mad
Member
Couple of bits of news overnight;
Strauss Review dead in the water (well the bits that sought to wreck the county championship)
And the Hundred has cost the ECB (and by extension the counties themselves) a figure approaching £60 million (£9m plus all the bribes) in its first two years
Money the sport could ill afford to waste - plus the detrimental impact on the pre-existing formats e.g. Blast group stage being played earlier in the cooler weeks of the season and counties now unable to put on festivals of championship cricket in the school holidays
Sure the format - nobody wanted or asked for -has attracted some additional fans to the game but these may otherwise have filtered into the sport for any number of other reasons (the success of the women's and men's ODI sides in World Cups being one) without the Hundred.
Can anyone make a case for persisting with this situation or is it like three-team-cricket they tried in South Africa a few years ago - a novelty that has quickly run out of road?
If it's a ploughed field square of the wicket they might
https://youtu.be/Y0hXelwkG7c
On the cut in points for a draw, Moores insists his teams have always played to win but said: “The way I look at it, county cricket hasn’t changed – England have. So you have to think county cricket was doing something right before. Two World Cups and this run of Test wins – it is clearly producing international players. Seeing Harry Brook and Ben Duckett come in and do well ... county cricket should be getting a pat on the back. It takes enough knocks.”
Well said
I think the article by Mark Ramprakash today is a very thoughtful one. Just like he says with Hoggard I think the same applies to Vaughan (I'm no big fan of his personally but I think the court judgement has to be seen as a fair one) who has made errors in the past with his tweets and to Tim Bresnan (who I always have quite liked) being a bit of a prat - people do mess up from time to time and even the perpetrators of racist language/bullying are themselves victims of the culture that led them to that point
They all needed better guidance 10/15 years back. I do think they are going to have to hammer Yorkshire pretty hard though for all this (deleted emails ffs, not following best practice) and also the ECB will have look itself in the mirror
Think it's been assumed they'd go back to 8+10 certainly that was my feeling before Xmas. However the only thing I've heard lately is there'll be no major changes for 2024 so that suggests 10+8 being retained. Of course they could announce something over the next 7 days
Preview of the 3-day double header against the Pears
https://wccc.co.uk/worcestershire-complete-warm-up-programme-with-doubleheader-against-local-rivals/
“Tomorrow (Monday) will be split overs because Tuesday’s forecast isn’t great, and then we will see where that takes us.
Seems likely tomorrow will be the only day we get play so 45 overs per side
Position in County championship
I'm going to be optimistic and say 3rd
I think this could well be Lancashire's season pipping Surrey and I think there'll be a shoot out for 3rd between the fading Essex/Hants along with us and Somerset with Notts and Northants my tips to be relegated.
The Blast
Finals Day
One day cup (very hard to guess)
4 wins 3 losses and a tie
And finally..team for our first game
Yates
Davies
Mousley
Hain
Rhodes
Burgess
Barnard
Briggs
Hassan
Norwell
OHD
Made up for Izzy fantastic for her to experience and such a positive story for the game.
Enjoyed reading that thanks
Not sure what the actual record is but absolutely astonishing what they've done.
The games they've been involved in have been fantastic. I was privileged along with many on here to be at the India test match at Edgbaston back in June and that probably doesn't even rank in the top three of test matches they've been involved in over the past nine/ten months.
This morning was amazing. I would rather see England lose monumental matches by one run than win them by an innings with three days to spare!! Test Cricket in that respect is more important than results!
Had we lost at the Oval in 2005 by 1 run I'd have been utterly deflated but if we're 2-2 going to the Oval in July and get a game like last night even if we lose by 1 run I think I'd be very satisfied. Is that an age thing or symptomatic of the wider game changes?
The answer appears to be yes there is;
First-class counties winning the battle to preserve existing domestic calendar
https://www.thecricketer.com/Topics/countycricket/first_class_counties_winning_battle_preserve_existing_domestic_calendar.html
There are no big decisions still to be made. We're sticking with the volume of cricket in 2023 and will most likely roll through 2024
Sense prevails!!!
There were a couple of bits around promotion and relegation, we've got discussions ongoing, but I don't foresee anything dramatic happening
So either 1 up 3 down in one go or 2 up 3 down for two seasons is my guess they want it back to 8 in top division and 10 in Division 2
Every week, the system of privilege and white supremacy they seek to overturn whispers quietly to them. See that? See what we did with the lad from Yorkshire? We can do that to you too. Old social media posts. Ex-teammates. Everyone with a story. How much do you really want this? Shhh. There’s a good lad.
Still much to emerge over the coming weeks. A decent summary of the year since the dcms hearings and how the big firm up at Yorkshire and the wider establishment have responded. I'm pleased at how in particular Warwickshire as an organisation has responded so far
Looks like they've fixed the errors on the main website
Second eleven friendlies x3
March 27-29 Worcestershire Portland Road
July 24 SACA Portland Road (50 over match)
July 26 SACA Portland Road (50 over match)
Second eleven Championship x 10
April 10-13 Essex Billericay
April 17-20 Somerset Portland Road
April 25-28 Surrey Guildford
May 8-11 Worcestershire Kidderminster
July 3-6 Glamorgan Newport
July 17-20 Northamptonshire Portland Road
August 28-31 Gloucestershire away venue TBC
September 4-7 Durham Portland Road
September 11-14 Lancashire Portland Road
September 18-21 Nottinghamshire Portland Road
Second eleven T20 x10
May 16 Gloucestershire Portland Road
May 17 Northamptonshire Portland Road (double header)
May 22 Somerset Taunton Vale
May 23 Gloucestershire Taunton Vale
May 24 Worcestershire Barnt Green
May 26 Glamorgan Portland Road
May 31 Glamorgan Newport
June 7 Worcestershire Portland Road
June 8 Somerset Portland Road
There's also one confirmed ECB under 18 fixture so far which is Warwickshire u18 v Worcestershire in the 50 over County Cup pencilled in for July 2nd at Portland Road. This team also enters the Graham Williamson 40-over knockout trophy playing Leamington in the first round in April
Everyone's getting a bit spooked about how the game is changing but in truth how many county cricketers will actually be prepared to give up their county contracts within the first class system that has brought them through to go completely freelance???
If they go freelance unless they are loaded to begin with (which means they are likely already one of the top players in the world, Joe Root, Ben Stokes etc...) they won't be able to fund their training needs, pay for net bowlers, coaches, physio's etc..., their own cover for insurance against injury.
Test cricket (and to a lesser extent first class cricket in England) remains highly lucrative to broadcasters - it is guaranteed eyeballs on a game for 7 hours a day and the people who watch it will watch it day after day and will tend to be of an age demographic with money to spend. All things T20 doesn't have as it's audience is younger and has less cash
To save test cricket overseas they need to develop a proper league for it and sell broadcasting rights jointly or in a more structured way
Fixtures for the second eleven team have begun appearing on the Warwickshire website and on a couple of other clubs websites - Notts, Hants and Kent for example.
A few errors though on Warwicks website they are showing the second XI championship games as three day matches (should be four) and the second XI one day T20 games are also showing as three day matches
The first friendly appears to be Monday March 27th three day game Vs Worcestershire at Portland Road I suspect they will have a first team game at Edgbaston against the same opposition concurrently as they did last season
At this point in history we as cricket fans have still got - more or less (less for sure) - just about enough of the game that we cherish. I know some of the more seasoned fans among us can point towards 30-50 years previous and the 22+ game county championships, games to watch every weekend in the sun, something to occupy the kids once a fortnight on a Sunday, the glory days of Lord's finals etc... It's still recognisable today from those days previous - just about - I'd suggest. Still a game played by teams for a start.
But I think there is a limit that's now been reached. I do worry that in 5 or 10 years time there will be this yearning not from us but from those that never got to experience it for themselves, for something a bit more compelling than circus cricket played by zombies who've just flown in from half way round the world at the behest of state sponsored broadcasters and commercial 'partners'.
But it'll be too late to roll it back then so it is time to take a stand and that goes for members as well as non-members. February is a big month there are meetings they'll probably hold in secret that'll strip the identity of this game apart
Leadership at the ECB has been severely lacking. The counties are complicit too. No way should they have allowed the domestic competitions to be sidelined to such an extent. County championship was strong ten years ago and the Blast was a commercial success just 4 years ago.
We also need to look at the role of 'some' high profile players notably at the PCA and their utter failure over the racism scandals and also their seeming ongoing remit to lobby for more pay for playing less cricket.
Appointment to view and switching of formats is needed not these farty little competitions - a championship game and a limited overs game each week through the summer months you'd then have an incentive for the sponsors to sustain their interest in the game
Pre-season they play a mix of 1,2,3 day games with red and white balls but all of a sudden in the main season everything has to be in blocks. The spectator at the ground is being ignored time and again
Certainly merit in your suggestion. Why would it not be possible (just as an example) to return to 16 matches and 2 divisions of nine? The first division sides or those 8 sides with the test match grounds that need to rest their overworked squares in August and host these 100 franchises for however long that circus has remaining can play their additional two CC matches overseas UAE/Windies in March (meeting a request from the ECB that top county players and fringe England prospects) get more overseas experience. Meanwhile the second division or the ten non-test counties play their additional two CC matches in August at outgrounds. All the games remain meaningful as opposed to silly friendly games that were mooted by Strauss. These would be all nicely spaced out as apparently requested by players and coaches. Everyone's a winner especially a return of actual cricket to the prime month of August albeit members at the big counties would have to put up with being restricted to 7 home matches still
Couple of tasty looking games in May - Notts v Lancs and Notts v Essex - where I will certainly try to get along to a day of either the Thursday or the Friday
Pleased that they have struck an agreement with Leicestershire now too. Also applies to the One Day Cup although that will only be of any realistic benefit on the sole occasion Leicestershire are playing at home in August when Warwickshire are not