Warnings for Team England

Cambridge blues: Derek Pringle's conflict of interests in 1982 is unlikely to happen again © Getty Images

In 1982 Derek Pringle was selected to play his second Test match for England. It coincided with the Varsity match, which was then a three-day first-class game at Lord's. There was debate as to which match Pringle should play in. Tony Lewis, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, was in no doubt that Pringle should play for Cambridge. Peter May, the chairman of selectors, told Pringle that he would happily abide by his decision either way. For Pringle there was no choice. "I'd already played in three Varsity matches and they were all boring draws," he said, before packing his blues sweaters away for good.

It is scarcely conceivable that such a debate would ever take place today. Four years before Pringle's debut, Mike Brearley's England team won five out of their six Test matches against New Zealand and Pakistan and all four one-day games. But such is the demanding schedule of international cricket these days that we now need two captains to share the load.

Both Pringle's dilemma and the difference between Brearley and Nasser Hussain's workload illustrate the fundamental shift in English cricket in the last 25 years: international cricket has become much more dominant with the corollary that domestic cricket has become ever more marginalised. In 1978 the Test and County Cricket Board scheduled 237 first-class matches. Last year the ECB's fixture list included just 177.

The old trick of playing a three-day game that finished on a Wednesday and starting a Test on a Thursday is thankfully gone. The move to four-day cricket, which partially explains the reduction in first-class games, was of course designed to give English players a better chance of success once they moved up the ladder. The 60-over competition became 50, with fielding restrictions and white balls, to mirror international competition. Domestic cricket has become completely subservient to the England team's needs.

Despite the fillip given this year by the Twenty20 Cup, the signs that county cricket has all but drifted from the nation's consciousness are all around us. The B&H competition is no more; the one-day showpiece occasion of the season is no longer the September domestic final but the conclusion of the midsummer triangular series that England won last month; winning the County Championship in 2003 is no less of an achievement than winning it in 1978, but it scarcely merits a mention in most red-top newspapers. Some have stopped printing Championship scorecards altogether.

It is the England team and international cricket that are the focus of most people's attention. There are now seven Test matches every season and this summer there were 13 one-day internationals. There will be 13 next summer too, along with the Champions Trophy at the end of the season.

Alongside this explosion of the international calendar has come the increasing commercialisation of the game. In 1978 the BBC had the monopoly on television coverage. Now there is a combination of terrestrial and satellite partners that swells the ECB's coffers. Brearley's team wore the three lions and the crown on their chests with no sponsor's logo. Because of Vodafone, today's England sponsor, and the other sponsors a seven-figure sum went through the team player pool last year. In 1978 there was no player pool. How has the team changed in the last 25 years? Comparisons are odious but it has always been my belief that in every era sport moves forward and players improve. If you pitted the 1978 team against today's then I am convinced that the modern team would win. But that is not to say that Hussain and Michael Vaughan's England players are better relative to the rest of the world than Brearley's. They are probably not. As England stagnated through the 1980s and 1990s the rest of the world caught up and moved on.

What is undeniable is that today's England player has a better chance of success than his 1978 counterpart. Team England is designed to provide today's international players with all the off-field help they need. Computer analysis, specialist coaches, nutritionists, media training and, crucially, a central contract are provided so they can achieve the right balance between rest, practice, training and playing. The England coach is a far more central figure (in 1978 there was no full-time coach) with the result being that the position of the England captain (especially now there are two) has been somewhat diluted.

How does the changing face of the English cricket calendar point us towards the future? The prominence given to the international game over the domestic one is irreversible - the sport is too reliant on the broadcasters' money to change that. But the broadcasters will not pay over the odds next time. So, while the England team continues to expand and the administration continues to ensure that the grass roots flourish, the income will drop.

This combination will have a devastating effect on the county game. In future we will not be able to support 18 fully professional clubs. Eventually the upshot will be the concentration of the best players at a small number of super or premier clubs and a move towards semi-professional cricket for the rest. That would be good for the game and the players, who would then have something to fall back on at the end of their careers.

One other thing will - or should - happen. Recreational cricket currently receives 5% of cricket's total annual income. Eventually people will realise that the grass roots of the game and recreational cricket are as important, if not more so, than the top of the game. In 1978 most schools offered cricket as part of the curriculum and the sight of unorganised cricket matches in parks or on the street corners was commonplace. Neither is commonplace now.

As the amount of money that flows into county cricket is reduced it seems to be obvious where the money should go. There will be an expansion of central contracts to give the England coach 20-25 contracted players and there should be a massive investment in amateur club cricket. Lord MacLaurin's blueprint of a proper premier-league system in each county, a true pyramid structure, can only be achieved with real financial investment.

The game will change - it has to change - according to the financial constraints put upon it and according to the demands of the watching public. Gazing into a crystal ball I see in 25 years a proper world championship of Test and one-day cricket; a bigger squad of centrally contracted England players; a reduced number of full-time professionals and fewer professional clubs; and a streamlined management board that has wrestled control of the game away from the First Class Forum.

My greatest hope is that, somehow, the ring-fencing of professional cricket comes to an end and that closer links are forged between the professional and the amateur game. We need to return a much bigger financial chunk than now to the recreational game, so that cricket's roots continue to flourish and the game continues to be our national summer sport.