Another stupid proposal

There is a story in the Yorkshire Post today (to which I followed a link, I don’t read it habitually) claiming that Yorkshire want a three division County Championship structure with fourteen games a season. (Presumably they think it will be easier to avoid relegation that way.) The proposal that their chairman will advocate at the ECB meeting on 12 January is one to have three divisions of eight teams with the addition of minor counties and university sides.

It’s a poor idea for a multitude of reasons. The original proposal in the Morgan review to reduce the number of Championship matches was met with widespread scepticism, both from fans and from those in the media, and this idea is actually worse. And like the Morgan review, this would not effectively ease fixture congestion, but simply make more of the congestion due to limited overs matches. Furthermore, increasing the number of sides playing in the Championship would spread the ECB’s money even tighter and it would decrease the amount of revenue sides can raise from matches. It is an absolutely terrible idea with no redeeming features that are readily apparent. That isn’t too surprising though; it’s from the same club who earlier advocated dropping two sides from the Championship. The irksome thing is that the ECB may well take the proposal seriously as they will the Morgan review.

Ten best sporting moments of 2011

I know the sporting year isn’t over yet. I actually had a conversation on Twitter about whether I ought to write a ‘year end’ style post or save it for after the Test. I decided to save my full year in review post for later, but at the same time I would be very surprised if anything happened that warranted an inclusion on this list. If I’m wrong I can always write a revision as well, so with that in mind here are my top ten sporting moments of 2011:

10 – New Zealand winning the Hobart Test
I know my Aussie readers won’t like this, but it was a pretty important moment. New Zealanders probably care more about winning the Rugby World Cup, but they had not won a Test in Australia for 26 years before this. Doug Bracewell may be a great find for the Kiwis and the conclusion of the match was one of the most thrilling you will see.

9 – Tigers winning Game 5 of the ALDS
I love watching the Yankees lose. I love watching the Yankees lose deciding games in the playoffs even more. But most of all I love watching Alex Rodriguez strike out to lose a deciding game in the playoffs in front of a very put out Yankee Stadium crowd.

8 – Royals winning a three game series in New York
The Royals spent most of the month of April this year in or near first place. (It’s true, look it up.) Whilst losing six in a row to the Rangers and Indians at the end of April basically put an end to any notion of contending, there were still bright spots after that. In the second week of May the Royals travelled to New York and won two out of three against the Yankees. The deciding game of the series saw the Royals score six runs in the second inning, including Eric Hosmer’s second major league home run and some terrible defensive mistakes by the Yankees. It was the Royals first series win in New York since 1999.

7 – Manchester United 1-6 Manchester City
It was the match that that caused the media to accept City as genuine title contenders. More importantly it was the match that made United supporters very cross and thus made Liverpool supporters like myself very happy.

6 – Australia reduced to 21-9 at Cape Town
With apologies to my Australian readers. Though as much as I enjoyed this I was more astonished to watch the innings unfold. On no fewer than three occasions I thought there must surely be a recovery, surely they couldn’t lose another wicket. I was wrong on all three occasions, as by the time the recovery did come I had stopped expecting it. Almost as amazing as the innings itself was the shot selection of Brad Haddin and the fact that he wasn’t immediately dropped because of it. Both defy belief.

5 – England winning the Cardiff Test
I already used this in my best moments in English cricket this year, so there isn’t a lot more to say. Nonetheless, it was incredible watching England go from just wanting a few wickets to Sri Lanka not even coming close to saving the Test and certainly belongs on this list as well.

4 – Virender Sehwag making a king pair at Edgbaton/Stuart Broad’s Trent Bridge hat trick
I’ve included these together for their similarity, not only because they both involve Indian wickets falling cheaply. Broad’s hat trick marked the end of the last time India would have an advantage in the series, but I think Sehwag’s king pair marked the last time India had any real hope. It was also a moment of personal pleasure, because Sehwag is massively overrated. He has a good record on the flat pitches of the subcontinent and that is it; his aggression is not suited for English conditions or anywhere the ball does a bit. After the second Test I read about and saw Indians claiming that he would save the series for them and I rather enjoyed being vindicated.

3 – Cardinals winning Game 6 of the World Series
I’m a Royals fan, but years of living amongst Cardinals fans in Kirksville made me rather sympathetic to them. (Though I always hated when they would gripe about ‘barely being .500’ or some such.) Add that to the fact that I hate the Texas Rangers and I was definitely cheering for the Cardinals in the last World Series. Even if I hadn’t, however, I think their multiple comebacks in Game 6 would have had to rank high on a list of best sporting moments, as it was absolutely astonishing.

2 & 1 – Lancashire winning the County Championship and England winning the Ashes
How could I not copy these from my first list? England winning the Ashes in Australia is the only thing that could possibly trump Lancashire winning the title outright. Neither had ever happened before in my lifetime and for them both to happen this year is almost an embarrassment of riches. I have little doubt they will be on a list of best moments in the decade should I make one in 2020.

Edited to add: The Guardian have produced their list of cricketing moments, but there is a lot of World Cup stuff at the expense of Lancs.

2012 county fixtures

The 2012 county fixtures have finally been announced! And it was roughly five minutes before I was vaguely cross about them. England play six Tests next summer and Lancashire are playing a Championship match during every one of them. It’s not too bad during the series against the West Indies; Lancashire are actually playing every week during that time so there is no real way to avoid conflict. But, as usual, during the midsummer gap between Test matches Lancs are only playing limited overs cricket. It’s quite frustrating. To make matters worse, during the South Africa series Lancashire aren’t playing in the gaps between the Test matches, only during the Tests themselves! And, as we already knew, our curtain raiser falls during the first Test in Sri Lanka. There is some improvement though; this year none of the matches completely overlap with a Test. There is always at least one day that does not.

For most of the counties the season starts the week after the curtain raiser. That gives a start date of 5 April, the earliest ever for the County Championship. Lancashire don’t start until the next week, playing a rematch of last season’s opener against Sussex at Aigburth. Lancs then play a match a week for the next nine weeks, meaning that once again the season will be half over by the beginning of June. Warwickshire will try to exact a measure of revenge for last season early, as they come to Aigburth on 19 April. (21 April will be a long day for me. It’s the third day of the match against Warwickshire, but also on the calendar are Bath v London Irish, Liverpool v West Brom and Royals v Blue Jays.) The first two home matches are at Aigburth and the first match at Old Trafford is against Notts on 2 May. Newly promoted Middlesex come to Liverpool on 23 May, but unfortunately our trip to Lord’s isn’t until the penultimate round of matches on 4 September. The last match of the season is at Old Trafford against Surrey, starting 11 September. We won’t be visiting the Oval this year; our match in Surrey will be at Guildford.

Overall it’s roughly what I expected. (By now I just assume that the ECB will schedule Tests at the same time as Championship matches.) The interest lies in the details, of course, and every year I enjoy going over the fixtures. The Christmas decorations are up and it is below freezing outside, but spring feels just a bit closer now.

In which I am cross with the ECB

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.

Don’t change the County Championship!

I’m hearing that former chairman of the ECB David Morgan is set to propose a some radical changes to the County Championship. According to the Guardian, all of his proposals involve reducing the number of County Championship matches next year. The rationale is the same as it has been the last several times something like this has been proposed, specifically that the smaller counties are in danger of going bankrupt and fewer matches will help them… somehow. (Less travel, I think, though it’s never really made clear.) Why making it harder for the smaller counties to make it into the top flight and making their schedule less comprehensible is not addressed.

The proposals are foolish and hopefully whatever the final one is will get shot down. The last two County Championship seasons have been the best advert for the domestic game possible. There may be a financial reason for changing it, but reducing the appeal of the competition is counterproductive. Attendance may be sparse at CC matches, but it is still the best attended domestic league in the world. The attendance for the County Championship is comparable to the attendance at Test matches elsewhere in the world. I don’t know that the new proposals would jeopardise that, but they would certainly not help. If the plan is to reduce matches then why not the CB40? I cannot get hard attendance figures, but from the TV it looked like Lancashire’s CB40 matches had smaller attendances than their County Championship matches. Certainly the CB40 has less prestige than the other two competitions, why are there still so many matches?

The new proposals would result in a contrived format and almost certainly with reduced appeal. It places the one-day game ahead of the first class matches despite the great success of the County Championship in recent years and despite the positive effect it has had on the national team. (Let us not forget that we are number one in the world, thanks in part to the skill of players in the CC.) There must be any number of proposals that will better suit the domestic game. Hopefully there will be enough board members to see sense. I’m optimistic; none of the proposals in the last few years have managed to go through.

Mustn’t laugh, mustn’t laugh…

The fact that Yorkshire were relegated last year still makes me happy. Not as happy as Lancs winning the County Championship, of course, but still very happy. I shouldn’t laugh of course, I don’t want to be too cruel to the White Rose. And it’ll be quite disappointing not having any Roses matches next year. I really enjoyed doing the double over them last year and we’ll have to wait until 2013 to do it again.

Obviously Yorkshire are intent on returning to the top flight in 2013, but the extend of their shake-up is surprising. They’ve revamped their coaching set up and Jason Gillespie is the new first team coach. The biggest surprise for me, however, is that Phil Jaques is rejoining the club as their overseas player next year. I had been under the impression that they still would not be able to afford one, so I’m curious as to where they got the money. From a Yorkshire standpoint it looks like a very good series of moves. Both Geoffrey Boycott and Michael Vaughan were involved and it’s hard to imagine any pair with better Yorkshire credentials than that. I think Yorkshire were probably going to be favourites to win promotion next year (though it’s obviously very early and it isn’t clear how their opponents will look next April) and this ought to boost their chances. The lack of an overseas player this year clearly hurt them; Rudolph’s brief appearance was not enough. Their coaching staff was unable to make the most of their homegrown talent in the same way Lancashire did, so this probably addresses their two biggest problems.

My desire for schadenfreude aside, it’s probably a good thing that Yorkshire have gone to unprecedented lengths to ensure that there will be Roses cricket in 2013. They are one of the most historic counties, and the Championship is probably better off with them in the top flight. I still enjoy seeing them lose though.