howardj in anti-market forces shocker?Why not? I bet the English (like cricket lovers the world over) yearn for a game between great franchises (or entities/conglomerates) like the South London Super Zebras versus the South West London Super Rhinos. Matches where we can have 15 metre boundaries; sixes every second ball (instead of every third ball, which I find too little). And fortnightly trades and auctions, so we don't get bored watching the same players (or units, as I like to call them) playing for the same franchises. You know, mix and match, bells and whistles.
Get on board. The way of the future.
Absolutely agree.I mean, I have no problem with the domestic T20 comp here in Australia, as:
- it's restricted to a small window of three weeks (therefore there's not an overload);
- we have real teams, with a history, who haven't been just made up for the purposes of the competition itself;
- we have players who haven't been allocated to teams via an auction.
For mine, that's more meaningful than some made up comp that features franchises, and which drags on and on.
I'm sure many people in England feel the same way about their domestic T20 comp.
Why not? I bet the English (like cricket lovers the world over) yearn for a game between great franchises (or entities/conglomerates) like the South London Super Zebras versus the South West London Super Rhinos. Matches where we can have 15 metre boundaries; sixes every second ball (instead of every third ball, which I find too little). And fortnightly trades and auctions, so we don't get bored watching the same players (or units, as I like to call them) playing for the same franchises. You know, mix and match, bells and whistles.
Get on board. The way of the future.
Yes agree with that last, there is some hope that the Pro40 might be "junked" (to borrow Matthew Engel's phrase in last year's Wisden) though that won't be happening until 2011 IIRR at the earliest, as the TV schedule is locked-in until 2010. I've always thought the Pro40 an utterly useless competition.To be honest... I hope they pull their fingers out and do something out about our county season. I think that's for the good of our first-class game as well as the T20.
And they can start by scrapping the Pro40, which is completely pointless.
Yeah maybe but I still personally think three divisions of six is better then the current set up. There seems to be very little difference between each division with the current set up. Which sort of defeats the intial purpose of making divisions.While I feel that 6-8 teams is probably best from a Twenty20 standpoint (much as I don't care a damn about the standard there) the fact that this country has produced cricketers of calibre with 18 First-Class\one-day teams for about 150 years kinda negates the notion that it's too many under any circumstances.
Im not so sure. It would have a whiff of exhibition game to it.If Mick Jagger bought the London franchise and you had a similar no. of stars to the IPL (doubtful), ground would be packed with people who'd ordinarily spend their Tuesday night in the boozer
Market research for 20/20 undertaken "a few years ago" is ancient historyWell - they might be.
However, one would have a better idea about this if they'd undertaken market-research. Which the ECB did a few years ago. I doubt you did, however.
Why not? I bet the English (like cricket lovers the world over) yearn for a game between great franchises (or entities/conglomerates) like the South London Super Zebras versus the South West London Super Rhinos. Matches where we can have 15 metre boundaries; sixes every second ball (instead of every third ball, which I find too little). And fortnightly trades and auctions, so we don't get bored watching the same players (or units, as I like to call them) playing for the same franchises. You know, mix and match, bells and whistles.
Get on board. The way of the future.
The interesting thing is that we already know which teams would go. The controversy would be over whether to start the process rather than which Counties do not become a Franchise.I can see why counties would be anti any, er, streamlining of their ranks (turkeys not voting for Xmas & all), but I think a reduction is not just desirable but inevitable. I'd feel desperately sorry for the fans of the counties who did get the chop, but in other sports some proud old names have been merged or gone to the wall too.