the rugby league carnt give every area a team because thier would be 25 teams and when perth and adelaide had teams thier was 20 teams and the standard suffered.in rugby union the tri nations(australia,new zealand and south africa) has expanded to the 4 nations now including argentina which will help the world game in the future.

in australia people have being trying to add canberra(a.c.t) in the australian domestic comp with most players playing for victoria and n.s.w.(surprisingly thier a 4 native born tasmanians in the australian side,2 native born queenslanders and 2 native born western australians and the rest are native born victorians and n.s.w,canberra(a.c.t) is halfway between n.s.w and victoria and has produced brad haddin and micheal bevan.the is also a case to create a top end league(winter is the dry season in northern australia) with teams in cairns,darwin,alice springs and broome,for players who carnt get contracts i.p.l or english domestic comp.i understand your point

we have a similar problem with rugby league in australia with a comp hoping to add 2 new teams,brisbane get crowds of 20000 people with 1 team,by adding a 2nd brisbane team they hope to get a brisbane game every week with big crowds and thier are 5-6 areas competing for the extra team,some say sydney has too many teams with 9 teams and if the game wants to expand sydney teams will have almagamate with other clubs or relocate(the average sydney crowd is 10000 people),10 years ago they algamated 4 clubs in to 2 and kicked 2 teams out of the comp(my team the rabbitohs got kicked out people protested in the street) and gave teams to perth and adelaide where no one plays rugby league in w.a and s.a.

the other areas competing for a team are the central coast(has alot of juniors),papua new guinea(has alot of juniors and would help the world game),south island of new zealand(has 20000 juniors and would help the world game) rockhampton(has juniors) and perth the favourite bid has no juniors

Dan,

I can see where you're coming from and, as I mentioned before, I agree with the principle of trying to get these nations playing regular FC cricket.

The problem is how you fit that into an English domestic season which is already spilling out into early April. The debate here has been about reducing the number of sides rather than increasing them.

The only way I can see Ireland, Scotland & The Netherlands playing in the championship is if existing counties make way for them or the season is restructured so a reduced number of FC games are played. There'd be a lot of opposition to either of those suggestions.

At the moment it's difficult to see how you'd get your wish.

Kenny

im just thinking about the international game to try to bring ireland and the netherlands up to the standard of test level,at the most cost effective way.

the icc just gave scotland $500000 funding to help them play in the next world cup,and changed the eligibilty rules so scotland can source player from overseas who have scottish parents and grand parents the team will comprised of 3 australians,3 south africans,3 english,1 new zealander with 1 native scotsmen(this kind of funding is slush fund for people who are fortunate to have parents or grand parents born overseas) rather than spending on grass roots native born talent.

the netherlands has only 1 native born player,my idea is to over time develop grass root native talent to test standard. it might add a few extra games(3 or 4 games) to the county championship but the benefits to the world game are massive.

with icc throwing $500000 on scotland(i dont how much money ireland and the netherlands get) it could be better spent

Reading back through my above comment it sounds as though I'm being very dismissive of the standard of cricket in Ireland, Scotland & The Netherlands. That wasn't my intention. It's just that sometimes you have to paraphrase your thoughts to stay within the 1000 character limit on Cricinfo blog comments!

Kenny

Dan,

Most people would agree the logical way to improve Ireland, Scotland & The Netherlands would be the chance for them to develop a side of professional cricketers who play regular fc matches. County cricket is the obvious stage for that. The difficulty comes in the logistics.

Despite their success in one-day cricket, I think both The Netherlands and Scotland would struggle to field a competitive side in the championship. A full strength Ireland would hold their own but currently their best players are signed up with English counties. I certainly don’t see the strength in depth to support more than one pro team in any of those countries.

Given how packed the English season is, any attempt to include those nations in the CC would probably come as part of a restructuring towards three divisions/regions of seven teams. That would mean a reduction in games from 16 to 12. I can’t see the counties, and certainly not their membership, wanting that.

Kenny

a way to improve cricket in europe is to add ireland,scotland & netherlands into the english domestic comp.

you could give ireland 3 teams cork,belfast and dublin, add the teams into division 1 and division 2 like currently exist.how the comp might look is dublin vs kent.

i have problems with scotland playing in world cups(its like queensland seperating from australia to play in world cups,irelands different its a sovereign nation like new zealand) and other countries can take thier place,i would like to see scotland provide players for england like glamorgan(wales) does, i would give scotland 2 teams glasgow and edinburgh for example glasgow vs hampshire.

i would give the netherlands 2 teams rotterdam and amsterdam for example rotterdam vs essex.

this way scotland,ireland and netherlands play a high standard of cricket with sponsership,tv and money and would fact track them to test cricket.

it would only add 3-4 teams to both division 1 & 2 with huge international benefiets

Thanks, Ed. But look at what I've done to Derbyshire. Only been supporting them five minutes and they're bowled out for 95.

*crosses fingers for The Netherlands*

Those first two paragraphs are brilliant.