Evening. There's been a lot of talk about the County Championship's 'fitness for purpose' in the light of declining English performance in the long form of the game (particularly but not exclusively with the bat). This prompted a random thought on my way home from work.
A year or two ago I remember posting what on reflection might have been a thread that was approaching the problem from the wrong end. I asked "should the winners of the minor counties replace the bottom side in Division 2?" and the consensus seemed to be that it was simply not practical, that the parallels with the GM Vauxhall Conference and Division 4 in football were a tad false, even if it was a 'nice' idea in theory. Fair point well made.
I reflected on what this was probably getting at, namely that one of the weaknesses of the current county format is the real risk of talent in certain geographical parts of England and Wales having 'nowhere to go' and 'no obvious home' therefore drifting into club cricket or giving up the sport altogether. Large parts of the country don't have a first class county in place to naturally offer young players a shot at progression and improvement and although there's an answer to the effect of 'find your nearest one' it isn't always as straightforward as that.
I don't know what the gap is between 'good club cricket' and Minor Counties stuff but in many cases I can't imagine it being that huge, nor can the standard of coaching, facilities etc be a great improvement in a lot of cases.
So this got me musing...if you were starting with a blank canvas what would you design in terms of the English First Class competition? I'd be surprised if many people answered to the effect of what we have and my own thinking was probably something based on regions rather than counties. Another random thought that popped into my grey matter was...what on earth happened to outgrounds? A stipulation of this competition could be that the county only plays half of its matches at its 'main' ground and the other half across its regional base. This would give new people exposure to the game and a sense of representation they haven't previously had.
Something like this has been done (albeit tentatively) in the newer one day competitions but there's a lot of history there that I appreciate many will be proud of - I'd just appreciate some thoughtful, imaginative and critical (if needs be) answers to the question posed here. Many Thanks.
A year or two ago I remember posting what on reflection might have been a thread that was approaching the problem from the wrong end. I asked "should the winners of the minor counties replace the bottom side in Division 2?" and the consensus seemed to be that it was simply not practical, that the parallels with the GM Vauxhall Conference and Division 4 in football were a tad false, even if it was a 'nice' idea in theory. Fair point well made.
I reflected on what this was probably getting at, namely that one of the weaknesses of the current county format is the real risk of talent in certain geographical parts of England and Wales having 'nowhere to go' and 'no obvious home' therefore drifting into club cricket or giving up the sport altogether. Large parts of the country don't have a first class county in place to naturally offer young players a shot at progression and improvement and although there's an answer to the effect of 'find your nearest one' it isn't always as straightforward as that.
I don't know what the gap is between 'good club cricket' and Minor Counties stuff but in many cases I can't imagine it being that huge, nor can the standard of coaching, facilities etc be a great improvement in a lot of cases.
So this got me musing...if you were starting with a blank canvas what would you design in terms of the English First Class competition? I'd be surprised if many people answered to the effect of what we have and my own thinking was probably something based on regions rather than counties. Another random thought that popped into my grey matter was...what on earth happened to outgrounds? A stipulation of this competition could be that the county only plays half of its matches at its 'main' ground and the other half across its regional base. This would give new people exposure to the game and a sense of representation they haven't previously had.
Something like this has been done (albeit tentatively) in the newer one day competitions but there's a lot of history there that I appreciate many will be proud of - I'd just appreciate some thoughtful, imaginative and critical (if needs be) answers to the question posed here. Many Thanks.
