Have to admit that it’s kicked in earlier than usual this summer. Usually it takes until the leaves start to turn brown, but it’s really hit home this year and there’s a few things that contribute.
The schedule is shockingly bad, both the domestic and the international calendar. The period of time between the T20 finishing and the RLODC starting for example is 32 days, in that period, the period that is essentially ‘the height of summer’, Durham have had just two red ball fixtures. 8 days on, 24 off, the Lincolnshire friendly aside.
Now I’m a firm believer that there is ‘too much’ cricket, both domestic and international, in any cricketing summer (and winter) but it doesn’t help when you have a chunk of cricket in April and May, where you squeeze 7 four day games into 43 days - so a potential of 28 days of cricket, notwithstanding travel days - and it doesn’t leave much time for rest and/or training and/or anything else. Cynical conspiracy theories aside, the administrators are harming domestic cricket more than any outside factor irrespective of the thoughts of some misguided rent-a-gob ‘pundit’.
With England, regarding the Saffer tour, they’ve played the white ball stuff and now they (SA) piss off to Ireland for a white ball jolly, leaving over two weeks for the England players to twiddle their thumbs until the start of the Test Series.
The school holidays are here, yet the England side aren’t playing another game for over a fortnight.
So bizarrely and in essence, what I’m saying is that I’m suffering from cricket fatigue because there’s no cricket on
. The wider point though, is that it needs to be far better scheduled. Don’t cram so many games and formats into one rolling month and then have the next one completely off. The biggest slur against domestic cricket is that it’s poorly attended, but as I alluded to earlier, the best period of the summer (when university and college students are either graduating or having an extended study break, factories are shutting down, schools are breaking up) has this year largely been filled with nothing whatsoever.
I’ve got next to no interest for the upcoming RLODC, which again comes down to shockingly bad scheduling. I find it insane that we’ve had four months of cricket before the counties play a single 50 over game - despite the international side having played their full allotment of 50 over cricket. When Strauss gets round to releasing that ‘Report’ of his, will he use that as a factor for England’s failures? I doubt it. There are several players in the England side woefully out of nick, but anyone outside of the squad hasn’t hit or bowled a single ball in anger in order to make any sort of impression.
Anyway, I’ll try and soldier on, because as is the usual situation, come mid-October I’ll be pining for meaningful cricket again - but above all of that, if we just give up with getting behind the counties, it’ll only serve to achieve what FTECB* really want anyway.
*Knew I’d manage to shoehorn that conspiracy theory in somewhere.
The schedule is shockingly bad, both the domestic and the international calendar. The period of time between the T20 finishing and the RLODC starting for example is 32 days, in that period, the period that is essentially ‘the height of summer’, Durham have had just two red ball fixtures. 8 days on, 24 off, the Lincolnshire friendly aside.
Now I’m a firm believer that there is ‘too much’ cricket, both domestic and international, in any cricketing summer (and winter) but it doesn’t help when you have a chunk of cricket in April and May, where you squeeze 7 four day games into 43 days - so a potential of 28 days of cricket, notwithstanding travel days - and it doesn’t leave much time for rest and/or training and/or anything else. Cynical conspiracy theories aside, the administrators are harming domestic cricket more than any outside factor irrespective of the thoughts of some misguided rent-a-gob ‘pundit’.
With England, regarding the Saffer tour, they’ve played the white ball stuff and now they (SA) piss off to Ireland for a white ball jolly, leaving over two weeks for the England players to twiddle their thumbs until the start of the Test Series.
The school holidays are here, yet the England side aren’t playing another game for over a fortnight.
So bizarrely and in essence, what I’m saying is that I’m suffering from cricket fatigue because there’s no cricket on
. The wider point though, is that it needs to be far better scheduled. Don’t cram so many games and formats into one rolling month and then have the next one completely off. The biggest slur against domestic cricket is that it’s poorly attended, but as I alluded to earlier, the best period of the summer (when university and college students are either graduating or having an extended study break, factories are shutting down, schools are breaking up) has this year largely been filled with nothing whatsoever. I’ve got next to no interest for the upcoming RLODC, which again comes down to shockingly bad scheduling. I find it insane that we’ve had four months of cricket before the counties play a single 50 over game - despite the international side having played their full allotment of 50 over cricket. When Strauss gets round to releasing that ‘Report’ of his, will he use that as a factor for England’s failures? I doubt it. There are several players in the England side woefully out of nick, but anyone outside of the squad hasn’t hit or bowled a single ball in anger in order to make any sort of impression.
Anyway, I’ll try and soldier on, because as is the usual situation, come mid-October I’ll be pining for meaningful cricket again - but above all of that, if we just give up with getting behind the counties, it’ll only serve to achieve what FTECB* really want anyway.
*Knew I’d manage to shoehorn that conspiracy theory in somewhere.
