Category Archives: County Cricket

County Cricket

Outgrounds in 2023

In 2023 there have been  57 days in the men’s schedule (the total is 702) allocated to outgrounds;  Chesterfield, Cheltenham and Scarborough still going, a place for county cricket set in public parks, at clubs as well as in public schools.  In 2013, the last summer before Chris Arnot published his book on  festivals the  figure was 81.

Not great,  although there has been an increase in one-day cup games this year, 20 plus played in August and at some new(er) grounds, such as  Kibworth and York. Something similar seems likely again next year and maybe some will take root, although the increase has mainly been the  counties staging The 100 moving games out, the the future which must be about as certain as the  scheduling is stable.

Surrey versus Middlesex women  at Guildford was a pleasant early season trip, and  List A women’s cricket, the Rachael Heyhoe-Flint Trophy, also had 20 plus days on outgrounds when The 100 was not on.  Hopefully venue-wise it will stay that way, the T20 competition is more concentrated on county grounds.

The other side of this is  the continuing disappearance of Championship fixtures,  not  everywhere,  Lancashire played home games at both Blackpool and Southport, but seven counties scheduled their 39 home days at just one ground. As  a counterbalance to the game’s centralising tendencies outgrounds are still on the scales, although it does look like the weights continue to move against.

County Cricket, HampshireDays

Champions by Dave Allen

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Dave Allen’s expertly produced pamphlet recalls  a season in which Hants quite unexpectedly became   Champions, all the more favourably remembered because of it. In the years that followed the county arguably became the buzz team: high expectations but impacted by the rain gods winner of only two more trophies by 1978. It was also the start of almost 20 years in which the county’s bowling was spearheaded first by Andy Roberts and then Malcolm Marshall.

The cricket of the 1973 season  had a rather different nature to it: brilliant openers, teamwork among the bowlers that included the slow left-arm of David O’Sullivan and Peter Sainsbury, backed-up by very good fielding. Personally, I got lucky seeing nine days during August, eight of them red-ball. It seems a lot now,  although in the sporting landscape of then domestic cricket was prominent in a way that is hard to imagine in 2023:  sports desk updates on the radio most weekdays in the summer months were racing results and county cricket scores.

The Dean Park pavilion in 1973  was  much as it was when Gary Sanford took his fine photo above years later, and sitting on the green benches to the left was certainly prime listening when an announcement was made on the (just visible) PA about becoming Champions during the Bournemouth week. The cowshed (white) building to the right, the press box,  and Desmond Lynam’s afternoon  radio show was one broadcast of this to a wider world, followed by a report  that evening on the main BBC news. In the days of three tv channels it was probably seen by several millions.

As for messages for 2023: outgrounds are a fine part of the landscape, wherever the Championship(s) are eventually  won. Unexpected triumphs flag  the virtues of competitive balance:  success, spread it.  Since 2000  nine counties have won the title and keeping it on the horizon of those that haven’t should be a priority,   perhaps with  Bazball energies towards the red-ball game it will be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

County Cricket, HampshireDays

Photos from the Past II

A second set of photos taken from the world of county cricket over a six-week period in 1978. Some of them have appeared on this site or social media before, the best of the bunch individually are on the tab above, the ones here though hang together in their own way. There are all told seven ICC Hall of Fame of Players shown on the county circuit, one marker for just how different things were then.

The Oval, Roger Knight leading out the Surrey side  followed by the Hampshire openers Barry Richards and Gordon Greenidge, later that afternoon Andy Roberts with both bat and ball. Top right at mid-on Intikhab, who over six years was Pakistan’s Test captain, an entertaining player to watch.  John Edrich in his final season, bottom right and the wicketkeeper is Cornishman Jack Richards.

Weston, grainy and a bit distant but Vic Marks bowling to  Mike  Taylor, identical twin Derek behind  Two photos giving some idea of the presence of  Viv Richards.  Bottom right concern for the welfare of Peter Roebuck, plainly in something of a daze; a picture with poignancy given his later career at Somerset, and the rest of his life, well-written about by Jon Hotten in his book The Meaning of Cricket.

Cheltenham, green and rather dark images from a game played during a wet-spell of weather. ‘Proctershire’, with Zaheer and Sadiq were a strong side, a contender for trophies, the two counties close rivals.

Bournemouth week; Warwickshire with, at the time, West Indian captain Alvin Kallicharran prominent. Top left shows David Brown bowling, Geoff Humpage keeping with David Rock batting. The pleasure for spectators of watching at the 5 o’clock hour.

Champions-elect Kent the second game, Derek Underwood bowling, Paul Downton behind the stumps with Asif fielding close. Credit the unseen, if not unknown, short-leg fielder in the pre-helmet era, still alive. A century from Trevor Jesty helped Hants to a win; a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1983, in another era he would very probably  have played more ODIs for England.

County Cricket, Cricket Grounds

Outgrounds

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The south-east map of f-c county cricket in 1971, 6 counties 24 grounds; across the game that year 74.  A different world half a century ago, but one in which cricket was accessible to folks from the sort of backgrounds the sport struggles to reach now, in many cases just doesn’t; the professional game being nowhere near them a part of it.

It being how things  were when first taking to cricket I have taste for outgrounds.  This season the counties play Championship fixtures at   seven of them, some places to feed the soul of traditional supporters still:   Chesterfield, Cheltenham and Scarborough going strong and Lancashire have games at both Blackpool and Southport on their schedule, but by comparison with 2019, the last full season before The 100, there has been a very noticeable drop from the 19  grounds used that year.

Au revoir then to Arundel, Colwyn Bay, Swansea, Tunbridge Wells, Liverpool among others as stages for the 4-day game?  Maybe so, certainly the payouts from The 100 don’t seem to be doing all that much to help the cause of outgrounds,  the opposite if anything. Not helping them to promote the long-form of the game, but not the shortest either: Blast games there were at Blackpool and Chesterfield and Middlesex, moving away from Lord’s, in 2023 played games at Merchant Taylors’ School and Radlett, but that’s it.

Perhaps county managers were or are anticipating reductions in the playing schedule or have developed likings for The 100, and become more centralised in their views. But whatever lies behind the decisions taken, outground cricket, at least in terms of the number of places played is increasingly the ODC; some discretionary decisions to take games away from the centres, some not.

The recent equity report on cricket made very little of the game’s geography, but the chance for kids of all ages to watch the pros and play on the outfield during the intervals is one of the game’s better customs, still practised by some counties and worthy of  spreading back to places that cricket seems to be leaving behind.

 

County Cricket

Counting Members

15 of the counties are membership organisations and while the records are a  bit dated 65,000 is a reasonable estimate of the total number of their members, down from around 85,000 in 2005. A decline is not particularly surprising, but it is not as big a fall as some in the media would suggest.

What’s being counted above is members with votes, adults, numbers from the counties who file away records at the Financial Conduct Authority; so a consistent basis, records largely complete  over the years. The totals are on the low side by comparison with some that could be given: not including juniors and not categories of members which are more akin to season-ticket holders. So not those at Durham, Hampshire  or Northamptonshire, nor some at the 15 counties that are member-owned.

The decline would be that much greater but for Surrey, where members have  doubled in the last 5 years to over 19,000. Quite why and how  it has bucked the trend to the extent it has is a bit of a mystery, although the cost of  a day at the Test at Lord’s might be one thing and the bundling of The 100  with some membership categories another.  But not to doubt the management culture at the Oval which values its members highly.

A disappearing world? At some smaller counties, less or not at all at some others, but overall yes, if only slowly.  As for those there are,  folks with long-memories, resistant to change?  Or just a  balance against an establishment thinking about the pound signs? Giving some influence to those who think that money exists to play cricket continues to look like sanity to me.

 

County Cricket, The ECB

Cricket and Race

Critics of English cricket point to the disproportionately high number of club players of a South Asian heritage, figures of 30%+ and then question why so few play in  county cricket, suggestive that culture,  prejudice, frustrates the careers of talented players. How much this might be down to what goes on inside dressing rooms is moot, a question for insiders.

As to the stats  trawling through Cricket Archive for the players who appeared in the Premier Leagues last summer, set up by the ECB to bridge club cricket and the counties,  the % from a South Asian heritage was around half the number above: 28% in Leicestershire, 3% in Cornwall, Yorkshire, around 15% across the county as a whole. As to the numbers of county cricketers in 2022: 6% English qualified, around 10% of the 500+ total including those that weren’t.

So 30%+ to 16% to 6%, why the drop-off? The playing numbers of an age in different ethnicities where they might make it professionally might be one thing, but absent the detail open as to whether it lessens the drop or increases it. Differences  in education? The numbers below are not those of a country replicating the inequalities of past generations, and the Asian-White difference in particular has widened markedly in the last decade.

State School Students with Higher Education Places 2021 %

Asian 55
Black 49
Chinese 72
Mixed 41
White 33
Other 48

UCAS.

Cricket careers are risky, often short-term and it seems fair to think education is a fundamental and maybe  large  influence behind the drops. It’s a comment that could also  be made in relation to other ethnicities where there seems to be a similar pattern, Jewish cricketers for example.

Of the 24 English players from South Asian families who played for a county last summer 10 had been to an independent school at some point.  It’s a slightly smaller proportion than for county players generally, but broadly the playing base of English cricket is excessively reliant on three minorities: those with a South Asian heritage, those that have been privately educated and those who are neither but have a relative who has played the game. It’s about 1 in 6 of the general population and the obvious strategic question is what about everyone else?

 

 

 

County Cricket, England

Cricket and Privilege

Is red-ball cricket fairly thought of as a game for the privileged classes?  Lord’s prices for Test matches are certainly one pointer. As to  the players, on the county circuit 105 out of (14*11=) 154 at the Oval last summer had been to an independent school, add in those from overseas with similar educations and the 2022  county champions may have been the most privileged in the competition’s history.

Cricket Archive data.

Whether Surrey were also champions because of it is moot; the numbers for Sussex and Worcester were  not so different, the numbers for the ‘smaller East Midlands counties’ not so many. The average of English-qualified players across the game was around 55%, although fair to add this was slightly above that for the  England teams in the 15 Tests in 2022 (52%).

But the head count of players that have been to an independent school, whether on a bursary or fee-paying, has risen markedly in recent seasons; of those that weren’t around in 2018 but were in 2022  the figure is close to 60%. While it  fits in to what might  have been expected given the ECB’s priority of £s over FTA after 2005, it’s also a legacy that probably has a distance to run over the next decade.  An increasing concentration from a small number of independent schools seems likely, getting on for a quarter of English players came through 20 of them last year.

In ‘democratic’ white-ball cricket this reliance on places attended by 6-7% of those of school age was quite similar, the numbers a bit higher if anything; as broadly it was with the pattern of domestic and England players’ backgrounds. Cricket Archive has not so very much on those in the Women’s 100, although it would be no big surprise if it was in line with the men; for what it’s worth the counts last year were 6/13.

There is an obvious follow-on question here about the backgrounds of recreational players. As to the answer to the long-term decline in  the game’s playing base being private equity at the top, cue higher ticket prices; football has  travelled a distance up-market from where it was in 1992, but with cricket, starting from here, why follow?

Cricket and Privilege

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

County Cricket

Cricketers and their Education

A trawl through Cricket Archive five years ago gave a count of 126 county players qualified for England who had been  educated privately, about 40% of the total. Last summer this number had risen to  well over 50%; no great surprise given the general background, and if well over 50% was well over 60 five years from now that wouldn’t be a great surprise either.

Is there a ceiling to this and is it less than, say, 90%? The ages of those playing last summer is shown in the graphic, the 46 year-old Darren Stevens at one end,  Hamza Shaikh at the other, who at the age of 16 played in four ODC matches for Warwickshire. He is the first county cricketer born the year after the ending of the game FTA.

Overall a lot of cricket is played by those who will have  come to the sport in the early 2000s,  the dependence on public schools for players now largely set by a declining playing base years ago. Cue then the criticisms of the ECB as being about concentration at the top, exclusiveness. Pragmatically, as long as Eastbourne College and Millfield School among others are producing enough talented players days at the Test will still be around, but the fact remains a lot of playing potential will have been missed.

CricketersEducation

 

 

 

 

County Cricket

County Cricketers in 2022

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Do county cricketers play too much? Jos Buttler played for Lancashire in one  game last summer, Steven Croft played in them all; a count of 41 with the county’s progress in white-ball cricket, 83 scheduled days. Across the the game well over 500  players appeared for the 18 counties at some point and an idea of the amount they played is shown in the graphic.

Statistically, the  median (half playing less, half more) was 23 days, more than 260 played less including those involved in a relatively small number of Championship games, newcomers in the One-Day Cup and some playing in most of The Blast; overall, disproportionately white-ball cricketers.

Those playing more the other way of course and for what it’s worth the mean average was 30, averaging as it does across red and white ball players, those who are both. But  most of the names on the game’s team sheets play on a lot more days than this: the 100 who played the most had schedules of 56 days+, among whose number was  Alastair Cook who played in 14 County Championship fixtures.

Too much?  The numbers north of 60 days are largely a reflection of the number of  players who play in most Championship games, nearly a 100 played in 12 or more in 2022. Yet there is a justification for this, given what funds the sport is not primarily The 100 (a little over 10% of the £) or even The Blast (counties about 25% all in)  but ‘England’, ECB tv deals, which, still, is largely about Test cricket in a country that plays it more than others.

Playing  data sourced from Cricket Archive.

 

 

 

 

County Cricket

County Members

The Church of England, the Conservative party and county cricket: personally only one of them has been of more than just passing relevance, but if the workings of god and power have been centralised, why would play be different?

Certainly the numbers of county members since 2005 show more downs than ups: a particularly large one at Old Trafford but also at Canterbury, Hove and Worcester, the traditional heartlands of the county game. As for the smaller ones in the East Midlands, member numbers last year had fallen below  1,000 at Derby and Leicester.

But this pattern is not true everywhere:  some have been steadier, even the other way, and Surrey, the biggest, is a big exception. The chair, Richard Thompson evidently  appreciates the existence of a membership body, elections to the club’s general committee are contested. Taken together with the  MCC and Middlesex, members  of cricket clubs  in London now number 40,000, if not more. Nationally though the total  for the 15 county clubs (Durham, Hants and Northants are organised differently)  fell to 65,000 or so before Covid.

No great surprise there given a problematic fixture schedule.  So wither,  sooner or later adieu to many, if not  all, of the 18, the future is franchises?  The 100 teams to be sure are in large part managed by  county CEOs ‘centralising’, all that is needed then is enough of the 18 chairs to follow ? Maybe, but not necessarily, and after the shift from Giles Clarke (Somerset) to the years of Colin Graves (Yorkshire) as ECB chair, the direction may change again.