Furball fixes English cricket

[brockley]

I think maybe 3/4 new counties,problem is the lack of talented youth going round.There is already a bunch of Aussies,S Africans,Scottish and Irish going round in 2nds.A Scotland team would be good most the Scottish team are not on contract,or playing 2nds on trial.

 

[Pothas]

Yeah I certainly think in the current system 2 teams being promoted/relegated in a division of 9 is too many.

Yeah I would probably make it 1, or maybe 1 automatic and then a play-off to see if there is a second spot, quite ridiculous that it used to be 3.

 

[fredfertang]

Agree, and make the change retrospective

 

[GIMH]

This isn't 'Furball fixes Australian cricket' ****

Good point, it's Furball ruins English cricket

 

[Prince EWS]

or maybe 1 automatic and then a play-off to see if there is a second spot

Yeah, I quite like this idea.

 

[swede]

So remove all facilities etc and players will improve - OK.

As for the ECB grants, well without it Somerset would've lost over £1.5m last year (only using them as I've got their accounts in front of me to disprove your other points).



I got the £460k from their accounts, ignoring the memberships as you initially claimed.

You clearly don't know what you're talking about finance wise - £1.5m would cover about 60% of their playing staff costs, and there's other costs as well.

Also, yes income will go up, because of inflation but guess what else goes up because of inflation - that's right, costs.

Oh, and for average of 4,000, try about 3,500 per match, so if you have 10,000 at a game then you have a lot of games with almost nobody there. Oh, and they did get 20,000 at Yorkshire 70 years ago, but I'm not sure how that's relevant now?



How does £15m finance 7-8 new counties, paying them magic beans again are you?

come on, its ridiculous to claim that profesional cricket depends on grants just because they actually use their grants. what if a county got a grant to restore old oil paintings in the pavillion, does that then make pro cricket depend on that. You must know how ridiculous this is, meaning you are probably not really interested in the discussion. Whether pro cricket is sustainable depends on the essential costs only. I am all for academies etc but its not essential. Especially not in any new minor county. There is plenty of Money in the game and its only increasing. and inflation? please...

yes 15m is easily enough for 7-8 new counties. In fact its enough for 15 new counties as I think a halved grant is enough for a minor county side. Especially considering that several of the minor counties have more potential than some of the major. Three of the weakest first class counties are in the Midlands right NeXT to eachother whereas potentially bigger counties like Norfolk or Devon and Cornwall are ignored. The reason for this is just history and most likely that they were conveniently located between Lancashire/ Yorkshire and the big London teams where as Devon and Cornwall was too much travel. Other minor counties with obvious potential would be the likes of Oxford and Berskhire, part of the Thames Valley which was recently named the richest region in all of europe. Its hard core cricket demographic. Yet they cant get promoted because Leicester have a god-given right to stay above them.

 

[Jono]

Good point, it's Furball ruins English cricket

Since Furball made this thread England only got worse, so hard to argue with this right now.

 

[swede]

I reckon make the CC two divisions of 11 and 7. The 11 play against each other once (10 matches each). The 7 play each other home and away (12 matches each). 1 promotion/relegation spot.

Durham are the only side not to have been in Division Two. It shouldn't be so easy to go down. There needs to be more stability in the top flight to promote some of the elitism in the top division like is seen in rugby. There needs to be a bigger gulf in quality.

I would also suggest other differentiation between the two divisions. More Test-like playing conditions in Division 1 - 5 days of 90 overs each. So teams in the two divisions play roughly the same number of days (Division sticks to the 4 days of 96 overs stuff). More foreign players allowed in Division 1.

Generally speaking I would have County Cricket start later in the day whenever possible. I don't see any advantage to finishing at 5.30pm when a lot of people come and watch after school/work etc. and the light is perfectly good for a long time after for most of the season.

The problem with cutting the number of matches is that in reality several will be rain-affected. Others will end in a heavy innings-defeat and counties also tend to change their starting XI. Combined just 10 matches will lead to quite a lot of players playing very little cricket.

playing later in the day has been tried regular through history and never really worked. Not that many, if any, show up after work and more people willing to attend during the day tend to stay away or leave earlier. The problem is that 11-6 Means setting aside the day, whereas say, 1-8 Means setting aside both day and evening and feels far longer. Its a bigger commitment for some and too Little for others.

 

[Scaly piscine]

I reckon make the CC two divisions of 11 and 7. The 11 play against each other once (10 matches each). The 7 play each other home and away (12 matches each). 1 promotion/relegation spot.

Durham are the only side not to have been in Division Two. It shouldn't be so easy to go down. There needs to be more stability in the top flight to promote some of the elitism in the top division like is seen in rugby. There needs to be a bigger gulf in quality.

I would also suggest other differentiation between the two divisions. More Test-like playing conditions in Division 1 - 5 days of 90 overs each. So teams in the two divisions play roughly the same number of days (Division sticks to the 4 days of 96 overs stuff). More foreign players allowed in Division 1.

Generally speaking I would have County Cricket start later in the day whenever possible. I don't see any advantage to finishing at 5.30pm when a lot of people come and watch after school/work etc. and the light is perfectly good for a long time after for most of the season.

Just to further explain some of this. The reason I would like to see ten 5-day matches is because I think at the moment things are skewed too much towards medium pace guys who can keep plodding away throughout a season along with over rates being a factor. Obviously there's too much of a workload generally with 16 4-day games, and then you have extra overs bowled in those days. I would also lower the points for a win so there's more incentive towards good 4/5 day cricket wickets which are more like what you'd see in Test cricket. Should also mean spin bowlers get more of a chance.

Durham for instance have a few players who can threaten 90 mph, but they spend a lot of time injured. The most important player last season was Rushworth who's more like 80mph. The situation is replicated at other counties although not many other 90mph bowlers about.

Having more international players allowed in the top flight should also help the quality as well, and help squeeze out some of the lower calibre players into Division 2 or out of the game entirely. I would hope there'd be more player loans with players in Division One going to Division Two to get regular games.

Whilst there would be some differences between the two divisions they're not difficult for teams transitioning between the two.

 

[grecian]

Utter twaddle GF, if you don't mind me saying.

In the end, the bringing in of two Divisions has heralded an infinitely better Test team then we had for perhaps 30 years beforehand.

The problem with the English game is hardly at schools play cricket, and now no-one can watch the game on terrestrial TV, there's no pressing urge from young uns to do it.

So more Counties given us more Youth Academies, would make much more sense, not disenfranchising huge swathes of the country. It's all very well saying there will still be County cricket, but it'd almost be second XI in importance. 3-day cricket is also an absolutely astoundingly bad idea, as someone that lived through the contrived horror, and terrible pitches to enable results, 4-day cricket is the best thing that happened to our game.

I don't really get this entire hysteria, we lost one series to Oz 5-0, but we're still producing young players of quality, we're in a re-building period, all teams have them at times.

Obviously we're hideous at ODI's so yes maJor restructuring for them maybe wise. They're already not proper cricket, so you can **** about with them all you like.

EDIT IMPORTANT POINT: Pews is agreeing with you, he probably thinks your idea will lead to a Libertarian free-market rise-to-the-top, ****-the-poor political idyll, this should prove to you it's utter bollox, if nothing else will.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Yeah, I quite like this idea.

Where do you put it in the calendar though? The season's already designed to play as long as weather allows.

 

[honestbharani]

Where do you put it in the calendar though? The season's already designed to play as long as weather allows.

yeah.. this was my question as well... I like the principle of having franchise cricket in between county cricket and international cricket but honestly, I would think it would work more in a country like India where we can pretty much play all year around than in England where even the summer games get rained off often enough...

 

[Pothas]

Where do you put it in the calendar though? The season's already designed to play as long as weather allows.

One extra game, can't imagine it would be all that difficult.

I think the county championship is generally fine (I would allow two overseas though) and I actually like the Thursday/Friday night twenty20 although it probably needs to start a bit later.

The only thing I really think needs changing is the 50 over competition, far too many meaningless game in all its recent incarnations. I used to like the straight knockout, if space could be made I would like to see it brought back, maybe with a much shorter version of the current thing.

 

[Prince EWS]

EDIT IMPORTANT POINT: Pews is agreeing with you, he probably thinks your idea will lead to a Libertarian free-market rise-to-the-top, ****-the-poor political idyll, this should prove to you it's utter bollox, if nothing else will.

Haha, I think there have been some good suggestions in this thread but I actually don't agree with him that there should be another level put above county cricket based on franchises. It has its merits but overall I don't think it's necessary. I think, if there are concerns about the quality of county cricket and the diluting of talent, the obvious answer would be to allow more overseas players, or relax the regulations on what sort of overseas players are allowed (honestly, what sense is there in saying "well we know you want to sign overseas player X because he's better, but you should sign overseas player Y instead because he meets this arbitrary criteria"??)

That said, I would absolutely agree with him if I viewed sport in a purely business or political way, so somewhere in there you have a point.

 

[grecian]

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.

 

[cpr]

You clearly don't know what you're talking about finance wise - £1.5m would cover about 60% of their playing staff costs, and there's other costs as well.

Wow, if thats right, then £2.5m (of which £1.5m is 60%) would mean 62 players on an average of £40k per annum. Now I know many earn more, but the young players earn less. I suppose if £40k is a fair average player wage from the club alone (though I'd argue its too high), then what club has 62 playing staff?


Or, your maths is very badly contrived to make it fit your point....

 

[Pup Clarke]

Generally speaking I would have County Cricket start later in the day whenever possible. I don't see any advantage to finishing at 5.30pm when a lot of people come and watch after school/work etc. and the light is perfectly good for a long time after for most of the season.

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.

 

[Furball]

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

 

[marc71178]

Wow, if thats right, then £2.5m (of which £1.5m is 60%) would mean 62 players on an average of £40k per annum. Now I know many earn more, but the young players earn less. I suppose if £40k is a fair average player wage from the club alone (though I'd argue its too high), then what club has 62 playing staff?


Or, your maths is very badly contrived to make it fit your point....

£2.4m playing costs in 2014 per the accounts and £2.3m in 2013

 

[marc71178]

come on, its ridiculous to claim that profesional cricket depends on grants just because they actually use their grants. what if a county got a grant to restore old oil paintings in the pavillion, does that then make pro cricket depend on that. You must know how ridiculous this is, meaning you are probably not really interested in the discussion. Whether pro cricket is sustainable depends on the essential costs only. I am all for academies etc but its not essential. Especially not in any new minor county. There is plenty of Money in the game and its only increasing. and inflation? please...

yes 15m is easily enough for 7-8 new counties. In fact its enough for 15 new counties as I think a halved grant is enough for a minor county side. Especially considering that several of the minor counties have more potential than some of the major. Three of the weakest first class counties are in the Midlands right NeXT to eachother whereas potentially bigger counties like Norfolk or Devon and Cornwall are ignored. The reason for this is just history and most likely that they were conveniently located between Lancashire/ Yorkshire and the big London teams where as Devon and Cornwall was too much travel. Other minor counties with obvious potential would be the likes of Oxford and Berskhire, part of the Thames Valley which was recently named the richest region in all of europe. Its hard core cricket demographic. Yet they cant get promoted because Leicester have a god-given right to stay above them.

It's well known that counties have no money and rely on the grants to keep going yet if you refuse to see that then I wonder what the point of debating with you is as you're clearly in cloud ****oo land.