EW Swanton : Counties fracture century-oldframework (5 December 1998)

5 December 1998

EW Swanton : Counties fracture century-oldframework

By E W Swanton

THE TRUEST lovers of cricket like to think that the evolving art of our great English summer game survives the crises which from time to time shake its foundations.

Such a one is now upon us and we optimists have to support the new order and encourage what seem to be its possible benefits.

Good things may come which are as yet unknown.

Yet there is no disguising from those of whatever generation with the knowledge of history that the England and Wales Cricket Board have fractured the County Championship which has produced our great cricketers, batsmen, bowlers and all-rounders since before it grew almost to its present size in 1895.

From Grace, Fry and Ranji to Hobbs, Woolley and Hammond: to Hutton and Compton: to May, Barrington, Dexter and Gower: of bowlers from Barnes and Richards to Tate and Larwood: to Bedser, Laker, Truman and Underwood: of all-rounders from Rhodes, Hirst and Jackson: J W Hearne and Ames: to Bailey, Knott, Illingworth and Botham. Were they not sufficiently 'competitive'? The hall of fame rolls on.

Lord MacLaurin, the ECB's strong chairman, tells us that the new "harder-edge competition" will "raise the game's profile and improve its quality". One good prospect for two divisions is that it will reputedly enthuse the young. Indeed, we shall all be on the edge of our breakfast chairs discovering whether our favourite county is heading Upstairs or Downstairs. The absence of the best in seven Tests and as many one-day internationals, the crucial chances of weather and pitches, lottery declarations, and the inevitable conflicts of interest between the pull of county and country in the selection of players: these factors surely make this deep gap far from ideal.

Here is a comical illustration. Neither of the last two champions, Leicestershire this year, Glamorgan in 1997, could have won the title, since both, on the previous year's results, would have been languishing in the lower divisions.

The 18 counties are to be treated equally as regards the annual hand-out, without which few could survive. That is one decision to applaud, and here is another. The present registration system limiting the transfer of players is to remain unaltered. No doubt the most important factor was the hidden agenda item, the likelihood of substantial financial sponsorship. The fact that the regulation ordains as many as three up, three down, probably decreases the danger of a football-style transfer market.

I imagine these are things which influenced the almost unanimous vote (15-1 with three abstentions), an extraordinary volte-face from the previous vote, 12-7 in favour of the continuation of the current championship, which will be contested next summer for the last time. On Thursday the MCC, not being directly concerned, sensitively abstained.

What to my mind is a great pity is that the dividing line for the year 2000 is to be drawn on the results of the 1999 championship alone, despite the major interruption of the World Cup, rather than taking the average positions over the past two summers and the next.

These large gatherings, attended by so many representatives, are proverbially difficult to control: the more credit therefore to David Morgan of Glamorgan who, my spies tell me, chaired the meeting admirably.

I must revert to the media climate of the last few years (not by any means excluding the 'heavies') before leaving the past and accepting the challenges of the future. If the dedicated, unpaid work of county committees and executives had been acknowledged and been in the interests of their members and loyal supporters, we would have had respect for their opinions. What hurt was the parrot-cry, latched on to by ignorant men eager to criticise, of selfish dinosaurs not concerned with England's interests. What piffle! Richie Benaud, with his unparalleled experience of English and Australian cricket, corrected this line of thinking of the counties being just a production line for Test cricketers. He has written that when he played and captained New South Wales his sole ambition and effort was to win the Sheffield Shield for his State. They never gave a thought to selection for Australia. It was the selectors' job to estimate their ability and their temperament.

We all want a strong England team. Of course we do. But Benaud's philosophy must be ours. The championship must prosper on its own if it is to be an effective nursery. There is ludicrous rubbish in the air that the current championship is "meaningless", and that the two divisions are the panacea which will prevent England ever being bowled out again at Perth for 112.

The worst damage to English cricket was when the decision to cover the pitches scotched the experiment in progress of a championship mixture of some three and some four-day matches. If the covers had been tried for four days and not brought in also for three days, the merits of both over a few seasons would have been tested.

As it was, county captains as a rule mutually decided on two days of sparring and a declaration and hectic chase on the third. Many old cricketers believe that improvement in technique, marred by one-day cricket and bats like logs, and especially the arts of spin, will only return if a measure of covering comes back.

The importance of the umpires' role will become more and more important as 'more competitive' today means more aggressive - and more intimidation by bowlers. Too many of our young cricketers in or near the England XI, now free to say and write as they like, talk tough, words made foolish as soon as they are uttered. They even seem to take for granted the puerile and offensive habit of sledging, invented and practised almost universally in Australia.

England's improvement will only come gradually. Meanwhile let the present generation of first-class cricketers be aware that they are inheritors of players mostly modest and with a rich brand of dry humour, admired by the public for the men they were. Their instinct was reflected by village cricketers and upwards: that generosity is at the heart of true sportsmanship: in defeat as in victory.

Postscript: Rain at Brisbane, which probably saved England from defeat in the First Test, was no more than a down-payment for the defeats of 1946 and 1950. In the first instance our hopes of saving the game were washed away by rain and hail, the noise of which on the corrugated-iron stand roof seemed to prelude the end of the world. In 1950 Freddie Brown's side bowled out Australia for 228 on a plumb pitch on the first day, one of the best performances I ever saw in Australia. Thereupon England, after torrential rain, had to bat on the most horrible, impossible of pitches. We generally do better at Adelaide.

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