The County Championship

I do worry about the future of the championship.   I suspect most correspondents on here will hold the competition in high esteem, as I do, though with niggles about the set up (e.g. go back to two divisions of nine, all counties playing 16 matches please!)

I think the championship has three major problems.   Firstly with greatly increased international fixtures and the IPL counties are missing their best players for this competition and it is thereby devalued.  The position at Surrey is exacerbated by a continual injury crisis, but that should be another topic.    Secondly the competition is played at the edges of the season which is likely to be less pleasant and convenient for spectators and more importantly provides conditions not suited for the development of  certain skills (e.g. spin bowling).  Thirdly the number of spectators is low (yes, I know Surrey have a record membership, I do not think this reflects a national trend).

Most of the solutions are ones the ECB will never adopt:  Strangle the horrid hundred which would free up the fixture list a bit.   Play less international cricket  (5 tests and a few limited over matches).   Use "resting players" where it is really necessary, not as standard.

Maybe Surrey should put a free ticket for a county championship day in with any T20 tickets purchased, this might be worth a try and would not have to gain many new championship members to be worthwhile.

It was noted on this board recently, and correctly, that there is an increasing divergence in personnel between the limited over teams and championship teams.  I think it might make sense in this situation to go back to a position where the formats are not separate chunks of the fixture list as now, but run concurrently.   This would need to be done carefully to avoid losing T20 revenue by having games in, say, April.

I would be very interested to hear other views on this topic.

Nice piece and I'm in agreement. Trouble is until the whole structure and thinking behind English Cricket is rebuilt it will be difficult. When your lead governing body, the ECB, is only concerned with money and not looking after and protecting the interests of the game you get what we have now, an obscene organisations that has dragged the great game into the gutter of despair with the 100, a vanity project if there ever was one. Personaly, if players want to swan around the world playing the hit and giggle it's their choice. However it must be completely separate from Test and 4 day cricket. One or the other. Yes the IPL and other leagues pay obscene salaries (why thier people are gasping in hospital due to lack of oxygen) but if you want to protect Test Cricket and create a steady well balanced test squad it's the only way to go. And it's not the 1890s when players died young because there was no life after cricket. There are loads of opportunities now when your 35+. Otherwise you end up in the shit, and we have. If there is a way to reverse this tell me, and I'll be the first in line.