Somerset are quite right of course with their statement this morning. Status quo not an option but no need to cut fixtures - in fact quite the opposite - a need to increase no of fixtures in summer

SCCC BOARD STATEMENT
The Board of Somerset County Cricket Club met last week to discuss the ECB Men’s High-Performance Review, led by Sir Andrew Strauss.

While the Review’s final recommendations are awaited, the Club’s Chair, Chief Executive and Director of Cricket, have recently been involved in consultation meetings with the ECB and officials from other First-Class Counties. The Board was updated on those discussions and was made aware of the ‘direction of travel.’

The Club’s Board welcomed the overarching objective of the Review – for England to become number one in the world across all formats within five years – and note that 14 of the 16 possible recommendations are proposed improvements which are not related to the domestic playing programme. It also unanimously agreed that, following the impact of COVID-19 and the macro-economic challenges facing the country, reform of the professional game in England & Wales is necessary to ensure the game is sustainable in the short, medium and long terms.

The Board has advised ECB that in its opinion:

The Review provides invaluable analysis on various topics, and identifies improvements which will help enhance professional cricket in this country
Clear standards that modern, progressive professional clubs need to deliver for England teams to be number one in the world are required.
Over a season, a diet of cricket across all formats which is satisfying for Members, paying spectators and players is required. The current domestic playing programme, which resulted in only four one-day matches being played in Taunton over 43 days in the height of summer this year, with 17 Somerset players unavailable, is unacceptable to the Club, its Members and the South West’s cricketing public.
It is crucial that the highest standard of men’s and women’s domestic cricket is available in the South West throughout the summer to satisfy the tremendous demand from Members and supporters, and to allow children to be inspired during school holidays and fall in love with cricket.
A path is needed to a sustainable funding model that will enable counties without a Test match venue to thrive at the top table of English cricket and allow Somerset to continue to provide a strong talent pathway from the entire South West region through excellent County cricket and into England teams.
It is critical that ample time is given to Counties to discuss any proposed changes with their Members, supporters, players, coaches, staff and wider stakeholders before any material changes are made to the programme.
The Club will be organising further consultation sessions with Members and other parties in early course.

Angus Fraser said this afternoon on TalkSport, that the Middlesex players were agreed in NOT wanting a reduction in Championship cricket.

Well said Keaton Jennings. Exactly what I've been saying. Schedule properly so there's no need for any cuts.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/keaton-jennings-argues-against-reduction-in-number-of-county-championship-fixtures-1334764

"In my opinion you can keep the 14 County Championship games and that's only what Ben Stokes said on social media a few weeks ago," said Jennings. "But you can factor in breaks, so that you can play three four-day games and then have a break from the Championship. I think my view is representative and it certainly echoes what the England captain said.

"I think 14 games is a good amount and the cricket we play is of good quality, but the problem comes when you have a week off at the start of April and then another at the start of September. Including the Royal London Final, we play 13 days in September whereas in April we were playing 12 in 17."

Reducing the number of championship games will lead to job losses, not just for players, but coaches, support staff and umpires, as you need less for the reduced number of days played.

Also let's do a comparison between county championship and premier league football since 1992. It might sound spurious but it's no more so than the dodgy dossier Strauss report.

Since 1992 there have been only 7 different teams win the premier league out of some 50 or so clubs that have competed in it. Meanwhile since 1992 lets count how many counties out of the 18 have won the title. Warwickshire, Essex, Leicestershire, Glamorgan, Surrey, Middlesex, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, Sussex, Durham and Lancashire have all won the county championship since 1992 and we may well get to add Hampshire to that list in 2 weeks.

The county championship is brilliant - it was ace as one big 18 team division and also as 2 divisions of 9.

It would be foolish to wreck this and limit any top tier to a paltry 6 teams.

If anything a 6 team premier league would be far more suitable for football not county cricket

A great comparison Mad - perhaps Strauss should be told!!

Radio coverage from Newcastle

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0cxqffh?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Go to 1 hour 35 mins

But if the aim of the Strauss report really is to maximise elite talent as much as possible, then that is best achieved by 18 centres of excellence, every one of them under pressure to be less reliant on the pathways provided by the private school system and more committed to discovering the most talented from all areas of society. Reference to diversity in leadership groups without considering the failure to build a diverse playing staff, by providing opportunities for all, is a glaring omission.

One of many excellent observations from this stunning article below. If anyone still hasn't watched the Warwickshire members forum from 2 weeks ago I'd say it is a must as it was similarly full of impressively astute observations.

I'm left questioning whether so far the club has actually listened to any of it or acted on any of the feedback they received. Let's find out.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/county-cricket-reform-rebellion-in-the-shires-as-counties-consider-response-to-strauss-review-1336455

And if anyone doubts the need for this to be fought just have a read of what former Derbyshire and Northants player Adrian Rollins has said on twitter as he cuts through all the crap and gets to the heart of what this is all about. And I quote;

The aim is to 'keep the game exclusive' by keeping the source of "High Performance Cricket" from private schools and reducing the effort of counties to develop routes from grassroots to full club honours by taking monies away!

It's Arrogant and poor!

Strauss is very much promoting reduction whilst fooling people that the ECB is inclusive through putting on a tournament that is purely about money, which had less attendance than last year so, as a result, punish county cricket and disregard grassroots even more!

Didn't the club promise another session this week, for anyone not attending last week's meeting, or have they had enough 'home truths' already?

26th October

The ECB proposals cannot simply be waved through they require the support of 12 of the county chairs. 15 of the counties are member owned so they are compelled to be steered by their members wishes

What the ECB have suggested would create a season heavily chunked up as follows;
April May RLODC + 5 Championship matches
June July 10 Blast matches + 2 Championship matches
August Hundred
September 3 Championship matches

The sidelining and bookending of championship cricket which we don't want. Most of summer with no red ball cricket to watch and fewer blast nights which smaller counties depend on.

What members want (not to mention the England test team wouldn't half benefit from) is some more Championship cricket in June July and August so something like;
April May 5 Championship matches + 4 Blast matches
June July 10 Blast matches + 4 Championship matches
August RLODC + 2 Championship matches
September 3 Championship matches

From the forum that took place 2 weeks ago it appears that Edgbaston seem to think 12 Championship games would be a compromise of sorts but it has already compromised 5 years ago from when we had 16.

Edgbaston will continue to push this in the face of strong opposition from members of Warwickshire. They seem to think that on October 26th there will be a different cohort of members show up to the forum who will be in favour of drastic cuts to championship cricket matches.

How would you even reach 12 games? For a start you'd have to have 7 counties in the top division which would necessitate 14 rounds of matches anyway so they may as well stick at 14 matches for each county and an 8 team top division.

Mad - I like your alternative view to the make up of the cricket season except for......... For the CC to be a fair and level competition it needs to be set up so that each team plays all the others in the league. Therefore 2 divisions of 9 = returning to 16 matches.

Your April/May has 24 days of cricket so could easily accommodate more red ball. Likewise June July has 22 days of cricket so could easily cope with more red ball.

It seems crazy to me that in the desire for a more successful test team the ECB want less red ball games and more slog fest. You would think they would be striving to find ways to play more!

It seems strange to me that the counties make way for franchised teams to play in what could be the most well attended month of the season. All those grounds that remained empty for virtually the whole of August seems crazy.

Oborne and Heller on Cricket

https://chiswickcalendar.co.uk/episode-98-high-performance-or-last-performance-campaigner-alan-higham-dissects-the-ecb-review-of-english-cricket/

Alan Higham dissects the ECB review

Podcast with George Dobell and Steve Harmison.

Almost no chance of Strauss review plans being voted through.

Unlikely to even be a vote

Next 8 weeks critical

Hundred is losing more £££ than the ECB have been letting on

Listen here👇 first 15 mins about Liam Norwell then Strauss review

https://play.acast.com/s/d0e70954-32ac-4e91-86c3-1c34bfb4a075/6336ca3ea84a980011ad00a6

Harmison spot on "the members just wanna watch cricket - 25 days in a whole summer is just ridiculous"

https://play.acast.com/s/2fd1e566-c888-4214-aeeb-58c19269d813/45847682-c642-11ec-b957-8f724e8e51ab

interview with Sam Robson forward to 24 mins Backs retention of 14 CC matches just spread more evenly not all in April May but more in June July August. Some very astute observations about need to avoid clubs being stuck in feeder leagues for decades at a time. Wants to keep two up two down. I definitely agree with him there

Really thoughtful hope the club's listen to him

I don't like this apparent acceptance of just 14 CC matches. We need a system whereby teams play each other both home and away.

I'm far less concerned about home away integrity than others. I think probably better to have 8 in the top division to ensure this but I also understand the arguments for 10 in the top division to prevent short term thinking among counties. Having watched the recent Lancashire forum available online they are against a six team top division for this very reason so I wonder if we might see proposals to go to two top divisions of six with one feeder division? That was one rumour a few months back. I hope not because I think 8, 9 or 10 are the best sizes for divisions. There's barely enough teams for two divisions let alone three.

14 games can be made to work if we have some championship games in August. England and Wales is patently unsuited to only ten games with weather much more of a factor. The ECB are offering a schedule with 14 games anyway (10 CC + 1 play off + 3 random friendlies in August) an idea that almost everyone thinks is crap, so they may as well have 14 proper championship games

16 would be brilliant but I just don't think our season has room for 18 rounds of CC cricket within it anymore. 14 rounds there definitely is room for if they're skillfully scheduled.

Looks like 26 October should go in the diary:
https://edgbaston.com/news/ecb-mens-high-performance-review-further-update/

One point from the Middlesex forum last night. The county was baffled by the data presented in the HPR that most county cricketers and apparently 94% (i e all but one) of Directors of Cricket were in favour of playing less cricket. This was emphatically not the case for Middlesex, for whom the scheduling rather than the volume is the problem.

This needs to be reiterated with Warwickshire. We will not swallow their bullshit about players apparently wanting to play less and have their fellow players thrown on the scrap heap

Bit worrying they see members are one of a range of stakeholders rather than literally the only stakeholder.

Of course paid employees can advise but the Board is answerable to the owners of the Club - the members.

Also worrying they seem to be trying to dilute membership by allowing Hundred ticket holders full membership rights.

It's Warwickshire County Cricket Club!