The Hundred could be scrapped

[kevinw]

I'd be happy for it to be binned. It's just a dreadful format. Some marketing berks who knew nothing about cricket must've done an exceptional presentation to some idiots in the ECB. If you want to have (for want of a better term) 'franchise' tournament, then just have 6x regional sides based on 3x counties apiece, with 5 players per county, plus your overseas players. But get it done in 3 weeks, max. And have a comparable ladies' tournament at the same time, with double-headers. You can still have a Blast tournament, but the 50 overs stuff might need a squeeze.

 

[GIMH]

Did the period in the seventies when two overseas players were allowed in Championship matches lead to a clutch of high quality England players battle-hardened against the best? (No)

Is there actually any provable relationship between PL playership and England football results? And once again, why is football relevant when County Cricket does not and will never have the audience to make it wealthy enough to attract the best players? You might be forgetting the factor of money in football. And is what happens in one sport necessarily applicable to the another? The two strongest teams in cricket history were generated from two of the smallest FC competitions with few or no overseas players (not sure if Qld and Tas still had any). Most of the top tier overseas players came out of systems nothing like that being advocated for.

First question is a small sample size, so hardly definitive.

I accept that all sports are different and I acknowledged the quality of players. I wouldn’t say there’s any use in some plodders coming over, agree. So if you wanted to caveat it with certain credentials, fine. But playing against the best is great for players, and the more different backgrounds and styles playing in our domestic game the better in terms of what our players and coaches can learn from them.

In terms of football I wasn’t positioning it as correlation but rather as a counter to the ‘standing in the way’ argument. When foreign players started to feature far more regularly in the Prem, the harm it would do to the England team was oft cited and never materialised, with a better quality of English footballer emerging post that boom (the fabled golden generation who didn’t deliver for England but were undeniable English talents) and an even better group of talents now.

 

[social]

18 teams with 2 divisions is just county by another name & results in too many games with a dilution of talent

Get rid of the Hundred and the Blast

Bite the bullet and sell 10 franchises in 10 cities

 

[GIMH]

Here is my overly verbose take on something close to the subject matter of this thread 15 years back. Apologies because it’s probably shite and I’ve not read it back, but.

How To Build The Premier League | Cricket Web

 

[wpdavid]

There are 18 counties, still tons of opportunities for English players. We had this argument in football for years and now England produce loads of good players.

We did, and we do (up to a point, anyway), but I read somewhere that Southgate was worried about the number of England players being produced in the future because of the number of England players in the EPL. Clearly this isn't the only factor. Looking back to the early 1990s, we were struggling to find enough talented footballers for the national team even though there were hardly any non-British players in the 1st Division. Obviously the clubs' development systems are miles superior nowadays, but my first instinct is always that Southgate is right.

As for cricket, I remember trying to discuss this on another site with a bloke who, as it turns out, wasn't interested in sensible discussion anyway. My pov was that the number of top players being produced by the English system was already declining before overseas players were admitted to the county game in 1968. So in the 1960s, we saw five top players start their test careers (Edrich, Boycott, Snow, Underwood and Knott), whereas the number on the previous decade was way higher (May, Cowdrey, Graveney, Barrington, Dexter, Trueman, Statham, Tyson, Illingworth and Lock spring to mind). Obviously lots of other blokes came through who were perfectly respectable cricketers, but not quite of the standard required for England to be a top test side. So, on that basis, the 1968 ruling was irrelevant as the decline was already underway.

Also from memory, I don't think the counties were restricted to only two overseas players after 1968. Hampshire had three (Richards, Greenidge & Roberts), as did Kent (Iqbal, Julien & Shepherd), Gloucestershire (Procter, Zaheer & Sadiq) and Warwickshire (Kanhai, Kallicheran & Murray. Maybe Gibbs too?). Maybe it came down to clubs' finances or sponsorship deals for individual players.

 

[Starfighter]

Also from memory, I don't think the counties were restricted to only two overseas players after 1968. Hampshire had three (Richards, Greenidge & Roberts), as did Kent (Iqbal, Julien & Shepherd), Gloucestershire (Procter, Zaheer & Sadiq) and Warwickshire (Kanhai, Kallicheran & Murray. Maybe Gibbs too?). Maybe it came down to clubs' finances or sponsorship deals for individual players.

FTR I read an article about teams being limited to only one in championship matches (obviously more in one dayers) from '81 on. I assumed that previously two had been allowed. I did see a scorecard with Richards, Greenidge and Roberts on it so I should have realised I was wrong before posting. Unfortunately it's hard to find information on what the rules actually were. I remember Alan Donald in his autobiography grousing about missing a season due to a rule change and Warks preferring Lara. Though frankly I'm not sure he was right either.

I don't think the Boycott/Snow generation is quite as bad as you're making out. You're missing Greig for starters - started with Sussex when he was 19. Guys like Old weren't terrible either. I think there is also a considerable amount of coincidence/timing too - while there are clear instances of systemic failure (WI's decline), the fact is good players will occur in clutches because random ≠ uniform.

I generally try to stay guarded and write that County Cricket was not better rather than worse after the introduction of overseas players. There were other factors too that could have swamped whatever improvement overseas players could have produced. But I stand by the idea that more overseas players will not improve things - any effects simply haven't shown up regardless of the hype.

I think one thing that gets missed in the idea that overseas players are a silver bullet for quality is that it ignores the quality of the players as they start their careers. You certainly get late bloomers but I think often you'll find the standout players at first class level were standouts in the lower-level/younger competitions too. If you're not putting quality players into the system it's harder to get them out the other end.

 

[ataraxia]

Yeah, I agree with most here. The County Championship should become one division, single round-robin (17 games a side), 4 overseas players allowed, and do things to increase viewership. T20 – just do whatever's the most lucrative, I guess. But one competition. A short one-day county competition on the side. Send Poms on A tours aplenty in the winter, for both formats.

Reckon that's a comfortable improvement on the current system. Less a pathway, more an end of its own.

 

[Pothas]

I think one thing that gets missed in the idea that overseas players are a silver bullet for quality is that it ignores the quality of the players as they start their careers. You certainly get late bloomers but I think often you'll find the standout players at first class level were standouts in the lower-level/younger competitions too. If you're not putting quality players into the system it's harder to get them out the other end.

Oh of course. I am definitely not arguing that having overseas players magically changes everything but I do think it makes for a better competition and that can only be a good thing.

 

[Yeoman]

FTR I read an article about teams being limited to only one in championship matches (obviously more in one dayers) from '81 on. I assumed that previously two had been allowed. I did see a scorecard with Richards, Greenidge and Roberts on it so I should have realised I was wrong before posting. Unfortunately it's hard to find information on what the rules actually were. I remember Alan Donald in his autobiography grousing about missing a season due to a rule change and Warks preferring Lara. Though frankly I'm not sure he was right either.

I don't think the Boycott/Snow generation is quite as bad as you're making out. You're missing Greig for starters - started with Sussex when he was 19. Guys like Old weren't terrible either. I think there is also a considerable amount of coincidence/timing too - while there are clear instances of systemic failure (WI's decline), the fact is good players will occur in clutches because random ≠ uniform.

I generally try to stay guarded and write that County Cricket was not better rather than worse after the introduction of overseas players. There were other factors too that could have swamped whatever improvement overseas players could have produced. But I stand by the idea that more overseas players will not improve things - any effects simply haven't shown up regardless of the hype.

I think one thing that gets missed in the idea that overseas players are a silver bullet for quality is that it ignores the quality of the players as they start their careers. You certainly get late bloomers but I think often you'll find the standout players at first class level were standouts in the lower-level/younger competitions too. If you're not putting quality players into the system it's harder to get them out the other end.

Happy to stand corrected however as I understand it/recall there was no limit on overseas players in the 70s however in the 80s and 90s it varied between one and two. At one point in the eighties a county was allowed to have two on the books but only play one in each game. In the Kolpak era it was cut back to one but allowed back up to two after it ended to boost the overall standard.

 

[Uppercut]

I guess the easy counter to this is the likes of Uppercut and dcye are from nowhere near Manchester but are both wholehearted passionate supporters of the Manchester football teams. So maybe I’m just transplanting my own (football based) biases onto it.

They’re 100+ years old though, I’m the third generation of United fan in my family, it started when George Best played for them. The problem with setting up a franchise system in England is that you’re competing with hundreds of established sports teams with rich organic cultures and histories. Obsessive football fandom is common and accepted but it would be considered extremely weird to become a die-hard Manchester Originals fan.

 

[Pothas]

We did, and we do (up to a point, anyway), but I read somewhere that Southgate was worried about the number of England players being produced in the future because of the number of England players in the EPL. Clearly this isn't the only factor. Looking back to the early 1990s, we were struggling to find enough talented footballers for the national team even though there were hardly any non-British players in the 1st Division. Obviously the clubs' development systems are miles superior nowadays, but my first instinct is always that Southgate is right.

Yeah I remember that because he was talking about a lack of left backs whilst ignoring Rico Henry. I think he was talking nonsense, he probably has the strongest pool of England players ever.

 

[wpdavid]

FTR I read an article about teams being limited to only one in championship matches (obviously more in one dayers) from '81 on. I assumed that previously two had been allowed. I did see a scorecard with Richards, Greenidge and Roberts on it so I should have realised I was wrong before posting. Unfortunately it's hard to find information on what the rules actually were. I remember Alan Donald in his autobiography grousing about missing a season due to a rule change and Warks preferring Lara. Though frankly I'm not sure he was right either.

Yeah, I couldn't claim to be 100% sure about the rules either. A lot of what I posted previously was from my teenage memories, plus a quick look at line-ups in the Gillette Cups in the early 1970s. Somerset and Lancashire definitely had two each (Richards/Garner and Lloyd/Engineer respectively). fwiw I never had any problem with the really good overseas players taking part in our domestic game, but I did think it a shame when counties preferred relatively mediocre ones to developing their own guys.

I don't think the Boycott/Snow generation is quite as bad as you're making out. You're missing Greig for starters - started with Sussex when he was 19. Guys like Old weren't terrible either. I think there is also a considerable amount of coincidence/timing too - while there are clear instances of systemic failure (WI's decline), the fact is good players will occur in clutches because random ≠ uniform.

If I may quibble, Greig wasn't really a product of the English game. Yeah, the 60s generation was by no means terrible, and I should probably have included Geoff Arnold, who first played test cricket in 1969. But just not quite good enough to make England a top international side. And, as I said, that cohort wasn't as good as the one from the previous decade. But I know my approach isn't an exact science. Take Dennis Amiss, who first played test cricket in 1966 but didn't become confident at that level until 1973.

I generally try to stay guarded and write that County Cricket was not better rather than worse after the introduction of overseas players. There were other factors too that could have swamped whatever improvement overseas players could have produced. But I stand by the idea that more overseas players will not improve things - any effects simply haven't shown up regardless of the hype.

I suspect the reason for the 1968 change was to attract more interest in the county game rather than improve the quality per se. Which makes sense when you're talking about guys like Sobers, Lloyd and Kanhai. Less so with some of the others of course

 

[Pothas]

I thought it was too each. Did Greenidge ever play as a local player before he played for West Indies?

 

[Starfighter]

I suspect the reason for the 1968 change was to attract more interest in the county game rather than improve the quality per se. Which makes sense when you're talking about guys like Sobers, Lloyd and Kanhai. Less so with some of the others of course

I think it was also influenced by players looking for a professional career when most countries were still amateur joining league cricket, settling in England and becoming county regulars - especially as England tended not to pick such players to represent England in test. Allowing overseas players meant that they were not forced to give up playing for their own country to play county cricket - thus it actually has a beneficial effect on the international game.

 

[wpdavid]

Yeah I remember that because he was talking about a lack of left backs whilst ignoring Rico Henry. I think he was talking nonsense, he probably has the strongest pool of England players ever.

Maybe, but we all know there are talent-gaps in some positions. And maybe it looks that way to some extent because Southgate has been better at managing the talent at his disposal than SGE was in the early 2000s. Other contenders for the strongest pools of players would be the guys available to Robson in the late 1980s & 1990 and those available to Ramsey from mid-60s to 1970. Going back further, the 1930s/1940s generation that won 6-3 in Germany and 4-0 in Italy was pretty great too.

 

[wpdavid]

I thought it was too each. Did Greenidge ever play as a local player before he played for West Indies?

He was certainly asked about playing for England, but turned it down due to the racism he'd experienced over here. Well, that was one reason, anyway. But some other counties (Kent, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire) played three overseas guys who were never considered even potentially English.

 

[AndrewB]

FTR I read an article about teams being limited to only one in championship matches (obviously more in one dayers) from '81 on. I assumed that previously two had been allowed.

I don't know the precise rules but I think there was some change for the 1982 season whereby you could only pick two overseas players if they'd both been with the club before a certain date, and hence Lancashire switched from Michael Holding (who'd played for them in 1981) to Colin Croft (who'd played for them before that) so they could also pick Clive Lloyd. Nottinghamshire were still picking Rice and Hadlee in 1987.

 

[Third_Man]

Well I would like to see the Blast expanded to two divisions with promotion and relegation.

Also have a knockout cup with 32 teams including 14 minor counties with the finals day (semis and final) in September. Maybe allow finals day to be televised by both Sky and BBC.

Would be surprised if this happened, although it is difficult to rule anything out when considering the ECB, but cricket below the first class counties is essentially amateur. It is not exactly the same as the FA Cup where the top of the premiership could play a League One or Two side (who are still professional).

This was written two years ago, by Hector Cappelletti but is still relevant. Even within the National Counties the set ups vary tremendously according to what resources are available.

 

[Nintendo]

The Hundred has killed most of the Cricket Season. The County Championship is a sideshow. The 50 over competition isn't really first class, The Ashes will end in July & T20 is finished really quickly

ECB are awful

What? Your telling me that running the hundred at the same time as the 50 over comp and draining most of the talented bat's/bowlers from the comp so it's just a red ball specialist + 2nd xi white ball player comp has ruined the quality of the comp? Can't believe the ECB never thought of this, truly nothing they could have done!!!!

 

[Chin Music]

I have played ‘recreational hundred’ format games as well as Last Man Stands, a rather commercially driven amateur tournament that is 8 a side 20, 5 ball overs. I can safely say that the main advantage was more drinking time….