S Berry: Time is ripe to douse the embers (5 Jul 1998)

5 July 1998

Time is ripe to douse the embers

By Scyld Berry

FOR the first time in English cricket a major competition will become extinct when the Benson and Hedges Cup final is concluded on Saturday. And about time, too.

When it began in 1972, 'the B and H', with its golden image, brought some life and money to the English game. A vacancy existed for a grand one-day match at Lord's in mid-season and the crowds responded. Here was another competition for the counties to win, and each of them have done so - except Glamorgan, Sussex and Durham.

The competition was as fashionable as smoking itself when Raymond Illingworth raised the first cup (Leicestershire will equal Lancashire's record of four wins if Chris Lewis does the same on Saturday). There were golden moments, too, like the climax in 1989 when Nottinghamshire's Eddie Hemmings sliced the last ball from John Lever through point. "Should have given him the slower ball," conceded Lever after one of the four B and H finals Essex lost.

Their one win came in 1979 on the back of a hundred in the final from Graham Gooch, who has been the leading batsman in the competition, just as Lever was otherwise the most successful bowler. Gooch scored roughly twice as many runs and hundreds as the next man and won twice as many Gold Awards.

Viv Richards powered a century in another cup final, as did his miniature replica in another, Aravinda de Silva, who pulled half-volleys into the Mound Stand. As 14 teams batting first have won, and 12 batting second, the B and H final has always been more interesting than the one-sided NatWest in dewy September. Golden memories; but a bad taste in the mouth lingers.

For the B and H became superfluous as English cricket did not need a third one-day event, a fourth in all. In the same year as its introduction, 1972, England played their first home one-day international. The expansion of one-dayers made an increase in domestic one-day cricket unnecessary and damaging.

Thus the B and H kept English cricket going; but it kept going in the wrong direction, ever further away from the eternal verities and basic processes of building a long innings and bowling to take wickets. Playing two one-day games almost every week, our county cricketers became the best in the world at hitting 150 off the last 20 overs, and at nothing else.

Helping batsmen into their stride in early season has been another minor benefit of the B and H, outweighed by the bad habits it has promoted. Batsmen playing at quick tempo in April and May have not adjusted to batting all day when the Test matches have started. Untold is the damage that has been done to pace bowlers brought back for a couple of overs at the death on a cold spring evening.

Worse than that, the excessive number of one-day competitions has turned the values and priorities of county cricket upside down. Winning a one-day pot has been enough to keep committees and memberships happy, never mind coming bottom of the championship. It has been known for a county to walk away with the B and H Cup in July and into one long party for the season.

Essex this season have won one championship match, on a declaration, but all will be forgiven if Paul Prichard raises the last cup on Saturday. Their season will then be judged a success, qualified if needs be. The notion has seeped into the psyche of the county cricketer that if he should fail, there is always another day and another game in another competition.

Leicestershire's Darren Maddy was a case in point earlier this season, when he hit three hundreds in the B and H and was as influential in taking his county to the final as the captaincy of the matured Lewis - and yet could not muster a hundred runs all told in the championship. It would have been manifestly better if it had been the other way round in Maddy's run-scoring, to widen the England selectors' choice.

The 50-over National League next season, as a combination of the B and H with the Sunday League, has to be the way forward. Having two divisions, it might also accustom counties to the idea of promotion and persuade them that relegation need not be the end of their world. Stub out that cigarette, light up the future.

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