GEORGE DOBELL looks at the three options on the table for a reformed County Championship and what changes, if any, are in the offing for the T20 Blast, One Day Cup and The Hundred
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Posted by Martin Searle on 11/06/2025 at 02:19
Answer to Steve Harris. Yes, Rugby Union has had that strange format in the Cup competition in previous iterations. It felt very strange. Of course both Rugby codes have playoffs at the end of the league season to decide who wins the league title. Which I hate. And they don't have the vagaries of weather affecting the outcome in the way cricket does.
Posted by Nick Gledhill on 09/06/2025 at 21:48
The first of these ideas is such glorious nonsense in terms of generating public understanding but it is interesting that they are prepared to countenance up to 14 games. I think the SPL style split idea is far preferable to this with the teams in a top division of ten playing each other once before the split and then the top five playing each other a second time and the bottom five ditto to determine championship and relegation. That’s 13 games and home / away would be evened out over successive seasons. Division two could be 12 games with a promotion play off as an additional option.
Posted by Robert Morton on 09/06/2025 at 21:02
Aren't they adding two teams to the Hundred in a couple of years? Won't those extra 4 fixtures per team extend that awful competition for another week? That's some of the extra scheduling time gone already!
Posted by Chris Tickle on 09/06/2025 at 18:20
Two groups of 6 playing each other is attractive so long as there is promotion/relegation to incentivise lthe remaining 6 - who will play 10 games. Is that fair? Knock outs at the end is an inappropriate way of deciding the winner. It's either a league system or free for all. And unlike football and most other sports, the weather can make a mockery of such a system. So let's not be fancy. Two leagues 9 each. 12 matches. Promotion and relegation. No knock out end to the season. Not perfect. But then the other proposals aren't either.
Posted by Accylad on 09/06/2025 at 17:57
So yet again we have the idea of 'conferences' being floated. Economists talk about 'Zombie policies' by which they mean economic policies that continue to be advocated or implemented even after they have been shown to be ineffective, harmful or just unwanted. 'Conferences' is one of the foremost examples of zombie policy making in cricket (there are others - I leave you to nominate your own). It could be done before only because of the extreme circumstances of the immediate post Civid lockdown world. Nobody (apart from the ECB and associate eejits) wants conferences, what just about everyone wants is a two division league. Too much cricket being played? Dump the 100. Can't dump the 100 because it's been sold off in some way that has yet to produce actual money? Dump the T20. 'The ECB hope....'? The ECB is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Posted by Andrew Frank on 09/06/2025 at 17:35
As a Warwickshire member I have not been consulted on any of this. Why am I not surprised?
Posted by Adam Philip Holmes on 09/06/2025 at 17:34
So the season will start later so the teams can "travel". Thought they wanted less cricket? Just get rid of the Hundred
Posted by Steve Harris on 09/06/2025 at 17:28
"Another option, favoured by a significant number of counties, features two groups of six. Counties would play all teams in the opposite group home and away". Am I going mad or does this mean that your league position would be measured against teams that you never play? Has any other sport anywhere in the world done something as ridiculous?
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