coaches then to ferry them about - on roads where there were few motorways. Nor would the players be put up in the standard of hotels the counties use today. When my son played second team cricket in the late eighties he and the team were accommodated in four star hotels. Not so two decades earlier.
So the whole physical effort was very much greater then and players weren't retiring at an earlier age.
Go back even further and travel was by train and the players paid for their own accommodation - usually a guest house - and had to but their ow meals.
The modern players have it easy by comparison, especially as there are much bigger squads today.
England players are pampered beyond belief. Quick bowlers of old would bowl far more overs than today's lot and someone like Trueman would be trying every ball, never slackening up.
The modern player can count himself lucky.
 
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TLDR

No depth in the squad due to senior players loss of form and retiring, and having to fill the gaps with kids and shite Scottish and Irish players.

Our two best kids were poached by England.

Stands to reason we're flagging.
 
Personally I'd like to see three groups of six in the T20, squeezed into a month (August say). And I'd make sure England contracted players were available for at least a couple of weeks in that time.

There's no reason for England players to be unavailable for virtually the whole summer. The county game needs big stars.
 
Personally I'd like to see three groups of six in the T20, squeezed into a month (August say). And I'd make sure England contracted players were available for at least a couple of weeks in that time.

There's no reason for England players to be unavailable for virtually the whole summer. The county game needs big stars.

It's a valid point regarding England players and their availability, it's one extreme to another - County players have an absolute marathon season whilst Centrally Contracted players are lucky if they play 10 games over the summer.
 
I think the county season has been messed about with so much in recent times that nobody knows where it's at season to season. Excellent post Brandon and it's clear when these discussions arise that it needs sorting once and for all. Love to see the old NatWest knockout format brought back with minor counties and cricket boards included but I can't see it happening again with the amount of cricket they're trying to fit in now.

I think the Sunday League format was brilliant at the time and could work again (50 overs). Perfect for the telly and the paying public. Maybe it's time the ECB went back to basics so to speak and look at why things worked so well in the past. The sight of recent domestic Lords Finals played out to near empty seats is a tragedy for the game.

As ambivalent as I am about the T20 format, I agree it needs greater exposure which you hope would bring in greater revenue to help secure the future of the counties whilst attracting even more people to the game both as spectators and young players. Excellent point by Johnson above on his Dad and his mates. I know of lads who will now sit and watch a test after getting onto cricket through T20 as well as lads who like the T20 but aren't not bothered about the other formats. Both examples can only be a positive for the game and I think just about everyone is agreed that the T20 needs to take place in one go over a set period of time to finally give it some structure which would help increase its exposure.

I think the ECB are a bit too precious at times with the centrally contracted players and could free them to play more. Again, the structure doesn't look to help the counties out here either with the Semi Finals taking place the day before and on the same day as a one day international. Surely they can arrange this a little better as this will no doubt affect the attendance of the county one day game taking place the same day. You also want your England players available for these big domestic affairs as it is of benefit to all involved (as per the T20).
 
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