David Gower: "The English summer is already a complete mess"

RICHARD EDWARDS: As Gower reluctantly leaves the Sky commentary box after almost two decades, he fears that county cricket could soon be irrecoverably damaged – by a dog’s dinner of a schedule

David Gower toasted his final day at Sky with a glass of Botham wines’ finest chardonnay.

But as he reluctantly leaves the Sky commentary box after almost two decades, he fears that county cricket could soon be irrecoverably damaged – by a dog’s dinner of a schedule.

Back in Gower’s playing days for Leicestershire and Hampshire you could set you watch by the domestic cricket calendar.

The County Championship would run throughout the season, the Benson and Hedges Cup would be the preserve of the first half of the campaign, the Gillette and then NatWest Cup would occupy minds in the second.

The John Player League, meanwhile, would be a regular Sunday afternoon affair. Now all that uncertainty has gone up in smoke. And next summer, everything looks set to get a whole lot more complicated.

Given the squeeze on domestic cricket in 2019, that might be hard to imagine but with the new Hundred competition to fit in too, it’s clear that the sport in this country faces a huge number of challenges moving forward.

Not so much a brave new era as one where confusion reigns.

“The game has changed dramatically and will continue to change,” says Gower. “We have a new competition coming in but the English summer is already a complete mess. That’s why we don’t have people ready and waiting to go into the role of England Test opener.

“It’s a mess and it’s almost impossible to work out how you’re going to get a Hundred, a Blast, a Test match, a few ODIs, all in there with the right people in the right form at the right time.

“Solomon would have said: ‘It’s too much for me, I’ll pass it on to God.’”

^{David Gower's final game in the Sky commentary box came in the last Ashes Test}

The latter currently has his hands full dealing with other issues, which leaves domestic cricket looking elsewhere for salvation.

Of equal concern to Gower, though, is the future health of the Test match game. Increasingly squeezed by the various T20 tournaments that now dominate the cricket year globally, Test cricket is struggling to find its place and relevance, despite the introduction of the World Test Championship.

An alarming drop-off in crowds in countries such as India, South Africa and across the Caribbean, means that the format he gained 117 caps for England in, is under pressure like never before. Again, finding the answer to that particular conundrum is, he admits, far from easy.

“Test series like the one we’ve seen this summer and innings like the one played by Ben Stokes can only help,” he says. “And the kind of cricket played by Virat Kohli and India last summer do the same. Kohli has come out and said how much Test cricket means to him and if you’ve got him saying that to the 1.2 billion Indians who follow him, and however many are doing so on Twitter, then that message is important.

“But there are countries in the world where Test cricket is played and not watched. The new Test Championship is an attempt to make it more relevant to people who are playing and watching and I think Test cricket will last for a while yet.

“But it will be a sad day if Test cricket is either dramatically changed or phased out completely.”

As he embarks on a theatre tour celebrating his career, those concerns can wait for a little while longer. But as the county season draws to a close this evening, it’s hard not to think that the sun could be setting on English cricket as we currently know it.

David Gower is touring UK theatres this Autumn with On The Front Foot. Tickets: www.david-gower.com