Furball fixes English cricket

[GIMH]

I'll try and finalise my suggestions over the next week, I'm only half done.

oh god won't somebody think of the children

 

[Scaly piscine]

Big yes to this. The half dozen games of County Cricket I've attended have always ended play before 6pm - even in bright sunshine. Scheduling 90 overs in a day has no logic if this rule doesn't have any flexibility to allow more overs in good conditions.

Don't know if you're referring to me with 90 overs or the current CC setup which is a minimum of 96 overs per day.

Should certainly be more flexibility to make up overs with the 4-day 96 overs set up though.

 

[fredfertang]

I too would like more overseas players, but the problem is with Kolpak if you have more, plus them it'll really become an all-forn League.

Would love up to 3, but all top quality. I never understood when two were taken away. Because, yeah it really hurt our bowlers having to bowl against Greenidge and Barry Richards.

Don't know how it can be policed though.

They could just turn it on its head and say counties have to play 8 or even 7 men qualified to play Test cricket for England

 

[Furball]

Just worked out that a combined Yorkshire/Durham XI would look something like this:

Lyth
Borthwick
Ballance
Root
Collingwood
Stokes
Bairstow
Rashid
Wood
Plucknett
Sidebottom

With the likes of Bresnan, that young Yorkshire bat who's name escapes me not in the XI. That's bloody strong for a domestic XI.

 

[wpdavid]

Lees?

It looks a strong XI until we consider how most of them have gotten on when exposed to test match opponents.
And I think you're pushing your luck with Colly at his present age.

I reckon we could both come up with stronger two-county XIs from our time watching the game.
Middlesex and Notts in the early 1980s spring immediately to mind. Or Surrey and Lancashire in the late 1990's maybe.

Of course, none of that changes the fact that Yorkshire are head & shoulders above anyone else domestically. But I wonder whether Yorks and Notts could provide an even better combined side.

 

[Daemon]

Might want to approach Cairns or Mazhar Majeed for some tips

 

[honestbharani]

I believe he was trained by the best aka Salim Malik...

 

[wpdavid]

Lees?

It looks a strong XI until we consider how most of them have gotten on when exposed to test match opponents.
And I think you're pushing your luck with Colly at his present age.

I reckon we could both come up with stronger two-county XIs from our time watching the game.
Middlesex and Notts in the early 1980s spring immediately to mind. Or Surrey and Lancashire in the late 1990's maybe.

Of course, none of that changes the fact that Yorkshire are head & shoulders above anyone else domestically. But I wonder whether Yorks and Notts could provide an even better combined side.

EDIT
Make that Surrey and Yorkshire in the late 1990's/early 2000's. The latter's quicks plus Vaughan & McGrath combined with the former's batting lineup would have been a more than decent XI.

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

I believe he was trained by the best aka Salim Malik...

noted student of manoj prabhakar

 

[honestbharani]

lol... will never forget how Prabhakar tried to become a Member of the Indian Parliament. And then Azhar became one.

 

[Furball]

EDIT
Make that Surrey and Yorkshire in the late 1990's/early 2000's. The latter's quicks plus Vaughan & McGrath combined with the former's batting lineup would have been a more than decent XI.

The reason I've combined Yorkshire and Durham is because those two would actually join to form one franchise under my proposed system. So I'm using them as a really good example of how much stronger the domestic setup could be.

 

[honestbharani]

Dont RSA already have like the perfect FC set up? There is a regional competition that feeds into the franchise competition. I would rather see the same model happen in India where we can have the IPL franchises play all 3 formats (international players can play based on availability, maybe a window to ensure they are all there for the T20 phase alone from the ICC would help). Basically we have the zonal competitions like Duleep and Deodhar Trophies that can be instead played for by the IPL franchises. This way, the regional competition would be a feeder to the franchises and the franchises can then feed into the national team as this competition would be of a higher standard. If that is what you are essentially proposing for England too, then I think it will work out well for you guys.

 

[Daemon]

Dont RSA already have like the perfect FC set up? There is a regional competition that feeds into the franchise competition. I would rather see the same model happen in India where we can have the IPL franchises play all 3 formats (international players can play based on availability, maybe a window to ensure they are all there for the T20 phase alone from the ICC would help). Basically we have the zonal competitions like Duleep and Deodhar Trophies that can be instead played for by the IPL franchises. This way, the regional competition would be a feeder to the franchises and the franchises can then feed into the national team as this competition would be of a higher standard. If that is what you are essentially proposing for England too, then I think it will work out well for you guys.

Nah think of the logistics of it all. Why would the IPL team owners bother with FC and OD? It just doesn't make sense. There's way too many teams which is diluting the current competition but that just isn't the solution.

The Duleep trophy should definitely be longer though.

 

[wpdavid]

The reason I've combined Yorkshire and Durham is because those two would actually join to form one franchise under my proposed system. So I'm using them as a really good example of how much stronger the domestic setup could be.

Now I'm with you. Sorry, I lost track of what the thread was about.

fwiw I completely agree about regions/franchises as a basis for the four-day domestic competition. Not so sure about the one-day cups, which probably gain something from being single counties.

Beyond that, take the 2020 group stage back to one game against each other instead of the home and away version which came in about 10 years ago. Which would make it easier to play more of the county games in our warmer months instead of cramming them into the colder climes. I still maintain that the decline in the quality of players being produced can be traced back to doubling the number of group-stage 2020 games.

 

[marc71178]

Problem with cutting back the T20 is that that is where the counties make their money - could only do that with a much higher ECB subsidy and then that would negatively affect the bigger sides who get more people in for T20s.

 

[honestbharani]

Nah think of the logistics of it all. Why would the IPL team owners bother with FC and OD? It just doesn't make sense. There's way too many teams which is diluting the current competition but that just isn't the solution.

The Duleep trophy should definitely be longer though.

They may not but it will help their brands stay around the national conscious longer. And it will hardly cost them too much more if it is just mostly Indian FC players they will have to pay and keep with them, Ideally BCCI should have made that a condition when franchises were auctioned to the owners but it may still not be too late to try now, I feel. With better infrastructure, more money and better coaching and fitness management, it might help us get the best FC set up around.

 

[wpdavid]

Problem with cutting back the T20 is that that is where the counties make their money - could only do that with a much higher ECB subsidy and then that would negatively affect the bigger sides who get more people in for T20s.

I'm not trying to be facetious, but how did the counties cope financially before the 2020 group stages became home and away? Especially as that would have been before Sky took over coverage of our test matches, with the massive cash injection that followed.

If I am right about the damaging effect of so many 2020 matches, to keep them on the basis of extra revenue would be extraordinarily short-sighted anyway. Given that I have no idea where our 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th genuine test batsmen are going to come from, or the next generation of quicks after Jimmy and Broad retire, or a couple of convincing spinners, you'd have to be a something of a masochist to watch our test team in 3 or 4 years time, so the test-match revenue's going to decline anyway. Not a happy thought, I know.

 

[theegyptian]

Agreed 14 T20s in the group stages is way too many.

I often think there needs to be a bit more regional groups stages in some of the comps. Would cut down travelling for the players, Local derbies are always money and well supported, potentially would cut down the overall fixture list.

Groups of 3 or 6 (or 4 or 5 if you add two invitational teams (Scotland, Ireland, Nepal, Netherlands, England u19s, minor counties, Unicorns? or whoever), Which could then go into knockouts or further groups.)

50 over cricket isn't a success at county level. It's my understanding the clubs much preferred the 40 over comps as it allowed later starts and as a result got much better attendances and was easier on the players. But they changed it back to the 50 over stuff because it replicates international cricket and gives the players the best chance of success you'd expect.

 

[GIMH]

1. A New Top Level

One of the fundamental problems with the English game is the sheer number of counties which dilutes the talent in the First Class game, and the sheer volume of cricket that gets played in the English First Class summer. On the one hand, the volume of cricket can be a good thing because of amount of experience a player can get - 5 seasons worth of County Cricket sees a player play 80 FC games in England as opposed to a maximum of 55 games in Shield Cricket down under - but IMO there's a happy medium that needs to be met.

And I think that happy medium is 8 First Class franchises. This does not mean abolishing the County game as it is altogether - I would move County Cricket to a 3 day format, and it would no longer be the top level of the game in much the same way that South African Provincial cricket functions - but simply that I would introduce a new level above County Cricket. And I would involve the counties themselves by making the counties the stakeholders in each of the FC franchises. Each Franchise would be based at one of the main 8 Test grounds, with at least one of the lesser FC counties also taking an equal stake in the new franchise. Based on Geography, this would leave the 8 Franchises being:

Yorkshire (Durham)
Lancashire (Derbyshire)
Nottinghamshire (Leicestershire)
Warwickshire (Worcestershire, Northamptonshire)
Middlesex (Essex)
Surrey (Kent)
Hampshire (Sussex)
Glamorgan (Gloucestershire, Somerset)

So that would be 8 teams in all 3 major competitions - First Class, List A and Twenty20. Each franchise would be allowed to sign one overseas player (subject to strict eligibility criteria), with more allowed for Twenty20 cricket. More on this later.

This would concentrate the talent within the English game, strengthening it at the top level.

Part 2: April and May.

This is actually what they did when creating the Hundred Teams. Only a couple of variants in terms of who the counties in brackets would be.

Obviously wasn’t done with First Class but still worrying to see that Furball may have got something right

 

[sledger]

The Hundred is such a Furball thing to create