The Royal London Cup: A shot at silverware, hard luck tales and the challenge of taming a complex mindset

NICK FRIEND looks at some of the themes to look out for ahead of the Royal London Cup, which begins on Thursday

rlc210701

Perfecting a complex mindset

Royal London Cup by name, development competition by nature. Certainly, in its current guise, it doesn’t feel quite so regal as its headline sponsor. But once the cricket begins, there will be a trophy to play for and a batch of young cricketers sensing an opportunity that, in a previous itineration of the English summer, didn’t exist. Now, there’s the positive.

For everyone else, this will take some getting used to. Established pros who missed out on a Hundred deal – and there were always going to be plenty of them – have to come to terms with what that means: they are effectively playing for a trophy without their best limited-over teammates that, frankly, has lost plenty of its pizazz – not least with the final now taking place on an August Thursday at Trent Bridge rather than at Lord’s, as was tradition.

In some cases, at the counties hit hardest – though that feels like the wrong way of describing what is ultimately a recognition of white-ball distinction – remaining senior players will look around their changing room and find it challenging to shake the idea that they are the adults in a team otherwise comprising a group of fledgling youngsters. Once The Hundred begins and focus inevitably turns to the bright lights of the new competition, it would only be natural for some to look on with a frustrated eye, especially with so many of their peers involved.

Between them, Yorkshire, Surrey and Sussex will be without 30 of their leading T20 and 50-over cricketers. That dynamic, then, will be a fascinating aspect of the next month: while the Royal London Cup isn’t – and won’t be – a second team competition, maintaining a first team intensity without so many pillars of that environment will act as a test of leadership, especially at counties where regular captains and head coaches have been seconded for Hundred duty.

Royal London Cup: All domestic players missing 50-over competition for The Hundred

As former Surrey batsman Arun Harinath told The Cricketer last year of life in the second string: “It’s like Groundhog Day. And as much as it is a really important thing, it isn’t the same as first team cricket.”

Take Somerset, for example, where the absence of Jason Kerr to Welsh Fire has led to an interim promotion for Paul Tweddle as head coach, while Tom Abell’s deal with Birmingham Phoenix means Ben Green will lead the county on the field for the first time. Technically speaking, they come into the competition as reigning champions, having won in 2019 when all was different with the world; how they will fare, however, without Abell, Will Smeed, Roelof van der Merwe, Tom Lammonby, Max Waller, Craig Overton, Lewis Gregory and Tom Banton will be an intriguing test of a terrific production line, albeit offset by the reassuring presence of James Hildreth and Steve Davies.

They were beaten in a one-off fixture by Cornwall on Tuesday, albeit without several senior players who will be involved in their first game against Derbyshire on Sunday. And so, what a chance this is across the country for the likes of Lewis Goldsworthy – a generation normally among the least experienced cricketers in more established units – to become, for one month only, the men to rely on. They will develop faster for having that responsibility.

So, while the tournament would undoubtedly benefit from that raft of big names, what remains is a curious, best-of-the-rest melange.

rlc210702

Somerset will be without much of the side that won the competition in 2019

For this year’s strugglers, a shot at silverware…

Different teams will have different priorities: all summer long under the stewardship of Ian Salisbury and James Kirtley, Sussex have blooded their best young players. It’s hard to see that changing now, given the understandable demand for members of their T20 side, who somehow contrived never to win the Blast under Jason Gillespie: Ravi Bopara, Phil Salt, Ollie Robinson, Jofra Archer, George Garton, Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, Delray Rawlins and Luke Wright are all involved.

Youngsters Oli Carter, Henry Crocombe, Archie Lenham, Joe Sarro, James Coles, Ali Orr, Tom Clark, Harrison Ward and Danial Ibrahim have all made debuts for the club in recent times and featured in Sussex’s National Counties clash with Oxfordshire on Tuesday.

Leicestershire and Middlesex have both struggled like Sussex in the County Championship and will find themselves in the bottom tier when the competition reconvenes next month. In the meantime, however, this is a chance to appease members with a more competitive showing, certainly in Middlesex’s case after a poor campaign.

For Leicestershire, once upon a time the country’s dominant force in white-ball cricket, this is the next step on their journey under Paul Nixon back towards that zenith. They will have to get there without captain and vice-captain Colin Ackermann and Callum Parkinson, both deserving their contracts in this year’s redraft having initially missed out, with Lewis Hill skippering in their absence.

Scott Boswell, 20 years on: A life rebuilt from the ruin of the yips

In a show of optimism and goodwill, the club hosted an intrasquad game on Tuesday that was open to spectators free of charge: a sign of an increasing strength in depth. Australia opener Marcus Harris led one of the teams; he is available for the entire competition – one of several overseas pros set to be involved. Their presence, one would suggest, should play a significant part. Maybe more than ever before, they will be expected to be difference-makers up against inexperienced opposition.

Essex, meanwhile, are only due to lose Dan Lawrence and Sam Cook from their first team squad for the next month, handing Tom Westley’s men a decent opportunity to exploit, especially in an otherwise disappointing campaign at Chelmsford.

Frustration is still fresh after a Covid-forced abandonment in a crucial County Championship match against Derbyshire ended Essex’s hopes of retaining their crown, so the chance of silverware – the only crown they’ve failed to get their hands on in the last decade – might just be a season-reviver.

For their National Counties fixture against Cambridgeshire, Aaron Beard replaced Sam Cook, with Lawrence replaced by one Alastair Cook. What an unlikely little subplot this could be: the former England captain back on List A duty. You wouldn’t bet against him churning out a bucketload of runs.

rlc210703

Essex have most of their squad at their disposal, including Alastair Cook...

Hard luck tales

Perhaps there is no player in the country both likelier than Cook to score runs for fun in the competition while also being considered virtually unselectable as a replacement player in The Hundred.

But even with 96 places filled by county cricketers, some can count themselves unfortunate to have missed out: it seems almost unconscionable that Stephen Eskinazi, the fourth-highest run-scorer in this year’s T20 Blast and second in last year’s tournament, is one of those. Yet he has gone undrafted twice. Typically, he has now picked up an injury as well, so his chances of filling in further down the line seem to have evaporated.

Gloucestershire’s Jack Taylor is another who could count himself unfortunate as an adept finisher and improving part-time leg-spin option. There are others too, of course: one professional player without a deal raised Jack Leaning when asked by The Cricketer for the word on the street.

Covid chaos…

Leaning has not played since July 9, when he was one of several Kent players forced into self-isolation for 10 days following the county’s Blast victory over Surrey. A Kent player tested positive for Covid-19, with all remaining members of the matchday squad deemed close contacts.

The chaos that followed – Kent were effectively forced into putting together a brand-new squad for the next week, featuring a County Championship clash with Sussex and two more Blast ties – supposedly left this competition in some doubt. Cricket’s last fortnight – beginning with England’s similar issue ahead of the ODI series against Pakistan – highlighted the fragility of the floorboards on which the game currently sits.

How feasible will it be to build impromptu sides once the 50-over competition gets underway? Only time will tell, but it won’t be pretty, even if Kent could be mightily proud of how their Covid Emergency XI fared: one win, one draw, one defeat. Some roped in for those games – Scotland’s George Munsey, former Sussex batsman Harry Finch and academy product Joe Gordon – have been rewarded with positions in the county’s Royal London Cup squad.

The secondary issue here is with The Hundred – and precisely what happens if any of the eight teams endure a Kent situation or, worse still, the fate that befell Derbyshire, who were forced to cancel their final two Blast fixtures of the season.

Theoretically, The Hundred has planned for these eventualities, with replacement slots for anyone ruled out by Covid; that, though, means dipping into the county pool once more. Mercifully, the ECB have ruled out a complete change to squads and backroom staff as England did, with the table automatically reverting to a points-per-game system if Covid does force the cancellation of one or more Hundred matches. If nothing else, that news should come as semi-relief to the Royal London Cup.

Comments

SERIES/COMPETITIONS

LOADING

STATS

STAY UP TO DATE Sign up to our newsletter...
SIGN UP

Thank You! Thank you for subscribing!

Edinburgh House, 170 Kennington Lane, London, SE115DP

website@thecricketer.com

Welcome to www.thecricketer.com - the online home of the world’s oldest cricket magazine. Breaking news, interviews, opinion and cricket goodness from every corner of our beautiful sport, from village green to national arena.