'They don't actually know anything about cricket'

Less than 24 hours after publishing Making English Cricket Great - For Everyone, its blueprint for the future of cricket in England, the Cricket Reform Group (CRG) was accused of not knowing enough about the game to make such sweeping judgments.

Among the CRG's proposals was a reduction in the number of professionals from 450 to 276, and although it stopped short of calling for the abolition of several counties, it did recommend that first-class and minor counties merge.

But the reaction from some county chairmen was quick and predictably dismissive. "If you had a blank piece of paper, what they suggest is as good as anything else you could put in place, but we haven't got a blank piece of paper," Peter Anderson, Somerset's chief executive, told The Times. "We are constrained by the events of history and how first-class cricket has developed in this country. My observation about this group is that they don't actually know anything about cricket. They are only interested in Team England.

"Successive England captains have said that county cricket is a waste of time and it's so wrong," he continued. "They don't realise what the ECB and the counties are trying to do. What's in place now at the regional academies, the university centres of excellence and, right at the top, the national academy is phenomenal."

And Anderson found support from Vinny Codrington, chief executive of Middlesex. "They have one or two good ideas but I don't think they have done enough research," he said. "Why do they keep kicking county cricket when we've just had our best season for years?"