COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Blast crowds struggling, are you surprised? | Foxes fight back with £10 deal | Key to cut Championship games? | Fans' banners taken down | Jim Parks RIP

COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: T20 Blast Off | All the previews, podcasts | Ticket sales struggling because of you-know-what? | Has Championship been a let-down so far? | Surrey's classy gesture | Big sponsorship deal for Lancs

COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Strauss Review nonsense | Key appointment doubts | Compton's stunning start | TalkSPORT's quality coverage | Syd Lawrence

COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: All the Championship previews | Mickey Arthur & Jack Russell defend county cricket | A list of the ECB's mistakes this week | The '10-year Sky deal' analysed

The cogs are starting to move once more. More players are being signed and all the coaching staff are being confirmed. We are now within 50 days of the first game and it feels like county cricket is starting to awaken. Certainly, the story needs to move on because we still seem to be mired in two thorny issues - racism and the ECB’s role. Surrey and Leicestershire provide the good news in this edition. Hopefully, there will be more next time around.

County cricket, like the NHS, has been suffering seemingly terminal decline due to neglect, poor leadership and far too many short-sighted, short-term reforms. The endless pursuit of 'efficiency' has weakened resilience. With both, a clear decision has to be made over what we want.

Like a bear preparing for hibernation, this County Championship cricket season has left me with enough sustenance for my sporting soul to get through winter. But I will wince at every headline between now and April. Not because I fear change but because I fear the motives of those making them. The sport’s administrators are clearly not interested in my kind and their values.

The Championship started at a frenetic, free-scoring pace and ended with low-scoring, wicket-winkling drama at Aigburth and Edgbaston. In this team, I have tried to consider the young saplings, the blossoming talents and the hardy perennials. One of the wonderful aspects of four-day county cricket is there is space for anyone of any age to grow if they have the necessary talent and application.

The end of the county cricket season felt like the last sunshine of the year, both real and metaphorical, so it was important to savour the moment. Especially as there was always a chance a hero or two would not be back.

Mr Dowden, I am suggesting to you the idea of a fan-led review of cricket, similar to Tracey 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 concern for county cricket is precisely the same as that of UK society. Namely that the pandemic will provide a convenient cover to accelerate a process that has been going on for some time.

The concentration of money and resources not to the many but the few.

The scheduling of the entire 2021 season has been annoying and confusing for ‘legacy fans’. The Championship has been exiled to the extremities, the Royal London Cup has been diluted and overshadowed while the Blast has been protracted to the extent of near meaninglessness.

A high-quality Royal London Cup final was hampered by negligent, disrespectful organisation that left little chance of a carnival crowd, let alone the sort of atmosphere manufactured in the tournament overshadowing it.

Quite understandably, The Hundred has used gimmicks to entice a new audience into its version of cricket. Why not consider using a similar approach to sympathetically shine a light on the version of cricket many fear it could destroy?

As products, sorry I used that word again, The Hundred is ‘cheap’ and Tests are ‘quality’. In purely marketing terms, these two factors are key in our decision to buy. The 50-over event is neither.

The Hundred is an ill-considered gamble created by marketers with pounds signs where their hearts should be and promoted with all the clarity and sincerity of Boris Johnson on the floor of the Commons. As far as I can see, there has never been a coherent long-term plan, no consistent explanation of how it supports the overall structure of the game and, before this week, nothing about how its success will be measured.