Mark Nicholas: County egos continue to get in way of progress (6 Aug 1997)

Wednesday 6 August 1997

County egos continue to get in way of progress

By Mark Nicholas

LORD MacLaurin and Tim Lamb have done a pretty good job considering the extraordinary resistance to change that confronts any imaginative administration of English cricket. Here we are, with a substandard county system feeding a Test team that could not beat Zimbabwe let alone Australia, and still the restructuring of our game hints at loose ends and compromise.

MacLaurin is not a man for either but even he, with his remarkable CV in business planning, is shackled by the indifference and self-interest of the counties. He has gone half-hog because the counties would have lobbed the whole hog out of the window.

The fact is that English cricket will continue to massage its own over-inflated ego while it is run by the county clubs and therefore by their members. It should be run by the newly constituted 38 regional boards who should be at the top of a pyramid which begins with cricket in the schools and moves right the way through the amateur game, financing a strong premier league in each county or region, to the county team itself. Only then, when the county clubs are answerable to their boards and the county boards answerable to the management committee of the ECB and their chairman, will English cricket have a structure that the amazing and continued enthusiasm for the game in this country deserves.

Still, at least we have something brave in its departure from the past and fresh in its possibilities for the future to be excited about. I spoke to a handful of first-class cricketers yesterday afternoon and could sense the energy in their support for three competitions with new purpose and potential drama. It was as if a layer of dust had been lifted off the game and the furniture which had been dulled by time and routine now had the chance to stand proudly again.

Three conferences and play-offs, which sound more complicated than they are, will increase the intensity of championship cricket and provide a focus not only for the players but also for the supporters who have been short-changed by teams who are out of the hunt in late July. We should have had two divisions with promotion and relegation but because the counties are not prepared to face and understand their true responsibilities to the English game in general, rather than of their own patch, we do not.

The shock of relegation should have been a challenge to get the house back in order; the opportunity for promotion should have been the catalyst for freer, more incisive play. There was nothing to be scared of, only more testing competition from which players, marketing men and money men would have benefited. As it is, the conferences will create some spice and the play-offs a climax for all teams, rather than the lucky few, to enjoy at the end of the season.

Craftily, MacLaurin and Lamb have given us the chance to evaluate promotion and relegation by including it in the one-day rethink. There may be more matches but now they have an obvious pattern and will therefore be easier to follow. Clearly, they are there to make money and the flexibility of the scheduling will allow for experiments with evening play, night matches under lights and further exploiting the midweek corporate audience. The television companies are delighted with the potential of this National League and will therefore retain their confidence in the value of covering the domestic game.

Phasing out second eleven cricket and reducing county staffs is a good way to go, not least because a professional sportsman`s lifestyle must be the privilege of the elite, not of the hangers-on, and an easy living in the comfort zone just beneath the first-class game will not produce Test cricketers.

HOWEVER, this will only work if money, and a lot of it, initiative and support are given to the amateur game. Premier leagues are a must as are two-day matches between all cricketers outside the county teams. We have plenty of gifted 15- and 16-year-olds in England but very few who realise their talent at first-class level. The under 17 age group must assume greater importance - probably in place of the under 19 age group - and the club cricket circuit which follows must have the facilities and the standards to act as the provider for the first-class game.

The board must provide money more specifically. The county clubs should be able to sustain their own first-class team, wages and overheads, through their own revenue. The handout from the ECB should be to the county boards and should provide exclusively for the development of the game, most immediately for cricket in schools.

A last thought in the wake of yesterday`s gale-force wind of change. The quality of pitches and the standard of coaching and management in English cricket leave a deal to be desired. County pitches must not conform to a rule of thumb, they must retain their indigenous characteristics and most importantly must have enough life to encourage bowlers.

English coaches must be prepared to branch out, to explore and embrace the modern thinking that is evident in much of the rest of the world, otherwise overseas coaches will become the norm in county cricket and our own ability to influence the game will diminish.

The job of management is dependent on the counties who must decide whether or not they are prepared to appoint the sort of forward-thinking people whose methods can take the game into the 21st century.

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