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Dear Oliver Dowden,

I hope you are well. Please let me introduce myself. I am a county cricket fan, cricket writer/author and I live in Hertsmere, your constituency. This is an ‘open letter’ that will be emailed to you and act as my column in The Cricket Paper on Sunday, September 12.

I read with interest your interview with Henry Winter in the Times on Friday, August 27, headlined: ‘[Football] Clubs are like art treasures – they must be protected’. It suggested that, on the back of the crisis this summer over the proposed European Super League, your football to-do list as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport included addressing “the financial probity and integrity of club owners properly scrutinised by an independent regulator; fans to have a “golden share” in their club; safe-standing trials; the Premier League to move quicker on vexed issues like takeovers; and social media executives to face custodial sentences if they fail to clamp down on racist abuse online.”

You stated that the report on the fan-led review under Tracy Crouch would not “gather dust” and action would be taken. Presumably, this is where the regulatory body, nicknamed “Off-foot”, will be critical.

As a life-long football supporter, I commend this hands-on approach. The pandemic has illustrated that while it is critical for governments and scientists to keep us alive, the likes of sport, the arts and culture, as well as our families, are truly what we live for.

To that end, I am one of many who believe county cricket is in the throes of an existential crisis. In 2019, I spent a summer following my team around the country and wrote a book on my experiences called “Last-Wicket Stand”. After 150 years, it felt like the final season in which county cricket would be central to the English summer. A new franchise-based tournament, The Hundred, was due to launch in 2020 sucking up all the marketing spend, attention and resources with the expressed intention of growing the game.

On Wednesday 23 October 2019, Tom Harrison, CEO of the English Cricket Board, and then chairman Colin Graves spoke to a DCMS Committee. The brief was for MPs to “examine how to capitalise the men's team World Cup success this summer, plus changes in cricketing governance, broadcasting rights and cricket revenues, how the success of the new Hundred tournament will be measured, and inspiring children and grassroots participation.”

Their performance did little to assuage traditional fans from the view that this competition will lead to the concentration of resources into those counties in bigger cities that can host games in The Hundred. This would mean that, in the longer term, as many as eight current first-class teams would go part-time or cease to exist.

The tournament started in 2021 after a one-year delay because of the pandemic and many of these issues are still unclear, particularly the success criteria and ongoing benefit to cricket as a whole.

Of course, there are huge advantages in cricket returning to free-to-air television and tapping into a new younger audience. However, for many long-standing fans, the manner of the Hundred’s introduction and an ongoing lack of concern for the county game and its ‘legacy supporters’ has created division. At a domestic level, the sport feels like it is “in camps” with older, traditional fans on one side with the younger supporters and those less attached to the existing sport on the other.

Then there are more specific concerns such as the ECB making 62 staff redundant during the pandemic and asking players to take reduced salaries yet paying a handful of key executives bonuses amounting to £2.1m after the ‘success’ of The Hundred.

All this division and rancour is something domestic cricket can ill-afford. A large proportion of county supporters believe that their voices are not being heard. Unlike football, our relationship is not just about buying tickets, we pay to be members of our clubs. We have different expectations in addition to on-field success, such as creating top-class players for the England international teams, being local centres of excellence and serving the local community.

Therefore I am suggesting to you the idea of a fan-led review of cricket, similar to Ms Couch’s work in football, which explores the idea of supporters having a true voice in the game. A regulatory body such as the one you have proposed in football would be welcome too.

The fall-out from the ESL has led to calls for greater inclusion of fans in the workings of their clubs, especially at board level. Even though the different mechanisms of first-class cricket counties would, in theory, make this easier to achieve it has rarely happened. The excellent Cricket Supporters Association have installed greater fan representation as one of their primary aims, however, I fear that any real influence will be hard-won. I would direct you to Nick Hoult’s piece in the 2020 Wisden Almanack “The Birth of the Hundred – Saviour or Monster” as an excellent backgrounder in this area.

I am mindful that this country and this government have much greater problems to solve right now. However, cricket not football is England’s national sport and, as the 2019 World Cup victory illustrated, it retains the power to consume the nation.

I am keen to hear your views and, if required, would be delighted to discuss the matter in person should you have sufficient time and interest.

Regards

Richard Clarke

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