How to save county cricket

[kingstonr13]

Hello all,

This may look long, but please read it all.

For as long as I can remember, the county game has been in freefall. There's been an increasing lack of interest and attendances in both the championship and the longer one-day formats. Awareness has of course been slightly boosted by the arrival of the carnival of twenty20, which is of course fantastic, but whilst this format is enjoying generally healthy crowds it hasn't quite revived interest in the other formats quite as much as I imagine the ECB had hoped. As long as I can remember, people have also been declaring it a 'lost cause', and that we should just leave the county championship to die and just enjoy twenty20 and international cricket. But the county championship is, along with the fa cup, England's oldest and most romantic sporting tradition and I , along with many other fans, would see the death of the championship as a crime as heinous as abolishing the cup of dreams.

But I have the solution. Yes, I reckon I've cracked the bugger.


Firstly, editions to the rules of individual championship games.

Step 1, reduce championship games from 4 days down to 3, as it used to be, and allow longer hours if weather permits.

Step 2, change the batting bonus points to reflect run rate rather than innings total, eg 1 bonus point for a r/r of 4 sustained throughout an innings, 2 for a r/r of 5, 3 for a r/r of 6 etc.

Step 3, in the event of a draw all bonus points are cancelled (this would not apply to tied matches, or to matches that have had more than a third of the allocated playing time, eg one day or equivalent, lost due to weather. Losing teams will still get bonus points)


Implementing these changes would not only eradicate the kind of turgid, playing-for-draw batting which has plagued the championship of late and encourage teams to bat more adventurously and strive to achieve a result, but also relieve the pressure of a massively packed schedule that 4 day cricket forces onto its players.


Secondly, changes to the seasonal structure. (The new seasons would begin in the first week of may and conclude in the second week of september allowing for 20 'gameweeks', and thereby reducing many of the weather problems encountered in april and late september games)

The new three day games will run on a strict, synchronized schedule. Each championship 'gameweek' will begin every thursday and last until saturday. Because there are and odd number of teams in each division, there will be two teams without a match to play every week. As happens at the moment, these teams will play tour games, universities and other friendly matches. Because there are 20 gameweeks in a season and only 18 will be filled up by championship games, there will be two free weeks. The respective finals for the two limited overs competitions will occur on these two weeks, so they wont be affected by tv clashes (more on that later). This new scheduling will allow spectators to stay easily abreast of goings on throughout the season, and due to the matches ending on saturdays it will draw larger audiences for the finale of each game.

There will be two limited over competitions: the 40 over tournament and the twenty20 tournament. These will be competed by the 18 counties plus scotland and the netherlands, and they will be played on alternating sundays, that is, one sunday pro40, the next sunday twenty20 etc. (although there will be far more t20 played than pro40 due to demand and competition structure. there will be in total 8 sundays of pro 40 and 12 sundays of t20)

The pro40 tournament: four groups of five, each team playing the others just once. The top two teams in each group progress to the quarter finals, where each tie will be drawn from a hat similar to the fa cup, and it will be a straight knockout from there, meaning the finalists will play 7 pro40 games across a season. a game that is rained off will be played on the following monday, tuesday or wednesday. The pro40 starts on the sunday before the championship season starts.


The t20 tournament: two divisions of ten, north and south. Scotland participate in the northern division, netherlands in the south. The teams play each other just once. the top 4 teams from each division will then progress to a quarter final stage. As with the pro40, the quarter final games will be drawn from a hat and a straight knockout will follow.

As said before, the finals will take place on the two weeks of the season during which the championship isnt being played: the pro40 final on the week before the last championship gameweek of the season, the t20 final on the week after.


Sunday being a day off for most of the public, both one day competitions could be well attended, with individual counties offering cheaper prices to families.


I understand that what I've written may be a lot to take in, and possibly ambiguous, so I've taken the liberty of typing out the dates of a hypothetical 2013 season under these new rules:

Sunday 28th April: Pro40 group stage

Thursday 2nd-saturday 4th may: first round of championship games

Sunday 5th may: T20 group stage

Thurs 9th-sat 11th may: 2nd round of championship games

Sunday 12th: T20 group stage

Thurs 16th-sat 18th: 3rd round of championship games

Sunday 19th: pro40 group stage

thurs 23rd-sat 25th: 4th round

Sunday 26th: T20 group stage

thurs 30th may-Sat 1st June: 5th round

Sun 2nd June: pro40 Group Stage

Thurs 6th-sat 8th: 6th round

sun 9th: t20 group stage

thurs 13th-sat 15th: 7th round

sun 16th: t20 group stage

thurs 20th-sat 22nd: 8th round

sun 23rd: t20 group stage

thurs 27th-sat 29th: 9th round

sun 30th: pro40 group stage

thurs 4th july-sat 6th july: 10th round

sun 7th: t20 group stage

thurs 11th-sat 13th: 11th round

sun 14th: t20 group stage

thurs 18th-sat 20th: 12th round

sun 21st: pro40 group stage (end of group stages)

thurs 25th-sat 27th: 13th round

sun 28th: t20 group stage (end of group stages)

Thurs 1st august-sat 3rd august: 14th round

sun 4th: pro40 quarter finals

thurs 8th-sat 10th: 15th round

sun 11th: pro40 semi finals

thurs 15th-sat 17th: 16th round

sun 18th: t20 quarter finals

thurs 22nd-sat 24th: 17th round

sun 25th: t20 semi finals

sun 2nd september: t20 final (earlier date allowing entry to champions league t20)

thurs 5th-sat 7th: final round of championship games

sun 16th september: pro40 final



"Hang on", I hear you shout, "It's all very well and good to reschedule and restructure the season to make it more convenient to punters, but surely that alone is not enough to truly rejuvenate the county game?"

Well here is the crux of this entire hypothesis: television.

Cricket now gets absolutely no coverage on free-to-view television in britain. Before t20 came along, the old domestic 50 over comp (the natwest trophy) was extensively covered by the bbc, with games shown in their entirety from the semi final stage onwards. This tournament was incredibly well attended by modern standards, and the latter stages were frequently sold out. Before that, the bbc showed regular highlights programmes of the championship throughout the season, occasionally even covering an entire match. Back then, the championship managed pretty healthy crowds. Nowadays, the pro40 games you see on sky struggle to fill half a stadium, and the championship can barely hold in 50 people a day.

With regards the limited overs competitions, I think it would still be necessary for sky to have rights to the earlier stages of the tournaments because the money involved would be invaluable to the counties. Similar to the champions league in football however, the final and perhaps semi final stages would be broadcast on free-to-view telly.

As for the championship, consider bbc4. Here is a channel that, since the digital switch, is available to all households in britain. It doesn't broadcast between the hours of 5.30 am to
7 pm.

Therefore, given that the bbc and the ecb are both there for the prime reason of entertaining and serving the british public, I believe they could come to a mutually beneficial deal whereby the bbc would subsidise the counties a small amount, and show the championship games on bbc4 during the day when it isnt broadcasting anything else. The bbc already runs online radio commentary of every championship game, so why not transfer that to television, and broadcast the games to the corresponding local catchment areas, eg somerset vs yorkshire broadcast to bbc south west and bbc yorkshire. Given that the counties would have season long television coverage, they could charge far more for the privilege to advertise in their stadia, or sponsor their shirts, which would take budget pressure off gate receipts therefore allowing them to reduce ticket prices therefore attracting more punters, all of whom have been made more aware of county cricket by television, and to whom the games are now much more accessible due to the change in schedule! Happy times!


Finally, I also think that england should be playing much lest test cricket. I think the england team should host only one series every the summer and then go on only one tour in the winter like they used to while playing less one day cricket in the process. This would allow the box office international players to spend more time at their counties, thus attracting more people!

For cricket is best enjoyed in numbers people, and this is something that could be achieved.

Tell me what you think, and suggest any changes you might make below! look forward to responses

 

[Daemon]

give free tickets to children and uni students

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

I used to rock up at Chelmsford in the afternoon and get in for free when I was at school there. Do they not do that any more?

 

[LongHopCassidy]

Needs a total overhaul of pitches. Acts of God aside, there's no excuse for turning out soft decks with no bounce that discourages both batsmen and bowlers. Either bouncy, seamy, or spinny. End of.

Excellent stuff in the OP regarding sustained run rates. I'd also scale back the bonus point deadline - amount of runs/wickets after 120 overs - back to 100 or even 90 overs. Maybe a win bonus for second-innings declarations.

Would like to see a return of Combined Universities as a gimmick team in Pro40 and Twenty20, and maybe even an equivalent to Barbarians in rugby. Also bring in the Irish to the regular circuit.

What's the average admission fee for a day of county cricket?

 

[marc71178]

Can't see Sky going for the whole TV thing, what with them having paid for the rights and all that.

I'd also not call 2 or 3 games coverage of a tournament "extensive"

 

[fredfertang]

I don't think there's anything you can do with the LVCC that hasn't been tried already in terms of the playing conditions - the current system has its flaws, most notably too many games finishing far too early, but imo its still better than when the games were three days, and certainly better than under any of the artificial rules that have been tried in order to "speed up" the first innings.

The real loss for the county game has been the loss of the two big one day finals which used to attract full houses and loads of interest - the YB40 is just a nonsense, and the T20 just isn't the same - I also thing the county game suffers much more than the international game from the loss of free to air TV - Sky have no real interest in the LVCC - the idea of using BBC4 to show that is well worth a try imo - I don't think it would revolutionise anything, but it might have an impact

 

[Howe_zat]

I also think the county game suffers much more than the international game from the loss of free to air TV - Sky have no real interest in the LVCC - the idea of using BBC4 to show that is well worth a try imo - I don't think it would revolutionise anything, but it might have an impact

Agree with this, but I think youtube streaming is the way forward.

Sorting out the fixture list is part of this too, there's no way in for the casual fan when simply wanting to know which games are on is such a labyrinth.

 

[wpdavid]

3 day games became untenable when they started to cover the pitches. You ended up with artificial situations with joke bowlers sending down a couple of hours of filth to set up a declaration. Two divisions has created a problem whereby players in Div 2 don't develop as they should because they're up against 2nd raters, and the selectors have to try and work out how to weigh uip their performances against those playing in Div 1.

Dead right about the 2020 group games only being played home or away instead of both.

 

[Pothas]

Honestly I don't think there is that much wrong with county cricket, not the championship at any rate.

 

[Furball]

Actually, with the OP's proposals there's absolutely no need to cut Championship games down to 3 days at all.

Pretty decent ideas all told.

 

[Woodster]

Interesting read, and I have read the OP but haven't given your re-arranged schedule enough thought just yet. Just a few opinions of my own, I personally don't like the idea of changing the Championship back to three-day games, there has to be a balance with what this competition attempts to achieve - yes we want exciting cricket to bring the crowds in and produce exciting positive cricket, but it is also there to produce cricketers to play Test cricket, batsman to bat long periods of time, bowlers to bowl several spells and learn patience in taking wickets by bowling with accuracy and using their heads. Three-day games will just promote another fast food style format with a lot of compromised targets being set to get a result, which can actually make for tedious cricket for much of the game but result in an exciting finale.

I agree with some of the previous comments, I don't think there's anything major wrong with the Championship and nothing sufficient to prompt an overhaul of the current format. I do think if they want bigger crowds certain concessions must be made, like at some grounds free entry after a given time, free to kids, and generally lower prices, etc. I'd be surprised if the crowds at CC games have dropped that much over the years, it's generally never filled grounds as far as I know, but is fulfilling a very important role in domestic and English cricket (and also for other Test nations who send their players over here to develop their games).

For me the LO tournaments have to reflect international cricket, so it would have to be 50-over comp and a T20 comp.

I love the idea of the CC being accessible either on TV or on an internet stream, whichever is most viable. To be able to watch four-day cricket whenever possible would be fantastic, but that's only a personal thing, not sure it would do much for introducing new people to domestic cricket mind.

Fair play to Kingston for giving this so much thought, especially in looking at the schedule.

 

[Dan]

The only issue with that schedule is the constant swapping between formats; George Bailey went on record earlier this year saying he reckoned the constant changes affected his longer-form results quite badly. So swapping FC --> List A --> FC --> T20 all year would place a huge toll on the players.

Perhaps leave T20 as a block in the middle of the year, and do the week-to-week format as 16 FC matches with however many OD matches alongside (if you go with 8, an FC match a week, and a OD game every second weekend) with a 4-week T20 bloc in the middle.

 

[NUFAN]

Good read. The change to 3 day games and having bonus points for very high run rates prevents batsman from toughing out an innings IMO.

Even though I'm just a casual scorecard observer the allocation of points is something that I think needs fixing, its too confusing and I think its a bit silly that teams declare 9 down sometimes to prevent the bowling team an extra point, its just... not Cricket.

 

[Goughy]

Agreed but in 3 day cricket bowlers had to be able to take wickets. Of course there were far too many manufactured results but it also put a premium on wicket waking and top order scoring runs. It was far from perfect and I am not saying it should be reintroduced but it did have its own particular merits.

 

[Furball]

I think there's pros and cons to both formats; I'd rather 4 day cricket purely to be as close to Test cricket as possible.

 

[Cabinet96]

The real loss for the county game has been the loss of the two big one day finals which used to attract full houses and loads of interest - the YB40 is just a nonsense, and the T20 just isn't the same

What is nonsense about the YB40 and why isn't the T20 the same? I'm not saying you're wrong FTR, I'm genuinely curious because I've only been following the county game for a handful of years. What was different about the other one day finals that made them so much more appealing?

Agree with this, but I think youtube streaming is the way forward.

This. Cricket Australia know the way forward in that regard. It's actually a bit odd that I can watch more Sheffield Shield cricket than Championship cricket.

 

[kingstonr13]

Based on the replies, the transition from 4 to 3 day cricket has been the least popular of my suggestions. I was also intrigued by dans suggestion to have a mid season slot in which the entire t20 tournament is taken care of, during which there is a hiatus of championship and list a cricket.

I still firmly believe there should be a much more regular schedule, with a standardized weekly start time for both championship and list a games because as a relatively new convert to the domestic game I can tell you easily the most off-putting aspect is the extraordinarily congested and muddled fixture schedule.

With this in mind, a few editions to the masterplan:

-games remain 4 days, and start on wednesdays.

-season runs from 3rd week of april to 3rd week of september, totalling 23 weeks.

-kick one of the smaller and more financially troubled counties out, and make a 17 team single division.

-with each team playing 16 games, and an odd number of teams participating, there will be 17 weeks of championship cricket a season.

-this leaves 6 weeks free, I suggest a 4 week slot in the midseason to get the t20 group stages out of the way, and two weeks later on in the season for the later stages to take place, with the two semis and the final taking place on the same day to save time.

this means that the sundays of the 'championship weeks' would all be devoted to list a, so there is no overkill with constantly changing formats.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

The Kiwi cricket season has a 20:20 window in it over Christmas/New Year and whilst that works really well for the passing fans to know when 20:20 will be on, it does mean that the only domestic TV coverage is over Christmas and it seems a bit odd to have a 6 weeks - 2 month break in the 4 day competition during which players who had form lose it and vice versa. Especially concerning is ensuring that the First Class competition coincides with Test cricket so you can pick form players if required. This can be a problem if the only cricket on at that time is 20:20.

 

[fredfertang]

What is nonsense about the YB40 and why isn't the T20 the same? I'm not saying you're wrong FTR, I'm genuinely curious because I've only been following the county game for a handful of years. What was different about the other one day finals that made them so much more appealing?

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the idea of YB40 type competition, though I would still have thought a YB50 would be better, but I find working out what is going on in it quite tricky because of the piecemeal fixture list (although I appreciate Sky dictate that) - so must confess I don't follow it, although the main reason for that is that when I look at the teams Lanky select for it, they clearly don't take it too seriously so I assume (perhaps wrongly) that the other counties don't either

Ultimately though I suspect my views are a bit on the old "rose tinted spectacles" side - when I was a lad the CC was cricket's equivalent of the First Division, the old Benson and Hedges Cup of the League Cup, and the old 60 over Gillette/Nat West competition was like the FA Cup - I struggle to compare the YB40 to the old cups, and the T20 just seems to me to be increasingly like a different sport that is moving more towards the IPL model - I'm not saying its necessarily a bad thing, and certainly enjoy T20 more than I used to, but to go back to my childhood footballing comparisons it strikes me as a bit like the old 5 a side tournaments that used to turn up on "Sportsnight with Coleman" on a Wednesday night - enjoyable enough, with some terrific displays of skill, but just not the real thing, and the YB40 a sort of Simod Cup (for those who don't recall it it was a competition for the sides in the top two divisions that the big clubs didn't take seriously hence my one visit to the old Wembley was to watch Reading beat Luton 4-1 in the final in a year they were struggling in the old second division)

 

[Cabinet96]

I definitely think the YB40 should be the YB50. Think England is the only test playing nation that plays 40 over cricket as its domestic one dayers.