The State of the Game: April 2010

The county cricket season has opened once more, this time at the earliest ever point in the calendar year, and it is worthwhile considering the current state of cricket in England and Wales. We need to ask some difficult questions: what is good about the current domestic setup? What systemic problems are there? And how can we improve the domestic game to help England improve as a cricketing nation?


It is useful to begin by looking at two foreign setups, and the function they fulfil: baseball in the United States, and cricket in Australia.

In the United States, the whole system is constructed with one thing in mind: making the best players better for each individual ball club. How many times have you heard announcers (that’s American for commentators, for all you who are not accustomed with American sports terminology) say that such and such a player has “come through the minors,” or they “got sent back to triple A, but since coming back to Wrigley Field they’ve been much improved”? The entire minor league setup is built around garnering the best talent for the major league ball clubs. The top minor league is triple-A; below that is double-AA; and below that is class A which is broken down again into three more tiers. Minor league ball clubs are affiliated with one team and one team only in the majors. Most major league ball clubs have associates at every level. This “farm system” is ruthless. This farm system works. The best players learn their trade in the minors; they polish their skills and are made as ready as possible for the big leagues.

If a similar setup was implemented in English domestic cricket, the most talented cricketers would be procured for Test level at a higher level than they are at the moment. The purpose of the English County Championship has to be to produce the best cricketers to represent England in Test matches. In effect, the County Championship has to become, to a greater extent, what minor leagues are to major league baseball. It has to be the top minor league. Every single player in the County Championship has to have his sights set on representing England at Test Match level.

One of the easiest ways to improve the domestic game in England is to make it as close a mirror of Test match cricket as is possible. Some alterations are easy to spot: we’re talking five day matches; ninety overs in a day; a new ball after eighty overs. Five day matches are a good idea because more matches will be won and lost, i.e. not drawn. Cricketers would get a better sense of how to win a Test Match. That might sound silly. But think back to England’s tour of the West Indies in the winter season of 2008 / 09, and twice England failed to win from two very dominant positions.

Of course, five day matches would mean fewer games could be played. That’s no bad thing. The best alteration made to the County game in the 1990’s was the two division system. There are eighteen counties, so why not go one step further: three divisions of six. Think of the top tier as triple-A, the middle tier as double-A, and the bottom tier as class-A. Each County would play ten County Championship matches through one season. That means a maximum of fifty days cricket a season with five day matches. Therefore, there should not be the nonsense of “resting” players as player fatigue should simply not be an issue. Fifty days of Championship cricket leaves space for the shorter competitions built in around the Championship, but the Championship has to take precedent over twenty20 cricket and other limited overs forms of cricket.

The current bonus points system in the County Championship is nothing short of a joke. It is pathetic. There has to be a bonus points system, but it does not have to be so complicated. Teams still have to be encouraged to try and win a game of cricket. Therefore, let us have twenty points for a win. But it rains a lot in England; sometimes a result is not always possible. Therefore, six points for a lead on first innings and six points for a drawn match. Under such a system, there is still the incentive to win the match.

One of the big debates in recent years has been the issue of overseas players. I am of the opinion that overseas players are, to a certain extent, good for the development of English cricketers. In my opinion, a maximum of two overseas players should be able to take to the field for a single county. The COLPAC regulation has blurred the meaning of “overseas”. As long as nine of any one County Championship side are eligible to represent England in Test Match cricket, I do not care whether they are called overseas, COLPAC or foreign.

There are issues left unresolved here. What about England players with central contracts? How do they fit into the system? We surely cannot abolish central contracts; they have proven to be one of the best innovations of the Duncan Fletcher era. They have to stay. And to be honest, I am not sure there is a conflict of interests between the system I have proposed and central contracts, but I am sure there are issues which I have not covered here.

Much of the success of Australia in world cricket over the past two decades (though as an Englishman it feels like much longer) has been attributed to the strength of their first class game, the Sheffield Shield. This competition is contested by six state sides (the same number of teams, you’ll notice, who would make up the top division of my plan, above), and competition is fierce to get into those sides. Australia is a big country with a large pool of cricketing talent; in the Sheffield Shield, the best play the best. Regularly. That is what we need in England. Television coverage is central to highlighting the top division of three Championship tiers in England. At present, I think only two County Championship matches are broadcast on Sky Sports through the whole of the summer. That is not enough. Increased television coverage of a competition which is contested by the top six counties would throw emphasis upon that competition and make it of greater importance: players would get used to playing in front of television cameras and get used to the in-depth scrutiny that only Sky Sports can provide.

Cricket in Cardiff: Just Not Cricket

Last year the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) made the bold but wrong decision to stage the opening Test of the 2009 Ashes series at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff. For those who don't realise it, that means England will be playing Australia in Wales.

This is supposed to be a home Ashes series for England. Cardiff is certainly neutral, regardless of what the ECB is called.

The ground which would have almost certainly hosted this match if money couldn't talk would be Old Trafford, Manchester. Old Trafford is the fastest, bounciest track in the country. The England team like playing there, and the opposition almost always struggle there. England very nearly beat Australia there in 2005, falling just one wicket short of a sensational victory. Ponting showed his utter class, batting for most of the fifth day on a wearing, turning, seaming track to save the game for the visitors. I myself was one of the 10,000 fans locked out on the morning on the fifth day. Twelve months later I was there again (in the stadium, this time) to see England wrap up an excellent Pakistan team (lead by the formidable Inzi) in effectively three days. The batsman from the subcontinent just couldn't handle the pace and bounce of the Old Trafford Test track; they couldn't get onto the front foot and they couldn't hook, pull or cut the England seamers off the back foot. The England batsman showed them how it was done and the hosts won at a canter. And England won't be playing there in 2009. Absolute madness.

The history of Test cricket at Old Trafford obviously goes back considerably further than that. I've not even mentioned Warne's magic ball and Laker's 19 for 90, inc. his ten wicket inning. History tells us England play well at Old Trafford, but they won't be playing the Aussies there in 2009. The ECB's bank balance may well be somewhat inflated by the extra pounds coming in from Sophia Gardens, but there is a very good chance their outfit could be made to look very very foolish next summer -- and on what is undoubtedly the biggest stage of them all.

The main argument for staging a Test in Cardiff is that it is the England & Wales Cricket Board, so there probably should be a Test played in Wales. Okay, fair enough. But you know what? England and Wales are both part of the United Kingdom -- maybe we should have another one of the five Test matches in Edinburgh. And another in Belfast. And, you know, to keep all Ireland happy, maybe we should have another in Dublin. No? Sounds a bit silly to have England playing a home Test against the Aussies in Dublin, Ireland, doesn't it?

At the end of the day, Sophia Gardens (I refuse to call it anything else, by the way) just is not cut out to host such an important Test match. Or any Test match, for that matter. The straight boundaries are 40 yards -- yes, just 40 yards! And this, in an era when cricket is already overly-friendly to batsmen. The ground is too manufactured. There is no special buzz abut it. The stands have blue seating in. Such a small difference makes it feel like a sterile sporting venue rather than a historic cricket ground. It is possible to build cricket grounds to feel like cricket grounds -- look at the Rose Bowl, in Hampshire. If Old Trafford isn't up to hosting an Ashes test in 2009, then why isn't it being played at the Rose Bowl? The wicket was a bit lively when first put down, but it's getting better and better every year and the ground hosted a fabulous Twenty20 finals day.

All in all, this is becoming a very embarrassing episode for the ECB. It was summed up yesterday, when, after just three overs it started to rain, and the ground staff took an absolute age to get the covers on. They were the old push pull covers, not like the hover cover at Old Trafford.

Sophia Gardens Cardiff is not up to the job of hosting an Ashes Test. Below are the thoughts of Andrew Miller, of CricInfo.


The reporter from the South Wales Echo possibly hadn't thought through the implications when, at the end of the rain-wrecked ODI at the newly refurbished Sophia Gardens (or SWALEC Stadium, as it would love to become known), he decided to ask Andrew Flintoff his opinion of the venue that, in just under ten months' time, will host the first Test of the 2009 Ashes.

"It's damp," deadpanned Flintoff, in the most underwhelming endorsement imaginable. Then, sensing he ought to come up with a slightly more upbeat response, Flintoff tried again, but still couldn't muster the necessary enthusiasm. "It's better than last time I came," he said. "It's not Old Trafford, but it's all right."

Admittedly, Flintoff was the wrong man to ask. As a proud Lancastrian, he was duty-bound to be indignant about the manner in which his home ground has been stripped of Ashes status for next summer's seismic contest. And besides, as dress rehearsals go, Cardiff's three-over rain-dodge on Wednesday was never going to set the pulses racing, for players or spectators.

Back in 2005, however, those pulses were working overtime. On the final morning of the third Test, 10,000 fans had to be locked out of Old Trafford, as Ashes fever officially took hold of the nation. Try as one might, it was hard to envisage the same scenes being recreated in the heart of Cardiff next summer, and that wasn't just the weather dampening the enthusiasm. It was the venue's simple lack of familiarity that jarred as well.

Home advantage can be a hard thing to quantify, but by and large it is made up of a series of strands that, when drawn tightly together, create a formidable hurdle for opposition teams to overcome. Contributing factors might include the knowledge of local weather patterns and their impact on pitch conditions, or the feel-good factor that courses through the players as they walk through the gates and recall the glories of matches past. Perhaps there's some quirky feature in the dressing room that can be guaranteed to get under the skin of visiting sides, or maybe that role is reliably performed by the boisterous local support.

Whatever the ingredients, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which Australia would smooth England's path to the Ashes in 2010-11 by scrapping their now-traditional curtain-raiser at Brisbane's "Gabbatoir" in favour of a more neutral venue. Only a complacent, naïve or unthinking board - and probably all three at once - would disregard the sort of backing that England could have counted upon at Old Trafford (and Trent Bridge for that matter) next summer, and trust the opening fixture of such a key series to a ground where England have contested fewer overs of international cricket than seven rival nations, Australia included.

How will the pitch play for England's quartet of seamers? Stuart Broad may have struck twice in the ten overs that England have managed over the course of two matches against Pakistan and South Africa, but we can only really speculate - Glamorgan's struggles at the foot of the second division of the Championship aren't exactly a reliable indicator of form. How will Monty Panesar protect the unsettlingly short and straight boundaries at either end of the ground, 40 yard distances which, as Shaun Pollock was miming in the lift between punditry stints, invite gentle chip shots into the River Taff?

There are too many unknowns for Cardiff to truly be classified as an England "home" Test - and geographically, of course, it is anything but. Notwithstanding the silent "W" in the England & Wales Cricket Board, it is a point of pedantry that swings both ways - Welsh cricket fans bridle whenever Cardiff is mentioned, for convenience's sake, as part of England, and yet those same supporters would doubtless take umbrage if it was suggested that they were any less passionate as a result.

The real problem with the venue, however, is one of perception. Locating Cardiff on a map is one thing, but it's only when you arrive in town that you really appreciate that you've set foot in a rival capital. The little details play their part, in particular the bilingual signposts, but for the keenest sense of trespass, there's nothing quite so forbidding as the towering magnificence of the Millennium Stadium, which is unmissably placed slap-bang in the centre of the city.

With due respect to the SWALEC, this is the only stadium in town - it boasts 76,000 seats compared with a puny 15,000, but, with Land Of Our Fathers being played out on loop over the tannoy, it is also clear that this is a venue where Englishmen tread at their peril. With that in mind, it's not easy to bridge the mental gap that such a monolith creates. English sportsmen do not come to Cardiff to be cheered to the rafters. They come here to be rucked and mauled to oblivion. Anything else is quite frankly a disturbance of the natural order.

Flintoff did not mean to be churlish about Glamorgan's redevelopment. Given the constraints of time, and the need to be sympathetic to its delightful riverside setting, the expansion has been achieved as tastefully and effectively as anyone could have hoped. But how will he and his team-mates feel as they wait in the Ystafell Newid inside the "Really Welsh" pavilion on July 8 next year, while the strains of Jerusalem announce the start of the 2009 Ashes? No more than mildly disorientated, you would hope. Nevertheless, of all the contests to jeopardise in such a way, English cricket really couldn't have picked a less opportune one.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright

The Aesthetics Of Cricket

What follows is a pure romanticisation of the game of cricket, for which I shall not apologise, highlighting my underlying passion for the noble game.

The Field
At times, where the fieldsman stand strikes fear into the heart of the gentleman trying to do the striking. The great fast bowlers can stand at the end of their mark and, taking a sharp intake of breath, can gaze upon glorious open fields of green. Large sections of the outfield no longer require a man in whites to occupy them because of the bowlers skill and sheer speed of delivery. He is so good there is no way he can possibly be driven through mid on. He is so good that apart from a hunched figure at short leg, there is no one in front of square on the leg side. This bowler can bowl to this field. There is a man at mid-off. He is the only gentleman in white in front of square on the off side. This bowler can still bowl to this field. Everyone else is in a curve. The curve itself makes me smile as I think back to days gone by when the West Indies (and later the Australians) could set fields like this in almost every test match they played, regardless of who they were playing. The wicket-keeper stands bent, gloves on knees, waiting for the bowler to begin his take off. He himself is half way to the boundary just to manage a safe landing. Even further back is the gentleman designated first slip. An important position when setting any field, it is even more important when most of his peers are curved around to his right. Should he put one down now, the fieldsman who do not usually occupy this specialist position will almost certainly have words about how they might have taken that one. I can only think of Shane Warne on day five of the fifth test in the 2005 Ashes series at the Oval. You dropped the Ashes there, mate. For the purpose of then, had he taken Pieterson then, then the Australians might have then set this field I am describing. This field where the slips merge into the gullys, and the gullys merge into the backward point. All are crouched, waiting, hoping, as the bowler comes down. Look at this field he commands! And with such skill! Down goes the ball, down the channel, just outside off stump. The batsman is wise and there is a comfortable leave. The keeper takes the catch, ending the play. For now. Five skips, a gully, a backward point. Four slips, two gullys, a backward point. Four slips, three gullys. Call it what you will, they still wait. Ready to pounce, and send another gentleman packing to the pavilion.

The Ground
The pavilion should be the jewel in the crown. The crowning glory. The glory of glory. But there is one pavilion which stands above all others. The pavilion at Lord's Cricket Ground. Opened in 1890, it has not changed much since then. The original aesthetic qualities from the outside remain. To the lucky few who are allowed inside, it still has its charms. I am told. The exclusiveness of the Lord's pavilion is one of its qualities. Very few gentlemen can say they have watched the Saturday of the Lord's Test from the Long Room. Very few, indeed, can say they have permission to sit on the benches just in front. The benches themselves are very Lord's, in an age when the fold down plastic seat is in every sport's arena anywhere in the world. In English cricket grounds, they are white. When they are not, they are only temporary. They will soon be gone again. Only there for the big fixtures. Even the fold downs have a certain visual pleasure to them, for they emphasise the curve of the ground around the boundary better than the boundary rope does. Much is to be said for the areas around the playing surface which remains undeveloped. South Africa, it has often struck me, takes great care of the grass verges which rise up instead of man-made grandstands. On a sunny day, gentlemen and ladies can catch the rays of the sun whilst the children act out their own mimics of cricket. The people seem more relaxed on the grassy banks. They can spread out their picnics and lay out a fleece to sit on if they wish. They can make that patch of grass their own to watch the cricket from. They own that view. I myself like to sit, slightly raised, behind the bowlers arm. The view you get means you are either looking from directly in front of the stage or from behind the stage. Every other over is viewed as if you are the television camera. The desire to be a television camera. Bizarre. But that is what many of us are used to. Television coverage has made us comfortable watching from directly behind the bowler. There is a small sense of disorientation when, at the end of the over, the wicket-keeper comes down the wicket and turns his back on you. As if he is at fault. It is certainly not likely they will pause the game and let the crowd walk round to the other end of the ground.

Batting
The aggressive side of the noble game. Where sheer power can be enough to keep you in the game for one more ball. When the top bowlers come to bowl, it should be renamed battling. The duel begins, but can really only end in one way; with the fall of the wicket. But the delaying of the inevitable is a glorious aesthetic collage of movement and exquisite flows of energy. This is most noticeable when it is not there. A batsman, for example, receives a short-pitched delivery halfway down the track that he is not expecting. He leaps up, his bat rising in front of him. Now it is a tool of protection, not a weapon of venom. He looks awkward. His back bends a bit 'the other way'. His knees are well bent. He rides the delivery. That is the way to play it; by instinct. And by hope. Hope that it makes its way safely to the floor. Hope that it does not clip a bail somehow. Hope that it does not balloon to a fieldsman. And hope that it does not knock you senseless. When the right ball comes, that it when the beauty appears. The grace of an on-drive. The most technically-difficult of cricket shots. Few can execute it with precision and grace. Those who can, should, for it is a beautiful thing. The pause at the end of the stroke is glorious, as batsman can look right down the line of the shot as the ball makes its way to the boundary. Such elegance is still there is some of the more brutal shots square of the wicket. The cut through backward point off of the back foot, like the hook behind square on the leg side, is all about timing. The fast bowler is manipulated. The pace that he put on the ball has taken it to the boundary. In each cricket shot, the bat becomes a baton, as the conductor tries to get the rowdy orchestra to play in perfect harmony. Something only the best can hope to achieve. Though it should be said some achieve this before they reach the crease. Vivian Richards achieved it as he strolled across the outfield making his way to the crease. A swagger in his step, he was not cocky. Just the best. Chewing his chewing gum with his baton under his arm. As if his job were already done.

Spinning
The only bona-fide art form of cricket, this brings me the most pleasure. One delivery changed the world. The ball of the century. Shane Warne. Mike Gatting. Old Trafford. 1993. Enough said. That was the perfect delivery, and we can only dream that one day someone might repeat it. The art form itself does not rely on raw power based on physical dominance, as the paceman strives to produce. The spinner has to be cunning, and the top spinners in the game are cunning. They use the wicket in a smart way to their advantage, pitching it in the footmarks of the thundering paceman. If he puts it there, it should turn. And if it turns, you had better hope you are not batting left handed. Right arm leg spin round the wicket to a left handed batsman who also has to contend with the rough being outside his off stump. Do not expect too many boundaries here. Keep bat and pad close together, get to the pitch of the ball and just hope the short leg or silly point does not have anything to say. Yes, the field is in. A slip, a short leg, a silly point and a man at short mid wicket. And the most likely outcome? Being bowled thought the gate. There is less shame for the left hander being bowled this way than there is for the right hander who has been bowled round his legs. This can considered to be a test match dismissal. The spinner throws it up into the rough now outside the leg stump. It pitches in the rough but the batsman can kick it away. A few of them he might leave altogether. But if he does this, sooner or later one will turn enough, and hit the top of leg stump. The spinner's shorter run up increases the over rate. Two spinners bowling in tandem can get the game on the field moving along. Spinners can bowl an entire day with only a break for lunch and a break for tea. The character of English cricket is a spinner. He comes in off a hop, a skip and a trot, and bowls left arm around the wicket. He, unlike England's last spinner, is an attacking spin bowler. As soon as he gives the ball a rip, his eyes widen. He expects a wicket with every ball. And when he gets one, his eyes widen and he is off jumping down the track with joy, high fiveing the fieldsmen as he goes. He has a genuine passion for the game, and that helps the rest of the team. When I was young, I always wanted to be a spinner. If I was a spinner, I would want to be like Monty.

The Media
Cricket is a game with a proud history, but even games with long histories have to move with the times in one way or another. First came the radio, and with the radio came Test Match Special. As English as the Queen, this is certainly as much a British institution as the Proms. We cannot forget this is a medium of voices, and we cannot for this when the voices are as distinct as Henry Blofeld and Jonathan Agnew. What they say is pleasing to hear. Even when they read the batting card and England are bowled out for less than 150. To hear the bowling figures is easy on the ear, as is hearing the field. I like to picture the field in my head as they read it out. And when the game is quiet, they do anyone would do. They wander. If the test is at Old Trafford, Henry might comment that "a train has just pulled into the station and there must be about twenty or thirty people alighting, struggling to carry all their hampers and sandwiches and what as McGrath comes in and bowls outside off stump and through to Gilchrist no stroke from Vaughan England 97 for two. Yes, they're all making their way steadily round the back of the Brian Statham end towards the gate where there's a man with a rather bright yellow sun hat at the front of the queue struggling to find his ticket, which is rather worrying for him…" The idiosyncrasies of the commentary are as pleasing to hear as the standard readings. But that which has pictures tends to bring these idiosyncrasies through the lens. The commentators do not have to explain them. The cameras pan round the ground and pick out the novelties for the armchair cricketer. The former players provide the one line comment. David 'start the car' Lloyd being the best at these, making fellow commentators chuckle and making people at home smile and laugh. The media enhances the game. I like to think it enhances the playing experience as well, for it is yet to take over the running of the game as is sadly now the case in football.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright