Posted by Does it have to end in September?
Obviously it does, but the start of autumn’s a maudlin sort of time anyway. Do we really have to exacerbate it? While a big finish to the season would appear a cheering sort of thing, what it actually seems like is the death of summer.
Let’s say the championship’s decided on the final day of the season again. The final ball goes for four or whatever and the winning team cheer.
‘Hurray,’ they say. They punch the air, grab a stump and then run inside, because it’s getting chilly and dark. Once inside, they stay there for seven months.
There’s also the problem that the counties have been playing for five months now and the county in first place, Nottinghamshire, have four wins and eight draws, while the county in seventh place, Lancashire, have three wins and nine draws. Have we got anywhere at all? There was a bigger gap than that after one match.
Firstly, they should change the County Championship to three leagues of six. With ten first-class fixtures a year, they could have reserve days and therefore get through more matches. If they get more results, championship victory will be more meaningful and with fewer matches ordinary people could actually have an outside chance of knowing what’s going on.
Secondly, they should play the Twenty20 Cup – not the Twenty20 league, but the EPL thing – in Sharjah or somewhere in October or November so that we all have something to look forward to.
They could even charter a load of flights and try and organise some affordable, week-long holidays, so that British people could submit themselves to some daylight while also catching a bit of cricket.
Of course it can’t happen because cricketers all play for five different teams and it’s impossible to find a window where anyone’s free.
If it goes to Shajah we can all make some extra money by getting some tip offs from the players themselves.
I think the problem is there aren’t enough counties.
There should be 30 or 40 more.
And they should have capes.
Nah, they should have Capes though.
Geoff Capes, that is.
To this day, that man’s name makes us laugh. We have no idea why.
Geoff Capes.
KC this is bordering on real journalism. Up to Geoff Capes that is.
I have an alternative suggesting for picking the County Championship.
At the start of the year, some bloke, any bloke really, selects a side that he thinks are “winners”. These are then awarded the trophy in around May time.
Then the county season starts.
The champion county then proceeds to “prove its worth”. Either it’s ego-crushing revelation of talked-up nonsense, in which case everyone else in the championship wins by default, or it’s a predictable success, in which case everyone else gets to grumble about those buggers – which is also a win for them.
It’s a win-win situation that ultimately ensures that the end-of-season wash-out should be avoided.
Good one, KC.
Agree with all of it, except taking T20 to Sharjah. Keep it here but get it all done in 3 weeks including the drunken debauched beer-fest with beach balls attached that the Finals day has become.
T20 cricket is good; its what goes with it that I have a problem with.
For god’s sake, why can’t they have LVCC matches/rounds starting on the same day and the same day each week?
Are they deliberately trying to confuse fans?
Do they think they wil build more involvement and enjoyment by making us all exhaust a load more grey matter by understanding that for today its Div 1 matches day 3 but for Div 2 matches its day 1?
You almost need a computer programme to keep tabs on the crazy scheduling. Last season, they said that they wanted to make the CB40 more like the old Sunday League. Checking the fixtures, they had scheduled games on 7 days of the week. Marvellous.
The game maybe trying to be more commercial for obvious reasons but they are bad at real marketing. Everything is way too confusing with the product. And also the players (good point KC). Player X will be playing until June 3rd at 4.00pm and then player Y will fly in and take over after the tea interval up until the coach trip south 13 days later when player Z will join at Hilton Park services.
And please cut out that 7 second piece of music every time a boundary is scored in T20 and televised CB40 matches. Totally unnecessary, even for the 9 year-olds.
Am I sounding like Geoff Boycott yet???
It’s Thursday morning and 5Live announce the start of another round of LVCC marches. Of course, silly me. Why hadn’t I remembered?
For the first few weeks of the season, the next round of matches will start on the day previous to when the prior round started the previous week.
Simples!