Excellent thought provoking piece by Barney Ronay this morning. Stop trying to counter the IPL dominance with pointless new formats, work with what cricket has - it's traditions and the groundswell of good will amongst the public that remains in spite of the games shockingly poor governance in recent years if not longer - and an end to central contracts. Bairstow showed it can be done so can well see Ben Stokes having 2 months at the IPL and then returning to go straight into the Ashes next year. Whatever replaces the ECB should have as it's priority the aim of growing the game not swelling the ECB's coffers.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2022/jun/19/cricket-end-ecb-spin-governance-comment

Captain has to take that loss on the chin.

The way the game unfolded and the cavalier approach we took at the close of Day 3 declaring with 100 overs left to bowl suggests to me that the players/management already know there is no relegation this season to give up 8 points in so cavalier a fashion. Hindsight a wonderful thing and fair play for being ballsy but it's 8 points down the swanny cos we didn't bat till close

Potentially as big a result for Lancs this is as our double over Notts was to us last season. Fair play to them and I hope it carries them towards a title tilt

Say one thing that boy Williams looks very good for Lancs. I was wondering how bowling 2 days out of 3 would affect him after his impressive figures Day 1 and fresh into the county game but he did fine again. Hopefully Norwell can withstand the same rigour of bowling 2 in 3 after his extended lay off

Well done also to Andy Umeed who scored 125 for Somerset 2nds earlier today

According to the BBC report on today's game Croft had made just 3 runs v Bears in his three previous innings

Also a suggestion that Dane Vilas "may have had a point" being aggrieved at being given caught round the corner off Briggs. The video suggests no such thing - if anything it is very inconclusive. Could just as easily conclude he feathered the ball with his bat or glove

Good game this. Lancs are seasoned veterans at these low scoring dog fights but Bears in recent seasons have shown they can slug it out too

Very intersting line up today

https://live.nvplay.com/ecb/#m8b923f7b-4f9f-4806-8feb-30e183c48e09

Dan Mousely off to a flier

Isaac Mohammed who is 13 and highly regarded relative of Moeen I've not seen him yet but a couple of the lads at Moseley a few weeks back were raving about him. Moeen actually spoke a bit about him with Aggers on TMS during tea at the test yesterday. Also Kobi Herft who when I spoke to a couple of Lichfield players on Saturday they reckon he's different class. 18 year old Aussie kid playing for West Bromwich Dartmouth

No Woakes yet though he was on about playing some 2nds cricket soonish

Sibley not going on to get big tons is a slight worry for me. There is an opening slot up for grabs in the England team with Crawley surely on the verge of being canned and Dom is going to have to go big in the 2nd half of the season to try to force his way back into the test squad now. He was in such good form pre-season but keeps getting out when set

Yes Sam Hain is now at the stage Trott was in 2009 knocking on the door 'the next cab off the rank'. He really ought to have got to this stage much sooner, should have been knocking on the door in 2018/2019 but for 2/3 years of iffy form in first class cricket but age is still on Hain's side

Crawley can't have too many more chances. They'll select a squad for the third test and the one off India test match. Perhaps they'll give a couple of new guys a test v India - Compton and/or Hain. Or maybe they'll experiment a bit more with the South Africa series - Moeen and/or Rashid coming in perhaps before the winter tours.

On the one hand how bare must the Aussie cupboard be for McAndrew on the back of 1 half decent Shield season to be in and around their A squad - thank god we still have 18 counties I say. Nothing against the lad he's given 100%

On the other hand I was saying a few weeks ago he's a solid player not spectacular but potentially brought in with a view to him being a long term project. Can you imagine if Aus have a rash of injuries and he's in the squad for next years Ashes?!?!
We'll all be scratching our heads at that.

I think the it will remain part of the game
The one area where it seems unfair is Braithwaite smashes a six then retires. An old school playground rule where if you hit it over the wall you had to climb over and fetch it from the neighbouring garden or you were 6 and out.
The bowling side could be allowed to select a bowler who has used up their allocation to return to bowl (e.g. in a 20 over game they'd get a 5th over or 5th set of deliveries)

It shouldn't occur 3 or 4 times as it is only going to be used towards the end of a shortened already short format game although what's to stop 2 players retiring out at the same time or if there is a run out and the other batter retires out bringing 2 fresh faces to the crease.

Not sure how it could be outlawed. Would they require blood like in rugby?

I can see a variation of it being brought in maybe a 12th player (a joker perhaps) can be brought on in the Hundred. Imagine Usain Bolt or Chris Gayle sitting on the bench

Rob Key apparently wants to flush much of our season down the toilet. And all for what?

Exclusive: Rob Key reveals plan to fix English cricket
Speaking on The Vaughany and Tuffers Cricket Club podcast, Key outlines his vision to see fewer red-ball games and two national selectors

By
Tim Wigmore
31 May 2022 • 5:00pm
Exclusive: Rob Key reveals plan to fix English cricket
Rob Key was speaking on Telegraph Sport's new The Vaughany and Tuffers Cricket Club podcast CREDIT: EDDIE MULHOLLAND/TELEGRAPH

Rob Key has outlined his radical vision to fix the England Test team by revealing he backs fewer County Championship matches as part of a new 12-team structure.

In wide-ranging interview for the launch of a new Telegraph podcast, The Vaughany and Tuffers Cricket Club, England's new managing director laid out his blueprint to revitalise English cricket and revealed:

He thinks the Championship will reduce from the current 14 games per season, mooting 10 matches per county as a possibility,
He is keen to recruit two full-time selectors but is struggling to fill the posts,
He believes Jos Buttler could return to the Test team and backed new coach Brendon McCullum to get the best out of him.
England are currently conducting a high-performance review, which includes figures from outside the sport - including Sir David Brailsford, the former performance director at British Cycling, and Dan Ashworth, the former Football Association director of elite development who has taken up a new sporting director role with Newcastle United.

Placeholder image for youtube video: p1MaIf_8ImU
Key revealed that he expects the process to lead to radical changes in the English domestic game, with the volume of Championship cricket likely to be reduced.

“At this point in time I have no idea of what it's going to be and how it's going to go because it might be less four-day cricket, which I think might be the bet that you could go on,” Key said.

“I would have 10 games of Championship cricket. I think you've basically added in a month of the season with a competition so you've added in a month's worth of cricket, so you've got to lose a month's worth of cricket. So you have 14 games, you go down to 10 games and you end up with 10 high-quality games.”

Key also suggested increasing the number of teams in the top division to 12. “I have my thing where you have your 12 best teams and one [division] below it and all that type of stuff, but whether that's how it's gonna go, I couldn't tell you. I don't think that would be a bad plan.”

Rob Key speaks to broadcasters after being appointed England Men's Cricket Managing Director
Key was outlining his plans for reform of county cricket to help produce more Test-standard batters CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES
But Key stressed that pitches in county cricket needed to be improved to help prepare players for Test matches. The average scores in the County Championship have improved notably in 2022.

“The whole system at the moment - that's not producing the players,” Key said. “We've got the talent - we've got to somehow make sure they can deliver at that level, which we haven't done as the batting suggests. And then we end up in a huge debate if you want to go down this road about county cricket pitches.

“My biggest bug - you can change the schedule, you can change the structure of county cricket, all those things, if you keep playing on those pitches that they did for the last however many years where the medium pacers - they were the bane of my life these guys who would just turn up at 70mph, dob it around and hit me in the shin.”

Key also said that Buttler, who was dropped from the Test side after a poor Ashes campaign but was the leading run-scorer in this year’s Indian Premier League, could return to the red-ball side. “I always thought that he could be an outstanding Test match batsman-wicketkeeper. I still think that.”

Key also revealed that he could appoint two new people to the vacant job of national selector, implying that there could be separate red- and white-ball selectors, but admitted his difficulties identifying suitable candidates.

“You probably, at some point, need two,” Key said. “The head selectors’ job is arguably one of the most important ones because you can have all this vision, all this philosophy, all the coaches, but if you have a selector who picks a bunch of numpties then you've got no chance have you really? But that's a tough job.

“It's a challenging job, but it's such an important job that I don't want to rush to do it. We're working fine up to a point where I can effectively chair that meeting. I can deliver the message to the media. You basically don't want bad decisions to be made. But it's a full-time role. So we need to get someone in.”

First of all - none of that is in his remit. His remit is to improve the shambles the ECB led England side has become. That's not the fault of the counties, the pandemic wasn't the fault of the counties. England will NEVER be number 1 test side for any sustained period of time it's a pipe dream.

Secondly he's clearly still in the pocket of his former paymasters at Sky who in cahoots with those numpties at the ECB would love nothing more than a shrinked down 'Barry Hearn style' game to put on the telly like made for TV sports darts or the snooker and have just 5 weeks set aside for the CC while all summer is block booked for assorted T20, T10, 16.4, 8.2 and whatever they invent when folks get bored of that trash

What on earth would that have to do with the rest of point 4 though? Bit of a dick thing to say IMHO

Former Bears supremo Neil Snowball flat bats some excellent probing questioning from Kevin Howell's broadcast during one of the lunchtimes during last week's Championship games & now available as a TMS podcast. He's certainly better at this than Harrison but hasn't totally allayed my fears over what Strauss & Brailsford etc.. have in store. Members at Warwicks and elsewhere must be consulted properly before the county is permitted to agree with the ECB in flushing much of the season down the toilet

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0c8r4v0

Another big tick for Henry Brookes too. Heis getting there. Fingers crossed he can have a big impact across formats through the summer now

Think there'll be some changes by June. Dan Mouseley will be back by then for a start. Wonder if McAndrew will stick around for the later games. I know he's scheduled to but theres always circumstances change etc... I must say I do like the fact he keeps running in and might be a long term project for Warwickshire

And the pitches will be a factor. If it stays largely dry might be handy to have an all rounder with the ability to spin the ball so Bethell and/or Lintott may come into the equation then bring Miles back if it's expected to swing round corners at Southampton aka Keith Barkershire

Pre-season game with Worcestershire he looked very sharp indeed. Only seen bits and pieces of him for the 2nds team he seems to be able to put gas on for spells when required but also bowl within himself which is a heck of a skill. If the weather stays mainly dry over summer and the pitches go rock hard I can see him possibly even getting a game or two (The Oval game in July for example) as he will be a handful even at this early stage of his development.

Well beaten today by a strong Gloucestershire 2nd XI they must have a week off from the Championship this week as had lots of first teamers in there - . Bethell looked class again but wickets falling at other end and getting bogged down so ran down the wicket and was stumped. Braithwaite must've used up all his runs for the week v Ombersley at the weekend, horrible hack again today.

Thought they'd never get that total despite the short boundaries. Johal bowled well when he came on 2 wickets in an over got us back in the game but after the rain breaks he had the same treatment Simmons and Henry Brookes had faced. Fielding was a bit sloppy although they had to contend with a wet ball. 3 dropped catches in the deep including 1 very tough chance for the keeper running back towards the boundary plus a couple of misfields being spilled over the ropes for four. 163-3 after 15 overs. Feared Duckworth Lewis would up the target significantly and was quite relieved in the end it was below 180.

Then Bethell got to work and suddenly we were 88-0 off 7 half the runs knocked off with 8 overs to go. He later ran himself out going for a very optimistic second run. Almost a formality from that point, Glamorgan kept going gamely had a drop or two of their own in the deep, but I was particularly impressed with Ethan Brookes innings. Braithwaite and Hose won't be particularly pleased with their dismissals but they were down to needing less than a run a ball by that point.

Monday 16th May 2.30pm Glamorgan home
Wednesday 18th May 11am Gloucestershire home
Thursday 19th May 1pm Worcestershire away (Barnt Green)

Hoping to get to 1 or 2 of these matches with 4 more home games to come before the end of the month