Craig's method to improve County Cricket

[Craig]

My method for County Cricket:

Since in County Cricket we have two divisions, I suggest a 3rd division for "minor counties" like Devon, Linconshire etc. play each other with all the UCCE's (Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds/Bradford etc.) with one of the "major counties" who comes last in the second division to get reglated to the third division with the winner of the third division to get promoted into the 2nd divison.

All matches in the third division will be counted as first-class. The reasoning? To give those counties in the second division a good wake up call that you dont want to get reglated as it would be the ultimate embrassment to the county. It is like getting relgated third division to the confence division in football or soccer (depends on what you call it).

The hopefull result is to make county cricket more competitive and hopefully raise the standard of it and weed those not interested in it out.

Could this work?

[age_master]

meh, just let them have 8 international players

[hourn]

as I've said thousands of time, the best bet is to reduce the amount of FC players around, by reducing the teams to 12 counties. and reduce the amount of games.

You guys just need to get rid of these guys who pick up 300-400 FC wickets, play FC coutnry cricket for 7 or 8 years, and just never even look like they will be selected for England.

There are a few that get through the system in Australia, but for every one guy like that in Ausland, theres about 5 in England.

It's not about giving everyone a go, and making it easy to get paid to play cricket. Guys need to work to get to that level, than they need to know that they just can't "flounder" in the system for a decade or more.

The government doesn't give out a license to perform surgery to everyone because they want everyone to become surgeon's.

[Bazza]

I think the standard is rising, as has been shown by Englands youngsters coming through in more recent times. I think from watching domestic cricket this summer that the standard is higher than previously also.

But there have been so many changes in the last 4-5 years, we need to slow down and take stock. It's hard to assess what affect all the changes have if you keep making more changes.

Like I say 5 years ago this was a valid topic, but since then we've had two divisions in both the championship and national league (which has gone to 45 overs), we've scrapped the B&H, brought in Twenty20, then there are central contracts, Scotland playing in the National League........

I think Michael Vaughan's recent outburst was a real cop-out when he was getting flak for England losing, and I think Worcestershire's chairman agrees with me!

[Rik]

County Cricket's biggest problem is the ammount of overseas "EU National" players taking up the places of English players. But since we are part of the EU we are not allowed to prevent an EU National from making a career here, weather it be in buisness or in professional sports. Pitches need to be sorted but over here we have the one thing we can't get rid of, the weather.

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Originally posted by Rik
over here we have the one thing we can't get rid of, the weather.

...and Mark Ramprakash.

[Langeveldt]

Originally posted by Rik
Pitches need to be sorted but over here we have the one thing we can't get rid of, the weather.

And the lack of sporting culture in the first place, too many cricket watchers rather than players in general.. Im not happy with the EU situation either.. I dont think guys like Nick Pothas are going to do the English game any good in all honesty...

I think the current setup with the divisions works fine, but only two up and two down thank you...

Bit more publicity would be nice, but you cant create that, its just a product of something being popular

[The Argonaut]

This thread comes out once per year and the same arguments are trotted out. My problem with county cricket is that quantity doesn't equal quality. The number of games needs to be decreased some how so that good coaching can be done in between games.

the current system allows players to essentially do their practice in games. If they get out they can come again in a couple of days and get another shot.

Certainly the academy that has recently started should be given time to produce some quality players and is a great step for English cricket.

[Neil Pickup]

I'd rather see four regional sixes with Devon, Lincolnshire, Scotland, Holland, Denmark and Ireland in the mix. This would cut out the problem of too many games - 12 less - and provide scope for regional level competition at the end of the season as a step between Tests and County games.

"Reducing the teams to 12 counties"

So, which ones are you going to cut? That's easy to say as an Australian with no understanding of the county loyalities in the English system.

[Craig]

That is almost impossible to cut the counties out. They will not vote themselves out of existence. Unless they have some uneducated buffons in charge.

[Tim]

Obviously Michael Vaughan disagrees with you Bazza...he's under heavy fire after questioning whether the youth players coming through are mentally tough enough for international cricket.

[chris.hinton]

I think it should be in two tiers

REGIONAL- for all the Test players and players who are too good for county and not good enough for Tests (Rampakash, Hick, Sliverwood etc)

COUNTY- for players who are not selected for Regional teams and will have to play hard and well to get to the regional teams

[Langeveldt]

Originally posted by chris.hinton
I think it should be in two tiers

REGIONAL- for all the Test players and players who are too good for county and not good enough for Tests (Rampakash, Hick, Sliverwood etc)

COUNTY- for players who are not selected for Regional teams and will have to play hard and well to get to the regional teams

Its a nice idea but in practise i would suspect that everyone goes off and watches the Regional game, so the County game would die a very quick death..

[Mr. P]

Yeah i agree with JR. It works in theory. IN THEORY!

[chris.hinton]

Originally posted by Jacques Rudolph
Its a nice idea but in practise i would suspect that everyone goes off and watches the Regional game, so the County game would die a very quick death..

No it will not