PROPOSED CITY-BASED T20 TOURNAMENT COULD HAVE ADVERSE IMPACT ON THE SMALLER COUNTIES
he prospect of a citybased T20 tournament comprising eight teams took a major leap forward after a meeting of the county chairmen at Lord’s on Wednesday.
Those chairmen voted by a surprising margin, (apparently 16-3 with the MCC having a vote and Surrey, Sussex and Kent in the minority) in favour of a new competition, which is planned to start in 2018.
But at the outset it is unlikely to include the regular presence of current England players.
This vote is likely to have brought a broad smile to the face of the England and Wales Cricket Board Chairman, Colin Graves, albeit on the day when Yorkshire’s attempts to retain the County Championship faltered after suffering a rare defeat at Headingley at the hands of Somerset.
However, this outcome will not be cheerfully received by a large proportion of members of the county clubs, represented by those chairmen. Sussex confirmed on Thursday that they are in opposition to the plan.
In a statement the county said: “We recognise the current financial risks to counties, including over-dependence on international income, and the opportunities to develop interest in the game, including the changing media landscape. The board is open to considering change in the schedule, but our strong preference is that domestic tournaments should feature all 18 first-class counties.”
“There is much work to carry out on many issues before the game will be in a position to give agreement to the proposed new schedule. Sussex Cricket will continue to participate in this process in a constructive way.”
The vote is not binding. Meetings with county chief executives and their members will follow, but the door is now wide open for an upheaval another one - of the domestic schedule. The chairmen will be able to offer the consolation to their members that this new competition will, according to their market researchers, produce significant cash for their clubs, possibly to the tune of £1.5m (Dh7.28m) per year.
This will be snatched eagerly since many clubs, not just the minnows but also some of those who host Test cricket, are in grave financial difficulty. Moreover the ECB will delight in having another product to sell to a broadening television market in 2020.
However the supporters of the smaller county clubs, including Northamptonshire, the heroic winners of this year’s T20 tournament, will now be denied access to the best T20 can offer. There may be more than eight venues for the eight teams but the smaller clubs are likely to miss out on these games.
New competition
The current NatWest Blast, which involves all 18 counties, is expected to continue earlier in the summer in June and July. The new competition will take over in August, with a match on just about every day of the month.
This is the tournament which the overseas T20 specialists will now be eyeing. Graves was predictably upbeat, especially since the opposition to this scheme seems to have declined so dramatically.
“We’ve all been looking at how we can use domestic T20 for an even bigger purpose, especially getting more young people to play,” he said.
“This format was invented here and is successful worldwide. It can excite new fans, attract the best players and fuel the future of the game on and off the pitch.”
The ECB are more eager to focus on the notion that this new competition will somehow attract a younger audience and increase participation than the fact that it should generate more income from a new television deal.
“The need to grow interest and participation in the game we love is at the core of our thinking and this is a rigorous process,” said Graves.
“We’ve talked to each county individually about the need for change, a range of potential options and the implications.
Many questions are raised by the prospect of the new competition. What will be the impact on the County Championship? Next summer the number of fixtures will be reduced to 14 per side instead of 16. The pressure to reduce that figure further will intensify. Currently the expectation is that Championship matches will continue to be played in August 2018 even though key players will be absent.
Then there is the obvious danger of the schedule being saturated by T20 cricket. This summer each county played 14 matches in the NatWest Blast in the hope of playing three more in the knockout stages.
The new eight-team competition would presumably offer 14 more games before the process of contriving another final begins.
So a decent T20 county cricketer, not required by England, could end up playing at least 30 T20 matches per season. Hence there are reservations about whether two T20 competitions in one season are sustainable.
Damage to counties
Even those who have made the NatWest Blast work successfully such as Somerset’s Chief Executive, Guy Lavender, have expressed doubts.
Earlier this season Lavender outlined the pitfalls.
“Several clubs sell out their grounds and have a passionate and committed following and it would be terrible if that was destroyed by the introduction of city-based franchises,” he said.
“That option could well damage many smaller counties. Members, fans, players and commercial partners will have less Championship cricket, fewer 50 over matches and, for as long as it lasts, a second rate T20 competition. Two T20 competitions are unlikely to be sustainable in the long-term.”