The changing face of cricket

The ECB is meeting tomorrow to discuss changes to the domestic structure of the game in England. Such changes will come in from 2010, after the more important business of the Ashes and World Twenty20 next summer. Among the ideas floating around is a return to three-day first-class cricket, three conferences of equal status rather than two divisions of the championship and a rethink of the 40-over competition.

I have affection for what used to be called just the Sunday League, not least because Essex have won it five times. This is the 40th year of the competition, which has had 13 different names and has fluctuated from 40 overs to 50, 45 and back to 40 again. I like it best how it is now, although I am intrigued by one proposal to make it a game with two 20-over innings.

Nigel is not impressed with such tinkering but he is even less reactionary than I am. I will, however, repeat the concerned comment I left on his blog about the marketing of Pro40 this year. "It's Twenty20's big brother," the posters say, as if the competition is incapable of having an identity of its own. No doubt if the idea of splitting it into quarters goes through, the marketing men will again link it back to the newest competition: "Like Twenty20, only twice the fun!", they'll say.

If Pro40 is Twenty20's big brother, what does that make Test cricket? Twenty20's venerable and geriatric great-uncle, who sits in the corner grumbling and smelling faintly of wee, but who for some reason most of us love dearly? And will Tests soon be marketed as "Like Twenty20, only slower!"?

Comments

[Yorkshire Fan]

I don’t know if you caught the coverage of the FP trophy Roses clash yesterday, but for those who didn't see it, the Sky team had a discussion about these ideas during the break for rain. Fortunately instead of the usual 'County Cricket is akin to a cancerous growth' brigade that they normally have on, they had Robert Croft and David Houghton instead. The pair of them, but Croft in particular, went through, proposal by proposal, pointing out the flaws in each.

In addition, Ian Ward said they had been flooded with emails on the subject. They all appeared to be very anti the proposals. "How drunk was the person who came up with this" etc

Robert Croft also made an interesting comment about pro-40. He said that England "may be ahead of the game" by having this format as he could see it as a possible replacement for international 50 overs cricket. His thinking was that it was a similar game but lacked the ten overs of treading water in the middle which seem to be problematic for a lot of people.

I may not be totally swayed by that last point, but I did agree with the emailer who said he'd "Talked more sense than I've heard in years". Clearly a regular sky sports viewer, then...

Btw: Mr Croft may be someone worth interviewing on the subject.

[Mr Grainger]

Scary, isn't it? Most long-term cricket fans, even if they appreciate what Twenty20 brings to the game, want a DAY at the cricket, not a couple of hours. Can't help thinking the ECB will make a mess of this one. And you've given them the advertising slogans already - I'd be wanting a consultancy fee