Readers of The Cricketer and thecricketer.com flood our inboxes with correspondence each week. Here are some of the opinions that have been shared with us in recent days...
I grew up playing and watching cricket when cricket was cricket and there was just one form of cricket and that was 'first-class' cricket. Unlike other major sports cricket has in recent years undergone constant changes and continues to do so with yet another limited-over (100) competition to be launched in the near future. Why, oh why another format was considered necessary I do not know. All this to the detriment of ‘first class’ cricket.
What red-ball cricket is left on the calendar is now marginalised by the white-ball game with fixture dates reflecting this.
I appreciate that all this is driven by the ECB and money, but I do wonder if the day will come when the game will need to break up. First-class cricket will go back to its roots and limited overs cricket will become known by a different name to reflect its bang, crash, wallop image.
Men and women will have to decide which sport they take up. The choice will be between the white-ball game with its current incentives of earning the big bucks in the IPL and the Big Bash etc or play the really skilful red-ball game as it always has been but earning a lot, lot less. The days of semi-professionalism/amateurs may be around the corner.
How such a revolution could evolve is difficult to predict, but with so many players now finding it more and more difficult to switch from one format to another and red-ball spectators feeling short-changed one feels that ultimately a revolution in the sport will have to happen.
Meantime, anything which The Cricketer magazine can do to influence the fixture list in favour of first-class cricket would be much appreciated. April is not the best of months to watch cricket!
The contents of this letter rather gives my age away, but the demise of the first-class game is sad to witness.
Michael Merrifield, Taunton, Somerset
Could the white-ball game lead to the end of the red-ball game?
No more Test matches played anywhere in world. England v Australia was last one played. Four-day Tests also failed to bring in crowds and viewing figures hit all time low.
The 100 was a failure and the ECB went into financial ruin trying to subsidise it.
Step forward 20/20 cricket. A new league was formed; two Divisions with promotion and regulation, counties were killed off and city names were formed. Each team to play each other three times 24 game season.
A new Sunday 20/20 league to be formed; four teams in each league plus two best minor teams, all played like local derbies e.g. Birmingham, Worcester, Derby and Leicester in one group.
18 teams are now full-time from Birmingham to Leeds (see below for other teams) or making profit.
Season runs from May to end of September where games are played on a Friday or a Saturday night with a 7 o’clock start, no time-outs just a 90-minute innings with a 10 min break.
Live games on TV on Freeview on BBC 2 on a Thursday and pay-per-view game on a Friday or Saturday.
All recreational cricket play 20/20 from under 9s to open age, more skills are learnt, for example fielding is now more important than batting and bowling.
Cricket strips are sold all over world and all 18 club shops are thriving.
The 20/20 Cricketer magazine has a bigger publication than any other sports magazine in the world.
The International World Cup is played every two years
Home England matches are only played midweek not to effect domestic league.
Domestic clubs
Birmingham, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Canterbury, Cardiff, Central London, Derby, London, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Newcastle, Northampton, Nottingham, Southampton, Southend, Taunton, Worcester
Hope you like it
Richard Parker
Will the Ashes be the last Test series every played?
As always at this time of year, I wait with anticipation for the publication of next season’s cricket fixtures. It is though very frustrating to discover that eight of Middlesex’s fourteen County Championship matches will not include any weekend play at all. Unless I take time off work, I am going to see far less cricket for my season ticket and clubs will surely suffer from greatly reduced revenue. Are the authorities determined to squeeze out four-day cricket in favour of the 50 over and T20 versions?
Jeremy Webb, Edgware
For more than 30 years a group of around 10 friends and I have regularly attended the Saturday of the Oval Test. For the Ashes Test next year we were disappointed to find that we’d missed out on tickets in the ballot but decided instead to arrange to meet up earlier in the summer at a county game. Given work commitments this in effect meant trying to find a Saturday fixture. Being fans of the traditional game I was given the task of selecting a four-day match, ideally at one of the county festival grounds. Cheltenham was mentioned, as was Scarborough and Chesterfield. Arundel was another option, along with Colwyn Bay and even the Isle of Wight! We were certainly willing to be flexible in pursuit of a day at the cricket in high summer.
Perhaps we should have known. With the fixtures out my planning began. April 8 and April 15 provided a number of options but… far too early in the season and in any case clashing with end-of-season football matches. May? Nothing. June?
Nothing. July? One weekend of fixtures, all of which appear to be scheduled for Test grounds. And anyway I’m on holiday that weekend! August? Nothing. September? Nothing. I thought our choice might be limited but we have absolutely no options.
Even the one-day game provides few opportunities – a handful of early-season 50-over games (four Saturday games scheduled but nothing after May 4) and there are a grand total of eight T20 games. Football gets some stick for moving fixtures around but there is always a large number to choose from on a Saturday afternoon. So what is it with cricket – have they given up on this day altogether?
Roland Potts, Lymm, Cheshire
Could Saturday cricket at grounds like Scarborough be a thing of the past?
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