brandon
Striker
On Friday, during Lunch of Day 1 between Notts and Yorkshire - Kevin Howells spoke to Aggers and Mick Newell about (among many things) the future of the County Championship.
BBC Radio 5 live - Test Match Special, The summer starts here!
I’m starting to think the only way for county cricket to truly survive is for a return to a single division of the Championship.
Of course while we sit marooned in Division Two, for what seems like it could be a long time to come - it’s easy to suggest that. And it’ll also be true that while we were riding high in Division One I wouldn’t have appreciated how big the gulf was or indeed the need for a return to the old structure. But, a lot of what Newell said made sense, albeit because of his ignorance and his absolute shithousery throughout the whole interview.
To start off, he sees no problem with the constant poaching from other counties, citing the reasons for it that the players want to come because they don’t feel like they can play for England whilst in Division Two - which may be true, but it’s worrying when he was a f***ing selector for so long, whilst still doing a role with Notts, so if he’s thinking it now he has absolutely abused his position to directly benefit his own county over others during that time.
Talk also turned to The Hundred and whilst they all seemed in agreement that another format isn’t needed and that essentially it is a bad thing for the counties not involved - it highlighted even further just how elitist the game will become. I can only hope that fans of counties not involved flock to their teams’ T20 games in a show of solidarity and avoid like the plague any Hundred game.
Aggers doesn’t think that 18 counties is sustainable, the way I interpreted it he is for the idea of trimming the number down - which for me was the worst part about the whole interview. I’ve always liked the bloke but to hear him advocating that idea was absolutely devastating. Especially when his own county would be one of the likeliest candidates to go. Both he and Newell seem to think that England wouldn’t suffer as a result because it would simply mean the cream would rise to the top. Newell is especially f***ing ignorant there though - because if it wasn’t for Leicestershire,he wouldn’t have been able to poach Stuart Broad or James Taylor among others and going off Notts’ recent history of producing Cricketers - I’d doubt severely that they would cast their net wide enough to encompass all the lads from Leicestershire who will no longer have a county to play cricket in.
What’s more, it cannot be understated just how important it is for many lads to learn on the job - how many of the players out of Division Two in the past decade, poached by Division One clubs, only had the chance to develop properly and learn on the job because they were at a county who valued their development? Joe Clarke for example? Paul Coughlin even?
If each county has 25 on the books (as a roundabout figure) that’s 450 lads who are able to develop and to some degree allowed to fail, learn from failure and come back stronger. If that number is then cut to 12 counties that’s only 300 players needed. That’s one third of players who will never get the opportunity to show what they can do. That for me is the most worrying thing.
For us too, as quite clearly the biggest example, certainly of the modern era - how many Cricketers from Durham played for England prior to 1992? And how many have done since? If it wasn’t for Durham Cricketers there’d have been no Ashes win in 2005 and no T20 World Cup win. Our whole reason for being, so said the great Don Robson back in the early 90’s was to produce homegrown lads to play for England.
When you start losing counties, the talent pool becomes smaller. If anything, the governing body should be trying to GROW the counties, not shrink them and The Hundred in my opinion is the single biggest threat to County Cricket that has occurred in my lifetime.
The County Championship is admired by every cricketing nation in the world, it is the domestic game that everyone STILL wants to play in - I would be absolutely devastated to see any county lose First Class status. There are some counties that have been doing for over 100 years and there should be a real effort to make sure they do so for atleast another 100 years.
It’s high time the governing body did something to protect what we have. If I had my way, I’d have them giving far bigger subsidies to the counties to help pay the bills and keep them operating. Lord knows they can afford it.
But as I alluded to at the start, I think counties need not only to be protected financially, but their assets need protecting too. That won’t come with compensation packages for players poached, it will come when those players don’t need to leave just to get in the England frame.
The only way I can see that happening is a return to a single division of the County Championship and to everyone playing each other once a season.
BBC Radio 5 live - Test Match Special, The summer starts here!
I’m starting to think the only way for county cricket to truly survive is for a return to a single division of the Championship.
Of course while we sit marooned in Division Two, for what seems like it could be a long time to come - it’s easy to suggest that. And it’ll also be true that while we were riding high in Division One I wouldn’t have appreciated how big the gulf was or indeed the need for a return to the old structure. But, a lot of what Newell said made sense, albeit because of his ignorance and his absolute shithousery throughout the whole interview.
To start off, he sees no problem with the constant poaching from other counties, citing the reasons for it that the players want to come because they don’t feel like they can play for England whilst in Division Two - which may be true, but it’s worrying when he was a f***ing selector for so long, whilst still doing a role with Notts, so if he’s thinking it now he has absolutely abused his position to directly benefit his own county over others during that time.
Talk also turned to The Hundred and whilst they all seemed in agreement that another format isn’t needed and that essentially it is a bad thing for the counties not involved - it highlighted even further just how elitist the game will become. I can only hope that fans of counties not involved flock to their teams’ T20 games in a show of solidarity and avoid like the plague any Hundred game.
Aggers doesn’t think that 18 counties is sustainable, the way I interpreted it he is for the idea of trimming the number down - which for me was the worst part about the whole interview. I’ve always liked the bloke but to hear him advocating that idea was absolutely devastating. Especially when his own county would be one of the likeliest candidates to go. Both he and Newell seem to think that England wouldn’t suffer as a result because it would simply mean the cream would rise to the top. Newell is especially f***ing ignorant there though - because if it wasn’t for Leicestershire,he wouldn’t have been able to poach Stuart Broad or James Taylor among others and going off Notts’ recent history of producing Cricketers - I’d doubt severely that they would cast their net wide enough to encompass all the lads from Leicestershire who will no longer have a county to play cricket in.
What’s more, it cannot be understated just how important it is for many lads to learn on the job - how many of the players out of Division Two in the past decade, poached by Division One clubs, only had the chance to develop properly and learn on the job because they were at a county who valued their development? Joe Clarke for example? Paul Coughlin even?
If each county has 25 on the books (as a roundabout figure) that’s 450 lads who are able to develop and to some degree allowed to fail, learn from failure and come back stronger. If that number is then cut to 12 counties that’s only 300 players needed. That’s one third of players who will never get the opportunity to show what they can do. That for me is the most worrying thing.
For us too, as quite clearly the biggest example, certainly of the modern era - how many Cricketers from Durham played for England prior to 1992? And how many have done since? If it wasn’t for Durham Cricketers there’d have been no Ashes win in 2005 and no T20 World Cup win. Our whole reason for being, so said the great Don Robson back in the early 90’s was to produce homegrown lads to play for England.
When you start losing counties, the talent pool becomes smaller. If anything, the governing body should be trying to GROW the counties, not shrink them and The Hundred in my opinion is the single biggest threat to County Cricket that has occurred in my lifetime.
The County Championship is admired by every cricketing nation in the world, it is the domestic game that everyone STILL wants to play in - I would be absolutely devastated to see any county lose First Class status. There are some counties that have been doing for over 100 years and there should be a real effort to make sure they do so for atleast another 100 years.
It’s high time the governing body did something to protect what we have. If I had my way, I’d have them giving far bigger subsidies to the counties to help pay the bills and keep them operating. Lord knows they can afford it.
But as I alluded to at the start, I think counties need not only to be protected financially, but their assets need protecting too. That won’t come with compensation packages for players poached, it will come when those players don’t need to leave just to get in the England frame.
The only way I can see that happening is a return to a single division of the County Championship and to everyone playing each other once a season.
