New LVCC format

The ECB also announced today the revised format for County cricket from 2014 onward. It is actually a very good revision; sanity prevailed and the ECB scrapped the notion of a 14-match schedule and they have also got rid of the T20 block and changed the CB40 to the CB50 and added quarter-finals.

The most important decision was about the LV=CC and the ECB not only kept the current form intact, but they also set the schedule so that the first 14 matches start on Sunday. The ECB press release did not say why only the first 14 rounds (though my guess is that it’s because the T20 competition will be over after that) or on what day they will start in September instead. It’s a nice arrangement though. There will still be weekend cricket and there will be a regular schedule to go with it.

The CB40 is not only to become the CB50, it will also have rules exactly matching those of international cricket. Although I do prefer the forty over version as a fan, from the standpoint of the well-being of English cricket I think this is an overall good thing. Also good is that there will be a quarter-final round this year which has very much been lacking in the past. There will be eight group matches per side, so my guess is that Scotland and Holland will continue playing and there will be four groups of five.

The T20 competition is possibly the oddest one. Getting rid of the T20 block was a great idea for the spectators wanting to attend and it does not break up the LV=CC scheduling anymore which is a distinct improvment. It will be 14 matches though, which is too many (I thought the ten of this year worked very well) and I don’t know how that will work as far as the groups go. I suspect it will mean an unbalanced schedule of the type that was proposed for the LV=CC, but that would be flawed for the same reasons.

I’m quite happy with the revisions overall and I think they will make for an improved fixture list from 2014 onwards.

Well done the counties!

George Dobell reports in Cricinfo today that the counties are expected to reaffirm their commitment to Championship cricket and shun the farce of the T20 Champions League. This can only be a good thing. The Champions League is essentially an arm of the IPL and shares the same goals: to make money for the BCCI. The tournament has always been heavily weighted toward the Indian teams and very much against the English ones. The English teams would have better odds of winning the prize money at a casino. There was no reason for English teams to ever take part; for all the talk of it being allegedly an international tournament and the players benefiting from the supposedly higher level of play, the fact is still that it is a dressed up club competition. There is no reason to suggest that the actual standard is at all higher than it is in England just because there is more light and sound associated with it. It is the same fallacy that leads people to the mistaken impression that the IPL has some legitimacy.

There is also the longstanding problem that the Champions League conflicts with the end of the County Championship. This could be avoided if those in charge of the tournament bothered, but they don’t and that should be no surprise. The BCCI have made it very clear in the past that they care nothing for the County Championship and whilst I can understand that as it isn’t their competition, they have also shown their usual unwillingness to compromise on any matter. It is a stance we have seen all across the politics of cricket for years now. These past two years the ECB have scheduled the County Championship ridiculously early to allow the counties to play in the Champions League and it has really come back to hurt them. Quite rightly it is time that the ECB stopped catering to those who will not return the favour. If the BCCI ever decide that they want English teams in the tournament they can push it back by a week or two. Until then they can play their own weighted game without the counties.

Some other good things appear to be coming are an extended period of domestic T20 and a return to fifty over List A cricket. Although there are things I like about the T20 window, I’ve never been too fond of it as it really disrupts the momentum of the Championship and then there is far too long before the quarter-finals and Finals Day. A full season of T20 on weekends is a much better idea. With regard to fifty over cricket, I do understand the concerns of the counties and actually prefer listening to forty over matches. But I would rather have a fifty over competition to match that of international cricket.

I’m quite pleased about this news overall. After all the gloom of the Morgan Report last winter it seems that everyone has seen sense about the importance of a 16 match Championship and actually look to be making improvements to the structure rather than semi-random deletions. Common sense has been a rare beast in the governance of cricket recently; finally we are seeing a good example of it.

T20 finals day preview

Now that the T20 quarter-finals have been finished we can really look forward to possibly the sixth most exciting day of the English domestic calendar: T20 finals day. In a perfect world, of course, the event would be next week at the latest. But given the farce that is the LVCC fixtures one should probably not expect too much from the ECB.

Somerset are in the semi-finals again and for the third year in a row (second in the semi-final) they will be playing Hampshire. It seems unlikely that the match will feature anything as thrilling as the last time the two sides played, but it still should be interesting. Somerset have James Hildreth, who scored 107* in the group stages and who scored 58 off 36 in the quarter-final. Hampshire, meantime, go into finals day off the heroics of Neil McKenzie and his unbeaten 79 against Notts. It’s always tricky to predict the result of a T20, but I think Somerset look the stronger side and should win. And, of course, they need to win if they are to finish in their traditional runners-up place.

The other semi-final features Yorkshire, through to finals day for the first time, against Sussex. This is another match which could be quite high scoring as Yorkshire have put up some very good totals this year (and went passed 200 in the quarter-final), but come up against Scott Styris. Styris hit an incredible 100* in the quarter final off only 37 balls including 38 off one over. Sussex also have Matt Prior, who is an underrated T20 player. Yorkshire’s bowling is decent, but I would guess (and with T20 it really is only a guess) that Sussex will win.

That would leave a Sussex v Somerset final. For all the jokes about Somerset finishing runners-up, I think they actually do look the better side, albeit not by a lot. It will possibly be their best chance to end their trophy drought, but whether they can take it is another matter.

An improvement for T20s

This is not a rant about T20; as I believe I have said before I do not mind the format per se but rather some (indeed many) of its applications. So my suggestion for improving it does not involve scrapping it entirely or anything radical such as that. It instead deals with the problem of rain shortened matches such as the one we saw today between Nottinghamshire and Lancashire. Lancs batted for twenty overs as set Notts 179 to win. The rains came with Notts 7-0 after one over and left them a D/L target of 49 off five overs which they chased comfortably. The obvious problem was that the D/L revised target was quite low. Notts had all of their wickets in hand and could go for it. One big over against Arafat was enough to all but end the match as a contest. However, I think to blame D/L misses a deeper and more important point.

The D/L discrepancy was a problem, but I actually think it is a very minor one. Theoretically the system can be tweaked (and I believe that it is tweaked as new data comes in), but I do not think there is any adjustment that could have helped in this situation. No matter what total is set over five overs it will not have the same dynamic of a full chase and more importantly I don’t think there is any ‘fair’ way to do it. Only playing five overs means two things: that wickets are entirely irrelevant, run rate is all that matters, and that the required rate will almost always jump to either unobtainable heights or drop so low that it becomes easy. In effect then it is a one over contest. Today, Notts got 18 off a single over to render the required rate miniscule. The low target and wickets in hand made it easier for them to do that then the corollary of Lancs bowling a very tight over, but if Lancs had done so it would have come close to ending the match in their favour as well. And that would apply even if the D/L target had been higher; it would have just made it easier for Lancs to have a good over than Notts. Either way though it isn’t a proper contest. Five overs is simply too few.

The best way to improve T20s then is not to tweak D/L (though I still think that should happen, it just isn’t the most important thing to do) but to increase the minimum number of overs for matches interrupted halfway by rain and more flexibility in shortening matches before the rain starts. Most people suspected ahead of time that today’s match would be rain-affected and if they had decided ahead of time to play ten, or even five, overs a side instead of Lancs getting a full twenty and Notts getting five it would have been a perfectly fair contest. In situations where that is not feasible, however, the minimum number of overs has to be increased. If start times are brought forward and cutoff times moved back (as well as being made more flexible) I believe this can be done without a considerable increase in the number of matches without a result. Even if there is some increase, however, I think the majority of fans will understand the logic though I concede that is speculation. Certainly there should be some sort of effort to get the most overs in as possible. The current system does not produce a proper contest.

T20 format and situation

We’re just past the summer solstice and that means that in England the county season has shifted entirely to the group stage of the Friends Life T20. I have not been following it as closely as the championship, but the timing does make it substantially easier for me and I have kept an eye on it. The structure is much different this year with the effect that it is shorter. Instead of each team playing sixteen matches each team only plays ten and as a result they are all much more meaningful. There is a strong incentive to finish in the top two of the group and a fairly strong one to finish at the top and there is not a lot of room for error. It is early yet, but I think the ECB have hit upon a successful format. Which is why they are trying to change it for next year, of course.

The current table in the North Group sees the Red Rose in third following a disappointing loss away in the Roses match. Yorkshire actually top the table, but Lancashire are still very much in the hunt. They would actually qualify for the quarter-finals as one of the second best third place sides right now and have a match in hand against most of the other sides in the North Group. Of four matches left to play, two stand out: the home Roses clash against top of the table Yorkshire is the most obvious but there is also the trip to Trent Bridge to play second placed Notts. Winning both of those would give Lancs some leeway against Derbyshire and Durham. As I said above though: every match is important in this new tournament format and Lancs will be very keen to avoid another slip up against Derbyshire. Lancs could easily be two points better off and in a fairly comfortable position were it not for an early defeat to Derbyshire in a match they ought to have won comfortably and that could yet cost them.

I think that Lancashire have played very well so far in the T20. They had just hit a good run of form in the LV=CC before the break and their batting in particular has been incredible. Lancashire’s run rate in the competition so far is over 8.5 an over; that works out to 170 per innings. That will win most matches and so far it has done. A horror over by Mahmood cost them early though and they were outplayed by Yorkshire (and I so hate typing that, even in a T20). Those are the only two losses so far, however. I think we can win at least three of the remaining matches, though I am not sure how we will do against Notts. We have not yet played them and they look fairly good. All things considered then, I think Lancs will make it to the quarter-finals and although it’s a crapshoot from there we can have a go at improving on last year’s result.