Fun of the Cup may arrest decline

Times may have changed, England's season may now stretch around the calendar and we might now have an endless diet of summer sport on television, but for the many who suffer from Cricket Season Affective Disorder, the release of the county fixtures for the coming year offer as much hopes of better times ahead as the first glimpse of snowdrops, daffodils and a new council tax bill. They all mean one thing: the cricket season is just around the corner.

And with that hope comes all the familiar debates: does the season start too early (the Championship begins on April 12); does it end too late (September 25); doesn't playing a 100-over final at Lord's on September 19 damage the integrity of the competition (a resounding 'yes, yes, yes'); why does the T20 competition stop just as the school holidays start? And why on earth does it start so early?

There will also be the familiar refrain about there being too much cricket. And it is true that, while many spectators can never have too much, the burden on players, on pitches, on coaches and on the wider public's interest, is sometimes counterproductive. While the season starts with some shape - Championship matches regularly begin on Sundays - by mid-July it is chaos: Championship games begin on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, clubs play all three formats within the same week and it becomes impossible for all but the most diehard county cricket lovers to keep track of the season. By August it is worse.

So it might sound counter-intuitive to suggest more cricket as the solution. But if Championship matches were played Monday to Thursday, T20 reserved for Friday nights and the 50-over competition returned to Sundays, it would free-up Saturdays for something different. And that something different could be a knockout T20 cup, incorporating the minor counties and club premier league teams.

There is little peril in county cricket. Apart from the knockout stages of the 50-over or T20 competitions, sides can recover from a bad result. The campaigns are so long, that the importance of each result is diluted.

But a knockout competition changes that. It provides pop drama in a schedule offering epics, it can inspire excitement and the prospect of "giant killing" - though whether any defeat of Leicestershire at present could be called as such is debatable - it can inspire new or lapsed spectators and more media interest. Not only that, but it provides a shop-window and incentive for club cricketers.

To maximise the benefit of the competition, it would need to be played on free-to-air television to give it a chance to reach a new audience - Sky deserve and have the ability to deliver this - and the opening round of games that involve the first-class counties (the equivalent of the FA Cup third round), should be played at the home ground of the non-professional team.

That is not just to increase the prospect of a giant killing - though the shorter boundaries and sometimes less manicured pitches might well do that - but to ensure the cricket is played at small grounds - not stadiums - where kids can get close to their heroes and a relatively small number of spectators can provide an atmosphere that might fall flat at a huge stadium such as Lord's or Edgbaston. Besides, there is no point providing more cricket to those that already have plenty; the aim has to be to reach further and re-connect with a community that has stopped engaging with the game. It might even boost the coffers of hard-pressed clubs.

The benefits of the competition extend far beyond the potential thrill of a giant killing. By including the minor counties, the ECB would ensure the competition's relevance is spread across the country. So local media in Cornwall and Devon and Cambridge and Shropshire - media that might show little interest in professional cricket for the rest of the year - would cover the game, sponsors would be attracted by the extra reach and spectators who might not be inclined to travel to a first-class venue, might be attracted to Truro, or Wellington or Torquay.

It would, in short, make county cricket relevant to people who, right now, find it irrelevant.

It is not a new idea. For many years, such a competition - the Gillette Cup, the C&G or the NatWest as it was variously known - was a feature of the season. But the players and coaches didn't like it and their views - oddly, bearing in mind that it is meant to be a spectator sport - seem to count more than those of spectators. There was a sense that, with the schedule bursting at the seams, something had to give. That something was the knockout cup.

Some of us have been recommending its return for years, including to David Morgan as part of his review into domestic cricket. In recent days Michael Vaughan has thrown his support behind the idea and says he will present the notion to the ECB shortly.

He will face the normal obstacles. He will be told that the current schedule is demanding on players and coaches. But he should point out that this is the reason counties retain squads of up to 30 players and how a rotation system would promote opportunities for young players. He might also point out that cricketers play a great deal less often than their counterparts in US sports such as baseball.

It may also be, in time, that some county games are played overseas. The ECB mooted the thought a couple of years ago to very little support but there are those in positions of power who still favour further exploration of the idea. It could turn out to be relevant that this is the last year that the MCC has a deal to play the Champion County fixture in the UAE. It would be no surprise if the match was played in the Caribbean in future seasons and only a bit more of a surprise if, in time, it was followed by the first round of Championship games in the same venues.

Either way, let us not pretend that a continuation of the status quo is adequate. We have seen a fall in participation numbers, a fall in average attendances at the re-launched T20, awful ticket sales at what might have once been considered big games (the Ageas Bowl Test is one example, but the semi-final of the Royal London One-Day Cup at Edgbaston was, in its own way, even more alarming), newspapers cutting their cricket reporters and an unhealthy reliance upon cricketers brought up at least in part overseas or at public schools to represent England.

Eden is burning and we are doing our game a disservice if we look the other way. An FA Cup-style competition might help arrest the decline.