The ECB will tomorrow discuss radical changes to the structure of domestic cricket in England and Wales. Is this a necessary move to keep pace with the changing times, or cricket gone crazy?
The prevailing opinion amongst many seems to be the latter, but some of the proposals deserve consideration individually.
A return to a three-day County Championship, in my opinion (and that of some counties’ Chief Executives), would be a backward step. Three day games would provide little or no parallel with Test cricket, whereas the four-day game, for all its faults, can occasionally produce games of close to Test standard.
A revamping of the much-maligned Pro40 format, which of course has no parallel in the International game, is one of the more interesting proposals. It is suggested that the format be split into a game of two 20-over innings, which seems to be gimmicky and a little muddled. Also, apparently the counties “love” the current format, which will mean more resistance from Chief Executives.
Ultimately, the reasoning behind all this is making space for a much larger twenty20 competition, featuring 21 teams – an English Premier League, if you like. This is obviously seen as a money-spinner in light of the apparent success of the IPL format.
Whatever is decided, it will certainly be interesting.
Ah, great minds think alike! Amazed to find how many cricket blogs there are on WordPress. I’ll set up a link when I find out how to.
AP, it worries me to some extent. While i am already not happy with the IPL, i feel the presence of another league will end up prescribing an overdose of T20 cricket to the audience. “Are we prepared to take that?” is a serious question to be answered.
However,ECB would have learnt some lessons from the IPL and limit the number of matches played to make the tournament a lot more interesting.
By the way, is this sponsored by Allen Standford?
12th – Nah I don’t think it would be. Standford want’s that 20million dollar – drop a catch and you die thing to get of the ground. (unless this is it – in which case, my bad).
Does the ECB really think that reducing County matches by one day will make such a huge difference? I don’t think it will change crowd figures, you’ll get more draws though – bonus!
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