A small pat on the back for the ECB

English cricket likes few things more than a whopping in-depth report into what's wrong with the game. Working parties, blueprints and review groups galore have come, been seen and been chucked in the bin.

But just when you thought that the ECB could fell no more trees in the name of improved corporate governance, along comes their "Building Partnerships from Playground to Test Arena - Cricket's Strategic Plan", which was unveiled this week. Now there's a sexy title: one to rival their not-to-be-forgotten "Raising the (white?) Standard" of 1997.

It's too easy to mock administrators, even though it's a lot of fun and often thoroughly deserved. But on this occasion the ECB deserve a little pat on the back. Just a little one, mind, so don't get carried away, chaps.

The fundamental point about this document, aside from lots of worthy stuff about putting money into grass-roots cricket, is that the power of the 18 first-class counties has taken a hefty knock.

Contrary to popular opinion, county cricket actually has quite a lot going for it. But the influence that the First Class Forum (the 18 teams plus MCC) exerted over the English game became more ludicrous and frustrating with each passing year.

Only in England could you have a county chairman (Lancashire's Jack Simmons) asking publicly what was the point of producing first-class players if they were always playing for England instead of their county. Only in England could you have a county chief executive (Northamptonshire's Steve Coverdale) say that more of his members would rather their team won the County Championship than England won the Ashes.

It is one thing for English football's Premier League to have club v country rows. Club football is a multimillion-pound business, while international football (the big tournaments aside) has become increasingly marginalised. The opposite is true in cricket. The county game might have been the main attraction in England in the late-19th and early part of the 20th century, but that just isn't the case now. No-one in Victoria bleats about the fact that Shane Warne only turns out for them once in a blue moon. Or in Mumbai, when they haven't seen Sachin in the Ranji Trophy for a while.

So what has the ECB done to effect this minor yet significant change? Part of it is about streamlining the organisation, disbanding the First Class Forum, reducing their management board from 18 to 12, and relying on only three committees. Then there's the money. Whereas the England team's funding will increase 3% from 2006 and the recreational game around 4%, the counties will receive around 7% less of the overall pot than they do now. In addition, 25% of the money the counties receive is to be performance-related by the end of 2009.

The performance-related bit is quite cunning. It's not about winning things, it's about producing England players, or at least ones who are qualified to play for England. The problem for the ECB is that it is illegal for them to dictate to counties how many England-qualified players they must pick. So, instead, counties are to be rewarded financially when the England coach requests video footage from one of their games. On the basis that Duncan Fletcher is not interested in non-qualified players, counties will receive somewhere in the region of £200 per England-qualified player per match. Clever, huh?

In the seven County Championship matches played last week, there were 28 players out of 154 not qualified to play for England, which is about 18%. Division Two had 18, of which Derbyshire fielded five. Eighteen per cent sounds OK until one realises that many of the bigger-name overseas players, like Murali and Graeme Smith, were not even there, and most of the senior England players were.

The ECB's strategic plan seemed like a small step for a governing body, but it might just be a giant leap for English cricket.