County cricket has been systematically devalued - so don't be shocked when players chase the white ball buck
GEOFFREY BOYCOTT
Geoffrey Boycott 28 FEBRUARY 2018 • 7:00AM
Adil Rashid and Alex Hales have turned their back on red ball cricket, but the ECB have not helped matters
We should not be surprised that Adil Rashid and Alex Hales have opted out of playing county championship cricket.
They are just following the example set by the England & Wales Cricket Board who have made 50 over and Twenty20 the most important cricket the counties are going to play in future and relegated the championship to the beginning and end of our summer.
The best months are mainly blocked off for white ball cricket and from 2020 our summers will have two Twenty20 competitions. There will be the new eight city franchise tournament and yet the counties will still play each other in their normal Twenty20 competition. How stupid is that? No country in the world has two Twenty20 competitions.
This decision was agreed by the 18 county chairmen who see 50 over and particularly Twenty20 as a lifesaver, making them more money from TV deals and gate receipts. ...
This is short-sighted but we should not expect businessmen to think like cricketers. Of the 18 county chairmen only one, Sir Ian Botham, has played Test match or county cricket...
Cricket is more than just a business. It is a sport, a way of life. It is something to be cherished for the next generation. Once you have only businessmen running cricket the focus will be on short term gain and money. They can’t, or will not, think about what is the best for our first-class cricket in the future and that will determine the quality of players coming through ready for Test cricket.
These businessmen do not grasp the fact, or do not want to hear it, that playing lots of crash, bang, wallop Twenty20 cricket is not a proper breeding ground to make good Test match players.
This is the thin edge of the wedge and county chairmen have brought this on cricket with their short-sighted policy that making money is everything.
By relegating county cricket to cold, wet and windy April and the end of summer when people are getting ready for football and the pitches are tired, the county chairmen are telling players that championship cricket is not important. They are saying become a Twenty20 specialist. That is where the money is for the counties and for you....
More and more players will take the hint and opt out of proper, red ball county cricket. It is harder work travelling and playing four long days of county cricket, especially when they can earn more money for just bowling a few overs and smashing a few runs in one-day matches or Twenty20....
County cricket has been, and still is, the breeding ground for future Test cricketers. When the standard of county cricket goes down it means the number of quality players coming through to play Test cricket is reduced.
For years the regular England Test players have hardly played for their counties, and so the standard has already declined. One example is Joe Root. Yorkshire are lucky if he plays one county match a season because the international calendar is so full.
Now Yorkshire have let Rashid pick and choose it is rumoured that Liam Plunkett is considering a similar thing. I hope not. Yorkshire gave him a second chance when he was at Durham, playing infrequently and losing his way.
For a long time we have not had high quality overseas players in county cricket because they have to play so much international cricket for their countries. When the best ones do come over they only sign very short deals. Now if some of our best county one-day cricketers are allowed to choose not to play four-day matches the standard will go down even further. ...
Now Yorkshire have let Rashid pick and choose it is rumoured that Liam Plunkett is considering a similar thing. I hope not. Yorkshire gave him a second chance when he was at Durham, playing infrequently and losing his way.
By Yorkshire taking a chance and encouraging Liam to stop over-thinking his bowling, and just concentrate on getting the ball from his end down to the batsmen’s end pretty fast and then see what happens, he has become a fixture in England’s ODI and Twenty20 squads.
Loyalty should work both ways. If Liam goes the same way as Adil then maybe David Willey could be the next one. What kind of message does that send to all the young kids in the Yorkshire academy dreaming of playing for their county?...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2018/02/28/county-cricket-has-systematically-devalued-dont-shocked-players/