After the penalties imposed on Durham yesterday by the ECB, Ben Hathaway wanted his say on the merits of the County Championship. We give him the floor…

Things change in life, not as often as the seasons, but almost. Tastes evolve and develop, fashions come and fashions go, then come again. Trends can often be identified months or even years in advance. There has been a clear trend in cricket, a huge luminous sign with pulsing, vibrant red arrows, pointing away from long form cricket and towards almost any other sport, for many moons. The occasional spikes during Ashes series seem to cover this all up, in the eyes of the ECB.

Im originally from Yorkshire, by the way. Up there, you’re born and indoctrinated, rightly or most probably wrongly, about the greatest county in the land, and of the importance of the County Championship. Yet when was the last time I bothered looking at the scores with any genuine interest in how Yorkshire did ? Maybe as a bored student in 2001 but likely long before that. The sport ceased to move with the times, and even when Yorkshire defended the title last year, very few people were interested, let alone gripped.

Ultimately, its not entertaining as a spectacle, its doesn’t captivate hearts and minds.

Potentially two retired miners from Barnsley had slight palpitations when Ryan Sidebottom and Bresnan got Yorkshire to 350 at Lord’s last week. At best. The symptoms include low attendances and Durham going bust. The cause is ultimately the woeful lack of entertainment the product provides.

In recent and relatively recent years, darts, snooker and rugby league have made significant changes in a bid to increase the popularity and exposure of the sport.

They grasped a very simple concept, that increased excitement and entertainment translates immediately into financial gain, both on the door but more importantly through TV rights. What are the TV rights worth for the County Championship ? If you bid fifty pence and a Snickers you’d be paying well over the odds. Why does every other sport see this with startling alacrity, yet the ECB cannot ?

What were the responses to the paltry viewing figures and resplendently anaemic looking stadia throughout the season? There was precious little inward reflection as to the state of the product itself, almost zero contemplation of looking structurally at the offering. Instead, relatively astute commentators such as George Dobell called for more televised County Championship matches, citing this as the answer to the game’s malaise.

In its current state you could have it on every day of the week, on whatever channel was foolish enough to waste bandwidth on it. That channel would remain unselected across the land.

Test cricket is mirroring the situation in county cricket.

Non-Ashes games suffer from paltry attendances, and ultimately so much power is concentrated in the hands of so few of the teams, its rush towards irrelevance continues. Teams scoring at 2.2 RPO on flat decks just aren’t going to be worth as much to broadcasters. There is almost no incentive for teams to get a result. As such, with so many sporting and non-sporting alternatives, added to comical ticket prices,

The Durham situation is symptomatic

Durham failed to sell tickets for their England test matches. The public are turning off in their droves. Durham paid the price of fans non-interest.

The ECB’s punishment of Durham this week, partially for not selling out tickets, was so laughable it seemed wholly fitting and apt to the state of the longer form of cricket. It’s been obvious to the entire planet, aside from the ECB, that county cricket is doomed in its current guise.

The points system is terrible, the reward for a draw is terrible, the constant stop/start nature of the game is terrible.

It’s a drab mess, an analogue act in a digital age.

The only decent entertainment the season provided was the contrived T20 Middlesex and Yorkshire put on to avoid the draw neither side wanted.

Cricket has to evolve

The game has to evolve, or you would suspect, with overwhelming supporting evidence, that a minimum of half the counties must fold. Changes wouldn’t even be that tough to implement.

Punish the draw instead of rewarding it, punish slow scoring rates, give counties no alternative aside from going for the win. If that means an 8-over slogfest at the end of the fourth day, so what? Try things, experiment. Get people talking about it, get people through the door. Make the product entertaining. Jazz up the clothing, have flashing bails, get naked dancing girls at lunchtime. Just do something, anything, apart from the current abomination. Why not try it in Division Two next year ?

Make the draw worth minus 30 points, force results. Why not ? Can it be any worse than teams finishing their first innings on the fourth day, the draw 1000/1 on with bookmakers ?

In any other walk of life, I would say the obvious solution would be to vote with your feet, but this happened many years ago, and the ECB pretended it didn’t.

The problem with the product is the product.

by BEN HATHAWAY

NOTE:

We gave Ben his say, but please note that the Editor of this website doesn’t agree with everything Ben has said. But do you? Let us know on our Twitter page, our facebook page or email is at james@cricketbadger.com