Plan for Minor counties to join Division Two as part of domestic shake-up

[Blenkinsop]

I would argue that having the counties be at the top of the domestic tree is pretty fundamental to English cricket and to a lot of its supporter base, and that should not be watered down. If you grow up in rural England, you won't have a natural association with a football or rugby team, because those are all city-based. Cricket is the only major sport where you can feel like an elite team is 'yours' geographically speaking. How many people in Somerset or Kent or Worcestershire have a premiership football team that belongs to their home region?

Here's an idea. If you want to make county cricket more competitive, how about splitting it into two phases. In the first half of the season, counties compete in a league structure. The six or eight counties that come out top then go through to a second competition later in the season where they are allowed to recruit up to five players on loan from teams that didn't make it. Then, say, the likes of Ollie Robinson wouldn't be doomed to play substandard cricket all year, because they'd get picked up by one of the counties that did make it through.

 

[wpdavid]

I would argue that having the counties be at the top of the domestic tree is pretty fundamental to English cricket and to a lot of its supporter base, and that should not be watered down. If you grow up in rural England, you won't have a natural association with a football or rugby team, because those are all city-based. Cricket is the only major sport where you can feel like an elite team is 'yours' geographically speaking. How many people in Somerset or Kent or Worcestershire have a premiership football team that belongs to their home region?

Here's an idea. If you want to make county cricket more competitive, how about splitting it into two phases. In the first half of the season, counties compete in a league structure. The six or eight counties that come out top then go through to a second competition later in the season where they are allowed to recruit up to five players on loan from teams that didn't make it. Then, say, the likes of Ollie Robinson wouldn't be doomed to play substandard cricket all year, because they'd get picked up by one of the counties that did make it through.

That only might work is if the structure in the first half of the season involved two leagues, each with 9 teams, with the top 3 or 4 progressing to the second competition. Because obviously there isn't time to play all 17 other counties unless the league starts in February. Not sure about signing players from other counties, although I get the logic. Maybe that just me being resistant for no good reason though. You'd need to think about what happens to the counties who don't make the final six or eight. They'd probably have to be divided into two leagues, otherwise they're playing another 22 or 18 matches and finishing around the end of October. And there would need to be some kind of point to those matches.