COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Last four Yorks chairs blast ECB | Champ games to be played in UAE or Sri Lanka? | Introducing the 6ixty | Seriously, how to replace the ECB? | Big Somerset signing
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While England spent a splendid, sunny spell in the Netherlands this week, the rest of the game seemed to be well on the way to La-La Land.
We had talk of County Championship games being played overseas. And, by that, I do not mean the Isle of Wight, more like the UAE or Sri Lanka. Allen Stanford, he of the massive fraud, Ponzi scheme and a damaging, plastic, money-riven new cricket competition, spoke from jail. Meanwhile the ECB, they of the massive incompetence, power vacuums and a damaging, plastic, money-riven new cricket competition, got both barrels from the four chairmen of the pending Headingley apocalypse.
And, to cap it all, the English governing body got out stupided (that’s a word I probably made up in a sentence I never thought I write) by the 6ixty. It’s shorter, crazier and significantly crapper than the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named. And that is an extremely low bar.
Amidst it all, the Blast hung in there, with some smashing occasions and wonderful finishes. But it all feels like one of those horror movies where a loving, wholesome couple enjoy a quiet night inside an isolated cottage blissfully unaware that the crazies are amassing in the nearby woods.
It always ends with blood on the carpet and, metaphorically, this will as well.
There is just too much crazy going on.
Blast News
County cricket talking points: Surrey and Hampshire deliver tight wins (Guardian)
Luke Wright passes 5,000 T20 runs for Sussex Sharks (Brighton Argus)
A very talented and rather underrated white-ball player. Wright has 5,026 T20 runs for Sussex at an average of 32.84 and a strike-rate of 148.47 per 100 balls.
Deep Extra Cover’s coverage of the Blast
Player News
Shan Masood set to miss four weeks of Derbyshire's season after Pakistan call-up (Cricketer)
Washington Sundar likely to play for Lancashire this season (Cricinfo)
Mohammad Amir To Return To Gloucestershire For T20 Vitality Blast (Cricket Addictor)
Pollard ruled out of the rest of ‘Vitality’ after surgery (Trinidad Express)
The name of this newspaper surely should be the nickname of a Windies fast bowler.
Signings, contracts, loans: Rickleton (Northamptonshire), Maddinson (Durham), Evison (Leicestershire - loan), Davies (Middlesex - contract)
Tom Kohler-Cadmore signs for Somerset as Yorkshire exodus intensifies (Cricinfo)
After the departure of David Willey was announced last week with the all-rounder questioning the priorities at Headingley, this is another blow to Yorkshire. But they might argue that securing Harry Brooks to a long-term deal (and Dom Leech too) is more significant to their overall future.
And, it seems, Yorkshire are looking to make further signings.
Leaving all biases aside, it will be a terrible look for the ECB if Yorkshire lift the Championship trophy this year but are still awaiting punishment after being found guilty on charges of racism, see further down.
News, Views and Interviews
Andrew Strauss’s high-performance review panel likely to cut amount of county matches (Times) ($)
How the hell did we get here?
Championship games played in the Middle East
Reducing the number of games played
Even reducing the number of counties playing
All have been ‘leaked’ from a High-Performance Review involving a cycling expert who has been deeply embroiled in a drugs scandal and a football expert who faced accusations of covering up racism claims.
This appears to be a pivotal committee deciding the future of a major spectator sport, an entertainment, yet it seems that fans are not being considered. If following cricket was solely about the success of the English national team then none of us would have held any long-term interest over the past 30 years.
God knows I have absolutely no time for Colin Graves after the damage he has done to English cricket but we can't dismiss the questions he and his fellow ex-Yorkshire chairs are asking here. Though Richard Hutton’s quote in the Mail hammers his predecessors in the role and calls for an independent regulator. It is a mess on all sides and everyone is shouting "unfair". I will tread carefully through this one as there clearly more going on than meets the eye.
However, the ECB’s prevarication and delay in investigating has placed huge pressure upon all sides. Due process and proper investigations take time but that had been used up by the point the story hit the papers and the you-know-what hit the fan. A failure to grasp the nettle meant immediate results were then demanded and, as a result, the very future of the county was at stake.
The questions against Yorkshire and Azeem Rafiq himself are pretty clear, though their respective gravities are different. But, as Hutton argues, who is going to punish the ECB here? It is another failure from a body whose competence has been under question by fans and politicians for years now. History might show they are in the middle of a decade that sees the destruction of the traditional county game. And, yet again, the governing body can say 'not us, mate' over the Yorkshire affair as the man in charge at that time has now cleared his desk and is probably on a beach starting to make a dent in that obscene bonus.
It all makes a legacy fan like me feel powerless, pointless and on the verge of giving up. But I sense that is what they want.
And, while we are at it, who paid for this utter shambles in 2008, below? It is one of the most embarrassing episodes in recent sports history in this country. Chairman Giles Clarke supposedly carried the blame but not the can. He stayed in that role until 2015 then became president, only leaving the organisation in 2018. He got a CBE for services to cricket in 2012.
All this self-serving nonsense makes this piece by Barney Ronay, below, more relevant. Do read it. The quickest way to change the direction of English cricket is to change the governing body. But is that the right thing to do? How can it be done anyway? Who can actually bring about change? And what comes in its place? And who decides that?
Time to end ECB spin and give English cricket the governing body it deserves (Guardian)
My fear is that the change has been so dramatic and the desolation left behind so complete that they will have no choice but to plough on, using their powers not to serve the game but to satisfy their own aims, rigging the playing field to justify the unjustifiable and then claiming they were right all along.
Like an old, sprawling English forest, county cricket has been growing imperceptibly for centuries. Its development has been organic and bent toward towards the prevailing conditions of that season. There are plenty of unkempt, overgrown and difficult parts but it’s still lovely to get lost in.
And if you chop it down, you’ll never get it back.
Fred Klaassen: 'I need to learn on my feet quicker. I don't have ten or 15 years' (Cricinfo)
It has all gone a bit Dutch this week. Understandably so. The ODI in Amstelveen seemed joyous. From what I saw on the television, there was lots of beer, lots of boisterousness but little sun-block.
Families affected by dementia offered free tickets to watch cricket at The Oval (Southwark News)
Another fine scheme from Surrey. Once, I interviewed an elderly footballer about his career in the 1950s. He could remember so little about the nuts and bolts of his playing days it was painful. But, on the way out, I pointed to a team group picture on the wall in which he was featured. He named every player and told me a story about each of his mates. Sporting memories are different when they are attached with emotion and meaning.
Staying on this topic, last week I discussed the fact that, for all the marketing, it is moments with players that stay in the memory with youngsters. So, this, this, a thousand times this…
Another avenue into county cricket for the young Grumbler was team posters. They came out of the middle of Tiger & Scorcher, though I had to pull out the staples very carefully. I thought they were lost to the game but Essex were handing them out at Sunday’s family day game. If you can get them signed then their emotional value soars and, like this one, they end up on a bedroom wall.
Southport – When Patrick the fastest bowler in the world bounced into town (Tony Robertson)
Why do Cricket Pitches Crack? (TurfCareBlog)
Visa issues stopped Middlesex signing Majeeb Ur Rahman and it is having an effect lower down the ladder too.
