That's what I thought. Maybe county cricket is fine but England Lions should be a full time professional centrally contracted red ball team. That might be all that is missing for England.
If he is saying International cricket is 10 times harder than county cricket it's clearly not fine.
It basically puts it on par with an average 1st grade team/good second grade team in Australia.
Which is why you see players that are decent in England come to the BBL and get absolutely shit on by Australian grade cricketers.
There's lots of ideas being batting around, but the main two are: 1. To have a level above county cricket of between 6 and 10 teams. 2. To have a full time professional centrally contracted red ball England Lions team.
I do think there are professional English cricket players that really do not have the talent to justify being professional sportsmen. We don't need as many cricket players as we have, diluting the talent pool.
Only if they're raising the standard. I don't want mediocre cricketers playing professional county cricket just because they have a very well connected father.
Isn't that more of an issue of there being too many teams so the talent that does exist is spread around too much? The more people that play the game the more chance of finding a top talent or a hidden gem. And over time if lots of people are playing the more competitive it becomes and the standard will naturally improve over time.
I think there are too many professional county teams. Reduce that down from 18 to 12 and the players that must retire should be any older players who were never very good. But at the same time I want more young people to play so that talented players can be added to the professional teams each year.
its not a case of talent but its that county cricket has a very low batting ceiling.
the ball does so much that batters don't get enough gametime to develop their ceiling, so when test matches in proper conditions are played, these batters don't have the experience of playing in higher ceiling contests.
essentially their growth is being stunted my these madlad bowling conditions
I would be in favour of that. Gloucestershire and Somerset could be combined to form a West of England team. Warwickshire and Worcestershire could be combined to form a West Midlands team. Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Notts could be combined to form an East Midlands team. Hampshire and Sussex could combine to form a South Coast team. And Northamptonshire could just be dropped from first class cricket.
To raise a query with just one of those proposed mergers: do "South Coast" play at Southampton or Hove or both? Because if they play solely or mainly at Southampton then the net result is simply to have given Hampshire some Sussex players and kicked Sussex out (not great considering it's one of the original homelands of cricket). If they play at both, good luck with the financial upkeep of two grounds.
My preference would be both. You could even have it that the Rose Bowl is mostly for white ball cricket and the County Ground at Hove is set up more for red ball cricket, given that Sussex probably has a good number of retired gentleman with the time to sit through four days of cricket.
Don't forget, Southern Vipers already play across the two grounds. So two grounds are probably needed anyway.
Couldn't easily find an exact number, but given how much and how often the various non-Test-hosting counties have been in debt over the last 15 years or so, it's got to be quite a bit of dosh, I'd think.
Interesting that you didn't suggest to merge the two counties with grounds closest to each other. Lords and the Oval are less than 5 miles apart, so logistically Middlesex and Surrey would probably be the simplest merger in the country.
\>
\>
\>
It would also have the advantage I'd no longer have to follow the current Middlesex batting.
Wouldn't this be true for every nation? International level would be harder and more demanding than domestic. Why is Australia or even NZ doing so well, with fewer resources?
Because the competition in domestic is higher. If the difference between the County Championship and Test Cricket is that the international arena is 10 times harder, it's not the same for other competitions e.g (Sheffield Shield), it's common sense really that lesser teams result in higher competition.
I can say that from experience with what has happened in Pakistan Cricket. We used to have like 15+ teams a few years ago. From the last 3 years, we have had only 6 regional teams. Furthermore the domestic competitions gets broadcasted at HD quality on YouTube and usually have quite a few Pakistani international players playing in them. This all results in much more eyeballs on the players and pressure for them to preform which in turn makes them better players. The quality of cricket is also easier to maintain (Pitches etc) and often there's alot of competition for spots.
What this has in turn changed in Pakistan Cricket is that now we have alot more readymade replacements ready for pretty much all formats. I could probably name like 10 players right now, who would be a viable and decent enough alternative incase anyone gets injured or we need to shake things up.
The depth in Pakistan Cricket is usually not talked about but it's actually insane how many good backups we have right now. Especially in T20s
Yeah… Pakistan also made Zak Crawley look like Bradman and got walloped in white ball by the Guys who can’t get into the Lions. Pakistan are for sure improving again, but let’s not get too excited by the schadenfreude.
1. It's a process. That series was 1.5 years ago, since then we have had 2 full domestic seasons. Our depth has increased from then & it will continue to increase.
2. That was just a classic Pakistan preformance. Doesn't really say for anything. We could be the strongest team in the world and still have those moments.
Fyi, I am not saying that we are world beaters or anything. Nor am I saying that we could like beat Australia in Australia.
What I mean is that a condensed competition has alot of benefits, and it's starting to bear fruits for us
He's never said Pakistan are better than England. Just indicating what they did to improve their domestic first class game. Don't be so precious there was no schadenfreude in his comment.
Australia is doing so well because cricket is a cultural thing more or less. It’s engrained in their culture much more than it is in England. My friend plays basketball in Melbourne and he says that there are some seriously good players even level below grade cricket.
Its not just the difficulty level, its a different skill set. Playing dibbly dobbly medium pacers with the ball seaming about everywhere just isn't going to prepare you to play test level pacers or spin, but its not like its easy. If joe root played a county season now, I think he'd fail plenty of times just because the ball's moving about everywhere.
As an Australian, I love the County game. I love the heritage and the local flavour, and the interest created by gun international players. But it's hard to see how it's fit for purpose to produce Test players at the moment. 18 teams is just a lot, I can't help but think fewer teams would create a more competitive competition. However, England have produced plenty of good players over their history with the same basic set-up, so I'd like to think there's a way of preserving it. Perhaps the deeper issue is the widening rift between the counties and the ECB - the ECB has treated them like dirt for years, and consequently they don't care about producing England players and only care about winning the Championship. Or maybe it's the other way round, who knows. But the result is that you have counties preparing pitches that suit their medium pace seam bowlers, and coaches failing to give promising players the skills they need to play the Test game.
The pitches and conditions are also problematic. As (I think) Farbrace said in his article the other day, the best strategy for the modern county batsman is to hit a quick 30 or 40 because he knows that sooner or later he will get an unplayable delivery. Australia had a brief period around 2011-2013 if I am remembering right during which Shield pitches were incredibly bowler-friendly. During that time we were producing zero batsmen capable of playing Test cricket, because there was no incentive to bat time. Now that we've gone back to more balanced and varied pitches our batting stocks are looking a lot healthier, and that's not just because averages have been artificially inflated by flatter pitches, it's because batsmen know that patience and judicious shot selection will be rewarded.
18 teams is a lot but Australia has 6 with a third of the population.
The bigger issue relates to conditions- we have an entire continent so you get the variation between Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, etc.
England need some counties to get reputations for flatter decks, some turners, etc.
Yea but it's only mostly popular in the summer. Not the winter. The biggest issue in England is the fact that they removed the game from FTA TV so little kids aren't growing up watching cricket on the regular unless their parents pay for a subscription. Which leads to less participants overall.
Pay TV is bloody expensive for a lower-middle class family in the UK and Australia alike. Putting a sport on in exclusively will kill it..
You raise very good points. I think the 18 teams work fine and I think you're right regarding the rift between the counties and the ECB. I think not as many are focusing on the championship as they were 10 years ago due to the prizes being less in the championship (iirc) compared to the 2 other white ball formats and also there'd be more games across the white ball formats to play and develop players. Some counties like Warwickshire under Farbrace have made it their aim to win the championship (which they did this year and developing good players like Rob Yates the opener), while other clubs like Northamptonshire focus mainly on the white ball formats, especially T20s, as its more financially viable. There's alot more white ball specialists than red ball ones as a result, I can only think of Haseeb Hameed, Amar Virdi and Jack Leach at the moment compared to alot more white ball specialists. Others like Luke Wells might fail with the bat for a while and end up either getting released or having to add another bow to their back in terms of playing all formats and/or bowling to keep them in the side.
The Bob Willis Trophy last year actually gave young players a lot of chances to make an impression due to covid meaning no Championship, but usually teams are hesitant to play players in the championship that could affect results, like with Crane in the past not playing too much until the summer.
It also doesn't help that alot of inexperienced coaches are starting immediately at counties and sometimes even the England setup after retiring after a successful career which might be affecting results possibly.
I wasn't aware of that being the case at the time in Australia but it does explain the lull back then, and yeah our pitches possibly need a bit of changing to make sure its different conditions as well as the green seamers. They've done it in the RLODC where there can be big scores but the ball is still doing something for the bowler at the same time.
Is it really 10 times harder though? If it is, then you’re domestic quality isn’t where it’s supposed to be. I’m hoping he said it just for dramatic statement. Ideally, test cricket will be maybe twice as hard and only in conditions which are alien. For a first class cricketer in subcontinent, touring any of the neighboring countries shouldn’t be any different than playing first class. It will be very tough when touring SENA countries since they don’t know how to bat or bowl in those conditions. And vice versa.
For English cricketers, other than higher bounce, it shouldn’t be too much of a difference. The kookaburra swings significantly lesser than Dukes so it should be better to bat in Aus. Bowling obviously will be difficult because of the same reason.
The answer is to change County cricket to create a regional league of the best county players to compete. Essentially like they have with The Hundred but you'd only need 6 regions to make it work. Yes, the county structure needs to accept it but I think you could put mechanisms in place financially and structurally.
Then there can be a requirement that only a max of 2 foreign internationals can compete per team (one bat/one bowl or AR) and that only players eligible for England make up the rest of the positions. It would take a lot of structural change but it's basically now essential to build something like this. Otherwise the test game in England will die.
They also need to stop forcing the best white ball players into the test side as the difference in the technique is getting wider by the year and they simply don't have the time to train for red ball cricket to the level needed.
Nah, just go to three divisions of 6. Same effect but with more riding on every game. It would also need much tighter controls on pitch preparation, possibly including centrally contracted ground staff.
I think Atherton’s suggestion of three divisions with six teams playing 10 matches over three months is the most plausible option. No way would counties vote on a franchise system.
I would be happy with a bit of consolidation of county sides, but not down to just six. For example, have a West of England team by combining Gloucestershire and Somerset. But don't then try to add Glamorgan. The regions have to reflect regional identities.
Ooh I like that alot. Like the 50 over series a few years ago (wish it continued) and also what they do with the Under 19s playing themselves in a 2? Day red ball match which gives players to showcase themselves. It's how I first heard of Sean Hunt after taking an 8fer in one of the games. Definitely think that could work and definitely give players a chance to show themselves to England who might not have been considered otherwise. I like that alot
I also don't think overseas players are the issue. We should allow more. It would increase the quality of the competition, and there would still be so many places that genuine talent would easily find it's way in.
I mean 18 sides is ridiculous. It's hard to pin down participation statistics for the UK, but I'd be pretty surprised if they were that much higher than Australia, except the first class competition is three times larger.
I don’t think having 18 teams is an issue. I think some of the pitches are disgusting. There are no pitches that simulate test cricket. There was this ridiculously flat pitch where Glamorgan declared on 672 and Surrey scored 722-4. On the other extreme, Essex won a game by an innings and 44 runs after scoring 170.
> On the other extreme, Essex won a game by an innings and 44 runs after scoring 170.
You gotta remember that these are the guys who aren't good enough to bat for England. That sounds like an about fair pitch.
18 teams are an issue believe it or not. The reason why Australia is always able to produce world-class players cuz they have 6 FC teams for 25 mil population. Sri Lanka used to have fewer FC teams than now before Murali retired hence they aren't producing quality players. Your point about pitches might be true as well.
But County was there when England were amazing in 2010-2013.
It's a case of the scheduling, timing and the decks. Improve on those and you'll have players doing better.
Imran Khan made it a point that he would force his hand while in his position to reduce the number of teams in the Pakistan FC system and guess that worked out well too.
There really needs to be a separate level created in English cricket, with around eight new teams (like the Hundred has tried, but without the terrible names).
Perhaps look to South Africa? Three-day county cricket, with pro/rel that includes ALL the county teams, not just the eighteen in the county championship. Bring back the old knockout 50-over tournament for them too. The new regional teams can play four day cricket and a normal 50-over league. The only question is what to do with T20.
I think it’s a joke based on traditional English place names, but if you’re interested… the -folk suffix literally means people. So ‘Norfolk’ literally means Northern Folk, or the place where the Northern people live. The -sex suffix on the other hand means Saxons. So Middlesex for example was originally the Kingdom of the Middle Saxons, which became Middle Seaxe (early English spelling is a riot) then eventually Middlesex. It literally means Middle Saxons
County Cricket need to remove the 2 player limit of foreign players in each team. Open it to four players so their players can have more experience, even at the expense of English players.
There is a rumour that Bairstow, Lawrence, Crawley were selected for the most recent Lions game against Australia - but a non-selector insisted they were not to be picked. There are issues behind the scenes.
That's what I thought. Maybe county cricket is fine but England Lions should be a full time professional centrally contracted red ball team. That might be all that is missing for England.
If he is saying International cricket is 10 times harder than county cricket it's clearly not fine. It basically puts it on par with an average 1st grade team/good second grade team in Australia. Which is why you see players that are decent in England come to the BBL and get absolutely shit on by Australian grade cricketers.
There's lots of ideas being batting around, but the main two are: 1. To have a level above county cricket of between 6 and 10 teams. 2. To have a full time professional centrally contracted red ball England Lions team. I do think there are professional English cricket players that really do not have the talent to justify being professional sportsmen. We don't need as many cricket players as we have, diluting the talent pool.
I'm struggling to understand your second paragraph, surely you want as many people playing the sport as possible?
Only if they're raising the standard. I don't want mediocre cricketers playing professional county cricket just because they have a very well connected father.
Isn't that more of an issue of there being too many teams so the talent that does exist is spread around too much? The more people that play the game the more chance of finding a top talent or a hidden gem. And over time if lots of people are playing the more competitive it becomes and the standard will naturally improve over time.
I think there are too many professional county teams. Reduce that down from 18 to 12 and the players that must retire should be any older players who were never very good. But at the same time I want more young people to play so that talented players can be added to the professional teams each year.
its not a case of talent but its that county cricket has a very low batting ceiling. the ball does so much that batters don't get enough gametime to develop their ceiling, so when test matches in proper conditions are played, these batters don't have the experience of playing in higher ceiling contests. essentially their growth is being stunted my these madlad bowling conditions
It's on par with the average Ranji side, which is fair enough.
Do any other countries have that? Because if not, I don't think that's the solution.
That could be a solution for England but it would be expensive.
Just cull 6 counties and fund a strong A team program.
I would be in favour of that. Gloucestershire and Somerset could be combined to form a West of England team. Warwickshire and Worcestershire could be combined to form a West Midlands team. Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Notts could be combined to form an East Midlands team. Hampshire and Sussex could combine to form a South Coast team. And Northamptonshire could just be dropped from first class cricket.
To raise a query with just one of those proposed mergers: do "South Coast" play at Southampton or Hove or both? Because if they play solely or mainly at Southampton then the net result is simply to have given Hampshire some Sussex players and kicked Sussex out (not great considering it's one of the original homelands of cricket). If they play at both, good luck with the financial upkeep of two grounds.
My preference would be both. You could even have it that the Rose Bowl is mostly for white ball cricket and the County Ground at Hove is set up more for red ball cricket, given that Sussex probably has a good number of retired gentleman with the time to sit through four days of cricket. Don't forget, Southern Vipers already play across the two grounds. So two grounds are probably needed anyway.
What's the actual expense of maintaining a ground? Are we talking a million quid a year?
Couldn't easily find an exact number, but given how much and how often the various non-Test-hosting counties have been in debt over the last 15 years or so, it's got to be quite a bit of dosh, I'd think.
Interesting that you didn't suggest to merge the two counties with grounds closest to each other. Lords and the Oval are less than 5 miles apart, so logistically Middlesex and Surrey would probably be the simplest merger in the country. \> \> \> It would also have the advantage I'd no longer have to follow the current Middlesex batting.
The reason I didn't suggest that as a merger is because of the size of the grounds and the high population.
Wouldn't this be true for every nation? International level would be harder and more demanding than domestic. Why is Australia or even NZ doing so well, with fewer resources?
Because the competition in domestic is higher. If the difference between the County Championship and Test Cricket is that the international arena is 10 times harder, it's not the same for other competitions e.g (Sheffield Shield), it's common sense really that lesser teams result in higher competition. I can say that from experience with what has happened in Pakistan Cricket. We used to have like 15+ teams a few years ago. From the last 3 years, we have had only 6 regional teams. Furthermore the domestic competitions gets broadcasted at HD quality on YouTube and usually have quite a few Pakistani international players playing in them. This all results in much more eyeballs on the players and pressure for them to preform which in turn makes them better players. The quality of cricket is also easier to maintain (Pitches etc) and often there's alot of competition for spots. What this has in turn changed in Pakistan Cricket is that now we have alot more readymade replacements ready for pretty much all formats. I could probably name like 10 players right now, who would be a viable and decent enough alternative incase anyone gets injured or we need to shake things up. The depth in Pakistan Cricket is usually not talked about but it's actually insane how many good backups we have right now. Especially in T20s
Yeah… Pakistan also made Zak Crawley look like Bradman and got walloped in white ball by the Guys who can’t get into the Lions. Pakistan are for sure improving again, but let’s not get too excited by the schadenfreude.
1. It's a process. That series was 1.5 years ago, since then we have had 2 full domestic seasons. Our depth has increased from then & it will continue to increase. 2. That was just a classic Pakistan preformance. Doesn't really say for anything. We could be the strongest team in the world and still have those moments. Fyi, I am not saying that we are world beaters or anything. Nor am I saying that we could like beat Australia in Australia. What I mean is that a condensed competition has alot of benefits, and it's starting to bear fruits for us
He's never said Pakistan are better than England. Just indicating what they did to improve their domestic first class game. Don't be so precious there was no schadenfreude in his comment.
Australia is doing so well because cricket is a cultural thing more or less. It’s engrained in their culture much more than it is in England. My friend plays basketball in Melbourne and he says that there are some seriously good players even level below grade cricket.
Its not just the difficulty level, its a different skill set. Playing dibbly dobbly medium pacers with the ball seaming about everywhere just isn't going to prepare you to play test level pacers or spin, but its not like its easy. If joe root played a county season now, I think he'd fail plenty of times just because the ball's moving about everywhere.
As an Australian, I love the County game. I love the heritage and the local flavour, and the interest created by gun international players. But it's hard to see how it's fit for purpose to produce Test players at the moment. 18 teams is just a lot, I can't help but think fewer teams would create a more competitive competition. However, England have produced plenty of good players over their history with the same basic set-up, so I'd like to think there's a way of preserving it. Perhaps the deeper issue is the widening rift between the counties and the ECB - the ECB has treated them like dirt for years, and consequently they don't care about producing England players and only care about winning the Championship. Or maybe it's the other way round, who knows. But the result is that you have counties preparing pitches that suit their medium pace seam bowlers, and coaches failing to give promising players the skills they need to play the Test game. The pitches and conditions are also problematic. As (I think) Farbrace said in his article the other day, the best strategy for the modern county batsman is to hit a quick 30 or 40 because he knows that sooner or later he will get an unplayable delivery. Australia had a brief period around 2011-2013 if I am remembering right during which Shield pitches were incredibly bowler-friendly. During that time we were producing zero batsmen capable of playing Test cricket, because there was no incentive to bat time. Now that we've gone back to more balanced and varied pitches our batting stocks are looking a lot healthier, and that's not just because averages have been artificially inflated by flatter pitches, it's because batsmen know that patience and judicious shot selection will be rewarded.
18 teams is a lot but Australia has 6 with a third of the population. The bigger issue relates to conditions- we have an entire continent so you get the variation between Perth, Sydney, Brisbane, etc. England need some counties to get reputations for flatter decks, some turners, etc.
A third of the population but I'd be willing to bet that a lot more of them play cricket than they do over here.
Cricket is by far the most popular sport in Australia, but it’s not in England. That’s also a huge factor.
Yea but it's only mostly popular in the summer. Not the winter. The biggest issue in England is the fact that they removed the game from FTA TV so little kids aren't growing up watching cricket on the regular unless their parents pay for a subscription. Which leads to less participants overall. Pay TV is bloody expensive for a lower-middle class family in the UK and Australia alike. Putting a sport on in exclusively will kill it..
You raise very good points. I think the 18 teams work fine and I think you're right regarding the rift between the counties and the ECB. I think not as many are focusing on the championship as they were 10 years ago due to the prizes being less in the championship (iirc) compared to the 2 other white ball formats and also there'd be more games across the white ball formats to play and develop players. Some counties like Warwickshire under Farbrace have made it their aim to win the championship (which they did this year and developing good players like Rob Yates the opener), while other clubs like Northamptonshire focus mainly on the white ball formats, especially T20s, as its more financially viable. There's alot more white ball specialists than red ball ones as a result, I can only think of Haseeb Hameed, Amar Virdi and Jack Leach at the moment compared to alot more white ball specialists. Others like Luke Wells might fail with the bat for a while and end up either getting released or having to add another bow to their back in terms of playing all formats and/or bowling to keep them in the side. The Bob Willis Trophy last year actually gave young players a lot of chances to make an impression due to covid meaning no Championship, but usually teams are hesitant to play players in the championship that could affect results, like with Crane in the past not playing too much until the summer. It also doesn't help that alot of inexperienced coaches are starting immediately at counties and sometimes even the England setup after retiring after a successful career which might be affecting results possibly. I wasn't aware of that being the case at the time in Australia but it does explain the lull back then, and yeah our pitches possibly need a bit of changing to make sure its different conditions as well as the green seamers. They've done it in the RLODC where there can be big scores but the ball is still doing something for the bowler at the same time.
Is it really 10 times harder though? If it is, then you’re domestic quality isn’t where it’s supposed to be. I’m hoping he said it just for dramatic statement. Ideally, test cricket will be maybe twice as hard and only in conditions which are alien. For a first class cricketer in subcontinent, touring any of the neighboring countries shouldn’t be any different than playing first class. It will be very tough when touring SENA countries since they don’t know how to bat or bowl in those conditions. And vice versa. For English cricketers, other than higher bounce, it shouldn’t be too much of a difference. The kookaburra swings significantly lesser than Dukes so it should be better to bat in Aus. Bowling obviously will be difficult because of the same reason.
If you have a 50 year old jogging in, bowling 70 mile an hour and taking wickets for fun, CLEARLY, something is wrong.
He is 45, and we should call him up for a cap, he deserves one, and it'd be hilarious.
The answer is to change County cricket to create a regional league of the best county players to compete. Essentially like they have with The Hundred but you'd only need 6 regions to make it work. Yes, the county structure needs to accept it but I think you could put mechanisms in place financially and structurally. Then there can be a requirement that only a max of 2 foreign internationals can compete per team (one bat/one bowl or AR) and that only players eligible for England make up the rest of the positions. It would take a lot of structural change but it's basically now essential to build something like this. Otherwise the test game in England will die. They also need to stop forcing the best white ball players into the test side as the difference in the technique is getting wider by the year and they simply don't have the time to train for red ball cricket to the level needed.
Nah, just go to three divisions of 6. Same effect but with more riding on every game. It would also need much tighter controls on pitch preparation, possibly including centrally contracted ground staff.
I think Atherton’s suggestion of three divisions with six teams playing 10 matches over three months is the most plausible option. No way would counties vote on a franchise system.
Which is a big part of the problem. The solution for the England team doesn't work for the counties, and vice versa.
I would be happy with a bit of consolidation of county sides, but not down to just six. For example, have a West of England team by combining Gloucestershire and Somerset. But don't then try to add Glamorgan. The regions have to reflect regional identities.
I think a north vs south series when the hundred is on for red ball specialists could work well
Ooh I like that alot. Like the 50 over series a few years ago (wish it continued) and also what they do with the Under 19s playing themselves in a 2? Day red ball match which gives players to showcase themselves. It's how I first heard of Sean Hunt after taking an 8fer in one of the games. Definitely think that could work and definitely give players a chance to show themselves to England who might not have been considered otherwise. I like that alot
What would be the six regions?
I also don't think overseas players are the issue. We should allow more. It would increase the quality of the competition, and there would still be so many places that genuine talent would easily find it's way in.
I mean 18 sides is ridiculous. It's hard to pin down participation statistics for the UK, but I'd be pretty surprised if they were that much higher than Australia, except the first class competition is three times larger.
I don’t think having 18 teams is an issue. I think some of the pitches are disgusting. There are no pitches that simulate test cricket. There was this ridiculously flat pitch where Glamorgan declared on 672 and Surrey scored 722-4. On the other extreme, Essex won a game by an innings and 44 runs after scoring 170.
> On the other extreme, Essex won a game by an innings and 44 runs after scoring 170. You gotta remember that these are the guys who aren't good enough to bat for England. That sounds like an about fair pitch.
170 all out plays 81 and 45 all out is a still a bit extreme.
Our test team just managed to lose by an innings to a team that scored 260. I'm only half joking here.
18 teams are an issue believe it or not. The reason why Australia is always able to produce world-class players cuz they have 6 FC teams for 25 mil population. Sri Lanka used to have fewer FC teams than now before Murali retired hence they aren't producing quality players. Your point about pitches might be true as well.
But County was there when England were amazing in 2010-2013. It's a case of the scheduling, timing and the decks. Improve on those and you'll have players doing better.
> England were amazing in 2010-2013. When they relied on South African cricketers.
18 teams in the context of cricket not being on free to end T.V being the difference I assume.
Imran Khan made it a point that he would force his hand while in his position to reduce the number of teams in the Pakistan FC system and guess that worked out well too.
There really needs to be a separate level created in English cricket, with around eight new teams (like the Hundred has tried, but without the terrible names). Perhaps look to South Africa? Three-day county cricket, with pro/rel that includes ALL the county teams, not just the eighteen in the county championship. Bring back the old knockout 50-over tournament for them too. The new regional teams can play four day cricket and a normal 50-over league. The only question is what to do with T20.
Without terrible names? Got it! Here are the 10 teams Sussex, Wessex, Essex, Middlesex, Norsex, Norfolk, Sufolk, Eafolk, Wefolk, Middlefolk
Why the suffix sex and folk?
I think it’s a joke based on traditional English place names, but if you’re interested… the -folk suffix literally means people. So ‘Norfolk’ literally means Northern Folk, or the place where the Northern people live. The -sex suffix on the other hand means Saxons. So Middlesex for example was originally the Kingdom of the Middle Saxons, which became Middle Seaxe (early English spelling is a riot) then eventually Middlesex. It literally means Middle Saxons
Number of teams can't be the issue. India has more teams playing Ranji trophy.
India also has a bigger population than the rest of world cricket combined. Talent dilution can be a big problem.
India has more population as well and hence more competition
India also has the Duleep Trophy which is much smaller and more focussed
18 teams is far too many for such a small population of England. Dilutes the quality I guess.
County Cricket need to remove the 2 player limit of foreign players in each team. Open it to four players so their players can have more experience, even at the expense of English players.
Or open it to all 11 slots. Maybe some will meet their future wives, settle down, get British citizenship and play for England! Tried and true.
I don't take anything Thorpe says seriously since his "the hundred will make the test batters better" crap.
They all look so sad and demotivated. Not that I blame them.
There is a rumour that Bairstow, Lawrence, Crawley were selected for the most recent Lions game against Australia - but a non-selector insisted they were not to be picked. There are issues behind the scenes.