Counties under fire as brother of Bob Willis questions their role in English cricket

HUWZAT ON WEDNESDAY: David Willis was on Cricket Reform Group in 2003 with brother Bob, Mike Atherton and Michael Parkinson that proposed radical reform – he says self-interest is greater than ever

The Bob Willis Trophy had a lovely ring to it.

That was the suggested title for a new four-day competition for this truncated, post-lockdown summer.

With no County Championship as we know it taking place, this one-off edition was mooted with three conferences of six teams and a final at Lord’s. The name was the idea of Willis’ great friend, Sir Ian Botham.

Alas the prospect of four-day cricket appears to have receded, with counties concerned about the costs of paying teams to stay in bio-secure hotels.

Instead it might just be a county semi-summer of the Blast, or a combination of T20 and 50-over cricket. The counties plus the ECB and MCC will vote on it on July 7.

David Willis would have been delighted with that posthumous honour for his brother, who is greatly missed by all of us, after his death last December.

But he never believed it would happen.

For in 2003 David was a member of the Cricket Reform Group, along with Bob, Mike Atherton, Michael Parkinson and Nigel Wray.

They concluded that counties were essentially selfish and, David believes, little has changed.

His views again put the motives of the counties under the spotlight. Although some counties such as Sussex have pooled together their first-class and recreational boards in recent times, Willis is adamant that many hoover up money that should go to recreational, women’s and schools’ cricket.

“I don't think that the new red-ball county tournament will see the light of day, as lovely as it was to think of Bob like that,” said Willis, whose jobs have included being the chief race relations officer in Wandsworth and the organiser of sporting lunches at the Café Royal with Bob.

“All red-ball cricket below international level now loses too much money and the counties won't like that. Of course if there is no red-ball cricket, I don't quite see how the counties will justify their substantial subsidies...

“The CRG was critical of the role of the 18 first-class counties; they effectively hijacked the game and its resources. All the game's income would accrue to them, and they would continue to pay themselves ever-increasing subsidies for simply continuing to exist.

“I’m still convinced that 18 first-class counties is too many and 400 professionals is way too many. The main justification for this system, at considerable expense, was that the counties produced Test cricketers for England and that this not only justified their existence but also the lavish subsidies that they receive from the international cricket money tree.

“There could be some straightforward amalgamations – Leicestershire and Northants; Kent or Hampshire and Sussex; Derbyshire and Notts; Gloucestershire and Somerset. After all, these kinds of merger have been happening in the club game for 20-odd years.

“Counties should be rewarded for finding, nurturing and bringing young talent to the Test arena but with some players moving counties two or three times before they are capped by England and reach 25, how do you decide which county has done most towards their development?”

^{David Willis was part of the Cricket Reform Group}

Willis has a point there. While many agree that there are perhaps a few too many counties, how do you decide which ones bite the dust? On the surface a county like Leicestershire appear to be struggling on and off the pitch, but actually they have a fine track record of producing England cricketers, albeit ones who have moved to other counties: Stuart Broad, Harry Gurney, James Taylor and Luke Wright.

“If the first-class game could me more streamlined and require less subsidy there would be more money to promote the game in schools and in the recreational sector,” Willis continues. “These areas have been dreadfully starved of funds for far too long.

“When brother Bob dug down into the details and looked at which counties had actually produced Test cricketers over the previous half-century, and how many, the results were startling. About four or five counties had produced about 85 per cent of Test cricketers and four or five none at all. Perhaps it’s time for this exercise to be re-done with a fresh analysis."

One thing the Cricket Reform Group didn’t foresee is the rise and rise of T20, though.

“Its arrival in the same year as our report means that some areas of cricket are unrecognisable 17 years on. Nobody could have predicted the astonishing advance of T20 all over the world and the collapse of red-ball cricket in particular – Ashes excluded, of course.

“However the conclusions drawn by the CRG remain largely valid and should receive renewed attention. With England lying a pitiful sixth in the world Test rankings in 2003 we called for greater investment in the England team with many more central contracts and increased funding for the support system. This has largely happened and the England Test team has been markedly more successful as a result.

“The CRG wanted to see a three-tier county programme with an elite premier league of the top six counties. This has not occurred although two divisions were eventually created.

“The CRG believed that by concentrating all the best players into the premier league, the England-qualified players would encounter fiercer competition. However with increased international cricket played each summer England's centrally contracted players play little if any county cricket.”

Like his brother, Willis is coming off his long run now, and he concludes by, he says, “reviving the clarion call from the CRG all those years ago”… “In this day and age what precisely are the county clubs for? Are they viable commercial organisations? Why do they demand millions of pounds in subsidies simply to stay afloat, depriving the rest of the cricket community of much needed funds? The professional game needs to be urgently streamlined and resources directed elsewhere - the schools, the inner cities and the recreational game for starters.”

^{Stuart Broad is one of several former Leicestershire players who have gone on to enjoy international careers}

Meanwhile, this summer of uncertainty drifts on, with Boris Johnson’s musings on Tuesday about ‘natural vectors’ adding to the paralysis.

And so many Pakistan players testing positive for Covid-19 has surely now placed an element of doubt on the second Test series of the summer.

A summer of only three Tests would be a blast from the past, like India in England in 1946, or the New Zealand summer of 1937.

If the Pakistan series was to be cancelled, could England players return to their counties and make the Blast more stellar?

Or will England hastily arrange a three-Test series (of four days each?) against Ireland instead?

Or even yet another Test rubber against Australia?

Justin Langer has hinted that the chances of them coming are increasing – for a one-day series.

Maybe we could have a three-Test series, though, like that staged down under in 1979/80.

That one celebrated peace in our time, when the players finally returned to the official Australia team after abandoning it for Kerry Packer’s World Series in 1977.

England had beaten what was largely the second string in 1978/79, but agreed to go to Australia with one caveat… they refused to put the Ashes on the line again.

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