It’s been an irritating last few days with respect to the ECB. After the thrilling and premature conclusion of the South Africa v Australia series we were reminded at how ridiculous it is that England are only playing three Tests next summer against South Africa. Today David Morgan announced his proposals for changes to the domestic game and they are not good. The nature of the proposals were more or less known yesterday, so I don’t need to add to what I wrote then, but what’s amazing is the lack of a coherent rationale behind the proposals and a good indication of how they would work.
The much maligned shift from 16 to 14 matches, for instance, can only be attained by having not all of the counties play each other twice. This means that some counties will have an easier schedule than others and it means that there will never be a satisfactory basis for the fixture list. Also the matches will start on different days throughout the year so as to accommodate the T20 matches throughout the year. I can’t see how that will make any more money (there will still be fewer T20 matches) and it is yet another case of first class cricket taking a back seat to T20. Hopefully the rest of the ECB realise that the public still like the County Championship and don’t want to see it further marginalised.
Defensive Indifference 