Organised chaos leaves us stumped (22 August 1999)

22 August 1999

Organised chaos leaves us stumped

Scyld Berry

It was all right for the Creator - on every sabbath He could rest. But now on a Sunday a county cricketer could be playing in the championship, the NatWest Trophy, the Super(fluous) Cup or the National League (or the PPP, NWT, B & H and CGU as the four competitions are known) while English cricket drowns in a sea of acronyms.

The cricket supporter is as bemused as the player. If he wakes up in the morning not knowing what day of the week it is, he won't find out by looking at the cricket scoreboard in his newspaper. If it's day one of a championship match, it could be any weekday from Monday to Friday.

Tomorrow the first-class counties meet at Lord's - under another acronym, the FCF (First-Class Forum) - to discuss this confusion. They would like to schedule next season's fixtures in a more orderly fashion so that people can understand what's going on in county cricket, even if they don't want to attend it.

But beyond some synchronisation of the opening day of championship games, not a lot can be done to bring sanity to our domestic cricket. Too many matches in too many competitions have to be packed into too few months already, and a fifth competition will be added next season with the 25-overs experiment, or BASH (the Block And Slog Heave-ho). The average county will then have 40 fixtures a season, more for those with successful cup runs.

No wonder the ECB decided to parcel out the job of drawing up the fixture list before the term 'out-sourcing' was ever invented. A lecturer at Lancaster University, Michael Wright, wrote to the old TCCB to make some suggestions and was rewarded by having the whole migrainous shebang dumped on him. But not even the most computer-literate expert can pour a quart into a pint pot.

Adding to the intractability next season is the enormous expansion of the international programme. If you have clung to the belief that the summer ritual of England's Test matches remains a constant in this turbulent world, then start to look elsewhere for solace. To sell the four-year television deal to Channel 4 and BSkyB, the ECB have increased England's Tests to seven per summer, along with a tri-nation tournament of 10 one-day internationals.

The dates of this international programme have been set in stone; only the venues are subject to confirmation at tomorrow's meeting. And if you thought May 14 was early for the start of the World Cup, how does May 18 grab you for the first Test against Zimbabwe at Lord's? The second Test against Zimbabwe follows, provisionally at Trent Bridge, before the first Test against West Indies and the second Test against them at Lord's.

Break then for the one-day tournament between these three teams who will play each other three times before a final at - you guessed - Lord's. Bristol, Canterbury and Chester-le-Street have been provisionally allotted games: Bristol a day/nighter between West Indies and Zimbabwe, Canterbury another such 'neutral' game and two internationals for Durham's new venue, which with temporary seating could accommodate 15,000, according to their chief executive, Mike Candlish.

If you consider that to be cricket enough for one international season, think again. After the tri-nation tournament it's back to the series against West Indies for three more Tests, the last of them scheduled to finish on Sept 4. Not since the first of all Test matches in England in 1880 has a Test been staged here as late as September. So much for the accumulated wisdom of previous generations! And no doubt we will discover all over again the reason for ourselves when Curtly Ambrose has caught England on a dewy autumn seamer.

In the past, too much domestic one-day cricket has been played in England, and too few one-day internationals. Henceforth consistency will be achieved: too much of both. A triangular tournament of two matches against each team would be the right balance, and six Tests per summer. The public has had a soft spot for English cricket until now because even though it may be ineffectual, it has at least not been too mercenary. The new money nexus threatens this sympathy.

But the overriding issue remains the quantity of English cricket, designed as it is to provide airtime for two television channels, subsidising the counties and keeping their members happy. If nothing can be done about too many counties for an ideally competitive structure, the number of competitions could be reduced to the three basic ones. The PPP, NWT and CGU would fit into a pint pot.

13 July 1998: Ill-considered concept of a cup too many 13 April 1999: Counties take fresh guard for brave new ball game 12 July 1999: Familiar competition delivered to the door with hollow fanfare

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