CMJ: Comment: County groups unite in support for two division (18 August 1997)

Monday 18 August 1997

Comment: County groups unite in support for two divisions

By Christopher Martin-Jenkins

NOTHING is harder for official bodies to resist than a groundswell of public opinion. As reported in The Tele- graph a week ago the smaller county clubs have apparently now accepted the long-term agenda of the counties with Test match grounds.

The widely accepted need to balance commercial demands with the need to arrest the decline of the England team and to galvanise young cricketers seems to be leading both groups, after all, towards a two-division County Championship, provided there is promotion and relegation each season for at least three counties, a mercifully reduced National League of 50-over one-day matches, and a NatWest competition which will still have the proposed 60 teams but will continue to be played as a 60-over competition.

Chief executives of all the 18 first-class counties have had to play a careful game since the majority of them uttered warm general approval for the changes proposed by Lord MacLaurin and Tim Lamb when the England and Wales Cricket Board`s blueprint was published 10 days ago and counties such as Warwickshire and Lancashire - whose chairmen, Mike Smith and Bob Bennett, originally spoke about the proposals in glowing terms - have been only too pleased for the less wealthy brethren to take the initiative.

Somerset are leading what may develop into an irresistible opposition towards the ECB`s precise blueprint for next season and beyond, this time, however, without the dissension which has been common when radical changes have been proposed for county cricket in the past. A special meeting of the First Class Forum on Sept 2 has been called following a series of phone calls last week between Somerset`s chief executive, Peter Anderson, and Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, Sussex, Leicestershire and Hampshire. They formed the six counties required by the FCF`s constitution for a special meeting to be called.

Anderson tells me that Somerset have not yet formulated any alternative plan - their committee meet this week - but that with so many counties having second thoughts about a reduced County Championship next year, a debate was essential if the formal meeting of the Forum on Sept 15 to deliver a final verdict on the blueprint is not to be "a shambles".

The ECB has officially welcomed the chance for a public airing of views and if there is a consensus the board`s management committee, the official authors of Raising the Standard, will alter their carefully considered plans in the hope that genuine and thorough change at all levels of the game will still be agreed.

The commonly expressed lie needs to be nailed, however, that this is all part of some machiavellian plan by MacLaurin and his chief advisers, Lamb and John Carr, to force two divisions of the championship. On the contrary they started from a desire to improve the quality of first-class county cricket and their formula to reduce the number of games to 14 was based on the insistence of the ECB`s own cricket committee that quality had to become more important than quantity. The idea of a championship consisting of three conferences of six with play-offs to determine final positions was seen as the only solution which would both allow 18 counties to remain in business and yet reduce the number of match days to give more time for "practice, rest and recuperation".

It remains the widespread view among those most closely involved with professional cricket that 14 matches are about the ideal to prepare cricketers for the changed world of international cricket and both John Wright of New Zealand, coach to Kent, and David Gilbert of Australia, Surrey`s guide, are agreed on the matter. Their perspective, as former county cricketers who have also played in different systems in their home countries and are still close to changing trends in Test cricket, is as good as anyone could find.

Lamb, the ECB`s chief executive, was defending the blueprint at the weekend while accepting that it could be revised if a better plan was found. He made no secret of his and Lord MacLaurin`s view that a two-division championship remains "the most obvious way to increase competitiveness" but also stressed that the objections written into Raising the Standard remain valid.

"The more one raises the stakes in the championship the more one penalises counties that produce Test match players who miss a significant proportion of these games. It would make it even more difficult for counties to agree to rest England performers between Tests, and counties would be less inclined to take chances with young players. Second division status might also make it very difficult for a number of counties to survive. The objection is that neither an eight nor a 16-match programme is ideal. Eight games are too few and 16 does not go far enough in creating space for better preparation."

Herein, however, lies the good news if Somerset`s pro- posals are accepted on Sept 2 and plans are then hastily revised for the meeting 13 days later. It is obvious to all, and Lamb agrees, that a 16-match championship would have to be balanced by an abandonment of the plan for a National League of 25 matches. The volume of these games countered the avowed intention to improve England`s Test cricket by giving further encouragement to reckless batting and defensive bowling. They were a sop to county treasurers concerned at losing 12 days of firstclass cricket and an attempt on MacLaurin`s part to get counties too dependent on central funds to stand on their own two feet as businesses.

Now they may have to make what they can of the NatWest and a league of no more than 17 games. The meeting on Sept 2 will consider either a two-division National League (16 games, some to be played in midweek as well as on Sundays according to each county`s taste) with a possible play-off between the top side in each; or a single league with a separate `league cup` at the end of the season between the counties finishing in the top four. The latter would have the advantage of a second final at Lord`s and Roger Knight, secretary of MCC, the 19th member of the FCF, said this weekend that while he supports the thrust of Raising the Standard he personally would not be against the idea.

It is the changes below the first-class level which will still determine the ultimate success or failure of the blueprint but if a two-division championsip and reduced oneday league are the eventual outcome of next month`s meetings, as the groundswell seems to be demanding, it will be 1999 be- fore county cricket changes. Lamb said yesterday that fixtures would require such an overhaul that the status quo might have to remain for next year and that, to be equitable, two divisions would have to be determined by finishing places in next year`s championship, not this.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)