Boycott tells it like it is

[RH156RH]

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/

[David North]

On 28/02/2018 16:53, RH156RH wrote:
>
> 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.

Not true - India has the IPL and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and South
Africa has the CSA T20 Challenge and the Africa T20 Cup.


--
David North

[Bob Dubery]

Meh. It's Boycott saying that no other country has a setup EXACTLY analogous to England's.

But so what? South Africa has TWO first class competitions - similar in some ways to the city based franchises proposed for England. I think that we might say that no country has a setup exactly like any other country's.

[Bob Dubery]

All that said, there are things to keep an eye on in all of this. South Africa have a very busy home season in 2018, with Tests against two teams, ODIs and T20s. And for me it has shown what a far richer game Test cricket is, and the skills on display in the Tests have been a joy to behold.

So, people who value Test cricket might like to be assured that that game will continue to be played, will continue to be funded and will continue to feature players of high quality.

So the bigger question to ask is whether, in this case, ECB policy will foster Test cricket.

I think they can do that AND have a situation where players whose skills are better suited to short forms of the game negotiate contracts that reflect that. It is not such a new situation really. There have long been players who were a shoo in for 50 over games but not likely to be playing Tests. Fairbrother was one such 20 years ago. Michael Bevan played 18 tests for Australia over a 4 year period, but over 200 ODIs over a decade.

[Bob Dubery]

On Saturday, 3 March 2018 08:55:38 UTC+2, Bob Dubery wrote:
> On Saturday, 3 March 2018 08:16:29 UTC+2, Bob Dubery wrote:
> > On Friday, 2 March 2018 16:00:10 UTC+2, David North wrote:
> > > On 28/02/2018 16:53, RH156RH wrote:
> > > >
> > > > 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.
> > >
> > > Not true - India has the IPL and the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and South
> > > Africa has the CSA T20 Challenge and the Africa T20 Cup.
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > David North
> >
> > Meh. It's Boycott saying that no other country has a setup EXACTLY analogous to England's.
> >
> > But so what? South Africa has TWO first class competitions - similar in some ways to the city based franchises proposed for England. I think that we might say that no country has a setup exactly like any other country's.
>
> All that said, there are things to keep an eye on in all of this. South Africa have a very busy home season in 2018, with Tests against two teams, ODIs and T20s. And for me it has shown what a far richer game Test cricket is, and the skills on display in the Tests have been a joy to behold.

And the just finished Test in PE gave us rich entertainment, even though the one session was like watching the proverbial paint dry. De Villiers scored a ton of rare quality, at a good strike rate. There was some fine fielding and a lot of good bowling - notably from Rabada. And some good toughing-it-out type innings as well.

No other game serves up the variety and sustained fascination that Test cricket can.