ECB expands County Championship comfort zone

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St Lawrence Ground, Kent (Sarah Ansell)

The ECB has announced changes to the County Championship. They’re going to allow more teams to have a go in division one.

The last few years, eight counties have got a go in the top flight each year and everyone’s played an entirely logical 14 matches. The second division has had ten counties playing the same number of matches according to a system no-one much understands.

Clearly, this was unsatisfactory, so the ECB has switched it round. Now division one will be the ten-team incomprehensible one and division two will make sense.

Arguing the move, the announcement said… “this change will provide an appropriate increase in security to Division One teams with a smaller percentage being relegated each season, and a correspondingly increased opportunity for Division Two teams as they will have a greater percentage chance of promotion.”

So that’s nice. More people get a go and it’s a bit less stressful for everyone – just the way competitive sport’s supposed to be.

4 comments

  1. Really not a fan of the championship being decided on the funny not-everyone-plays-everyone-else basis.

    1. I’ve solved it.

      Every Div 1 will play EVERY Div 2 team home and away. Since Div 2 is smaller this gives a manageable number of games per Div 1 club. And since each Div 1 team plays the same number of games and faces the same opponents it would be totally fair. The Div 1 team that bosses the Div 2 teams the megaest will be undisputed champion team of England and Wales.

      1. I’m a couple of beers down but that sounds sheer genius to me.

        The Div 2 players should be playing against a better opposition so could improve faster. Under this system then there could be no quibbles with picking a Div 2 player on a good average as they will have played the best quality available.

        I really like this.

  2. Following this train of thought, the only logical conclusion is to have 18 teams in division one and none in division two. That way there is a 0% chance of relegation and an infinite chance of promotion. Math don’t lie kidz.

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