Watching county cricket next summer seems a long way off, just as well after Azeem Rafiq’s evidence to MPs this week about the Yorkshire dressing room.  Poor stuff, disappointing for those of us who had hoped cricket, of all sports, had players who were essentially above and beyond it.

But not to ignore the fact that Adil Rashid has made the England team, nor the positive comments reported from Ajmal Shahzad about his experiences at the club. Or to deny that Yorkshire’s management tried to prejudge the outcome of their investigations, making it harder for outsiders to appreciate the extent of the problem.

So the case for the defence of Yorkshire, the institution, such as it might be has gone unheard. It was  pointed out that something like 30% of recreational cricketers  have a south Asian heritage, the  pros at Yorkshire, in county cricket generally, much less, under 5%.

Yet fair to add that a career as a pro can be a precarious one: giving it a go, taking time out from studies and/or other careers a risk, a sacrifice if  things don’t work out and to state the obvious the better the alternatives the less appealing it be.

FWIW personal experience of mainly BAME students over the years  in London also pursuing (semi-)pro sporting careers divided largely along ethnic lines: 5th/6th/7th tier footballers, mainly black and mixed ethnicity, 2nd/3rd tier rugby players, smaller numbers, white. Potential cricketers  going for county trials…more actual Olympians in boats.

So time outs to give a football career a go; a big magnet, some general understanding of those who want to leave no regrets. Cricket, niche, more reluctance; which points to the numbers of cricket pros from an Asian background squeezed by problems in the game and also by the openings in the  world beyond.

Gordon Greenidge at the United Services Ground, Portsmouth, after making a brilliant Sunday League hundred back in the 1970s; memory fades, but he may well have been the only black man at Burnaby Road that afternoon.  When Hampshire played games in  Southampton then they had  a (one) black supporter, regarded as a socially important person by some, thanks largely to the chair of CAMRA  at the time who dispensed communism during afternoons at cricket.

The era of WI dominance that ran until the mid-90s is largely remembered now by World Cup Finals and brutal Test encounters; Fire in Babylon, WI cricketers doing wins a help to WI folks in England. But not to neglect the impact on domestic cricket and on the attitudes of those who follow(ed) it.

County Appearances of the 1975, 2019  World Cup Winners

Data sourced from Cricket Archive.

Seven of the 1975 WIs played for what were then non-TMG counties, at a point in the history of cricket when List A games were reviving it  WIs were doing a lot of the reviving. Exciting cricketers, liked by crowds at matches that were played at many local outgrounds, those at Portsmouth above for instance, saw a game between Hants and Yorks and  also a  pre-run of sorts to the 1979 WC Final.

The relaxing of the rules on overseas players  gave more WI  experience of English conditions, a lot of it by today’s standards, even allowing for the fact that the England players’ numbers are from  careers-in-progress.  At a time when first-class cricket in the Caribbean, the Shell Shield, involved a total of 10 matches a season, the experience a help in establishing their dominance in Tests against England, if not elsewhere; so an exchange of sorts at work as well. Much the same point could be made about limited-overs cricket: the Gillette Cup in the WI started in 1975/6.

WSC, rebel tours altered the financial incentives but it is very striking how loyal the 1975 team were to their  counties.  Most of the  players who went on to play for the WI in the years between 76-95 also played county cricket,  including all of the quartets of fast bowlers, of whom no-one with a  longer span than Courtney Walsh and no-one with more appearances than Malcolm Marshall.

In 1975 black people in the eyeline of this one spectator were some of the game’s greats, in 2019, at the Oval, they were gate staff.  The game has the support it does in England because of WI cricket past, no question, so what then to make of the sentiment that something is missing now?  In Cricket:The Game of Life  Scyld Berry comments that  ‘We should not wonder at West Indian cricket becoming so moderate, but at it once having been so magnificent’.

It’s  an understandable point view to take, particularly given its setting in an historical context. As to the involvement of black folks in cricket in England now, playing football was a comment heard more than once last year; it is, after all, where the money and the glory is, the game a lingua franca.  But it leaves an awkward question for cricket, as to whether its relative decline among those with a Caribbean heritage is, socially, a problem, or just a sign of progress?

Darley Dale is a small commuter town just outside Matlock with a population of around 6,000, its cricket club dates back to the 1860s and plays today in  the Derbyshire County Cricket League Division 3  North. In the cricketing summer of 1975, remembered now as much as anything for the first World Cup, it  played host to a Sunday League match, the scorecard for which shows the home county with seven who played Test cricket and the visiting Hants side three of whom have since entered the ICC Hall of Fame. Unusually for the 70s there is a clip of film of the  game on YouTube.

The crowd was around 5,000, those of us who headed straight  into the Square and Compass pub afterwards fondly remember it, even if  Darley might  be seen now as a very small stage for such talented players, the world of cricket before Kerry Packer. Yet no question that the Sunday League did a more than decent job regenerating the game, fondly remembered because of it thanks to  the Beeb’s coverage and  to games played in places that kids could get  to. All told it  was played on 127 grounds.

The  Beeb’s cameras were at almost 50 of them:  in the first season at the Oval, Brian Johnston joining John Arlott and Jim Laker in the commentary box and the Oval, Landudno, where it was Richie Benaud. In the years that followed  games from other smaller places such as Lydney and Tring were broadcast, medium size conurbations such as  Bath and Maidstone and larger ones, Bradford and Portsmouth, among them.

Sundays being the way they were then cricket got a free run on the tv schedules until Sunday Grandstand came along in 1981, WCFs shared coverage with racing and tennis, the 40 over games not. There was a decade and more when FTA cricket was as much the domestic game as Test matches, although later squeezed and then mainly England  before Channel 4.

And the significance of all this for now?  The ECB has recently said the average age of a cricket supporter is 50, the game might have gone more commercial in the 21st century but it is still heavily dependent on those  who took to it in the era when it was FTA. Reducing the age difficult given how little the game is played in schools, and if the experience of the SL is anything to go by there probably needs to be a lot  of domestic cricket FTA for it to impact.

As for taking the game round the country, the Victorians with help from WG  managed it, the SL did something similar, so how good will those  in charge now turn out to be? In their high chatter this lockdown there has been some recognition that The 100 is not really all that much about attracting a new, younger, audience; a certain realism which seems  like one step in the right direction. Step two, play more games on outgrounds? Hopefully they will get onto that sooner rather than later.

Numbers compiled from Cricket Archive, the Radio Times listings  from the BBC’s Genome Project.

It was a straight one pitching outside the line that did not deviate is a chirp on  leg-before decisions heard every now and again during the cricket season. In the case of  Scott lbw Mahmood 26 during the Middlesex v Lancashire ODC game last summer,  ironic laughter could be heard in the Sky commentary box as viewers were shown the replay, before some understanding, faux or otherwise,  was expressed for the lot of the umpire. Two months later to a cheering nation England’s cricketers were given 6 at the end of the World Cup Final, when, as we now know, it should have been 5.

If a certain ambivalence re wanting the right decision is normal among supporters,  at the umpiring end with the benefit of the doubt given to the batsmen, out decisions when not still seem to be viewed more critically. For the fielding team then the incentive to appeal, loud and appearing sure, is not lessened any by a default of sorts against them.

As a first-up general impression county cricket seems fairly respectful of its umpires and their decisions; at least during the 15 days this one spectator watched, still so. But no question that the players’ body language, facial expressions come with  varying degrees of subtlety and, if much of it is aimed at each other, there are occasions when things get a bit raw.

Whether for example, Sam Curran  in the Surrey-Kent game below had just feathered one and is standing his ground, getting away with it, or the appealing collective for Kent, who were getting on top in the game, were just frustrated from overdoing it, later in the over the non-striker Dean Elgar was given out lb in what was a rather uncomfortable looking adjudication.

Uncomfortable because the umpire  was, in fact, right both times, even if the fielders had  convinced themselves otherwise, managing the energies, perceptions not easy? Or that he was in fact mistaken twice, or just the first time or just the second,  perceptions to manage just depending? Given the frequency with which players appeal, it is not news that some overs  go better than others for the umpires and while doubtless there were  handshakes at the end of the match, as there are, the game is not rugby, at least not exactly.

So if cricket has its ‘Unbelievable Jeff’ moments who would be an umpire? Over on planet football an ex-Premier League referee giving a presentation  in pre-VAR days suggested there were those who did it for the good of the game, those who would have been players, being on the  pitch much of the appeal of it, and those with certain liking for dispensing law and order: saints, frustrated pros and nature’s traffic wardens so to speak.

While  umpiring comes with some traffic management it has in the past been  done by former players, as it very much was in 2019:  almost all of the umpiring done by those who had played the county game and about a third of it by those who have played international cricket.

Numbers on the individuals are downloadable on the stats page, but it is striking how much the game is dependent on officials that cover all three formats: umpires Bailey and Saggers below stood in more than 30 fixtures last summer as did 11 of their colleagues and in overall terms umpires tend to umpire more than the players play. In 2019 there was a pool of 33, comparable to the playing staff of a large county: umpires umpiring  numbered over 700 over the course of the season,  players playing for a county considerably less. The day of the specialist umpire may yet follow a game dividing, although not all that much sign of it just yet.

Sceptics  of The 100 have some good reasons to not believe, to which add the layer of additional stress of a 4th competition  on those who adjudicate. ‘They have come to see me bat, not you bowl’  WG Grace is said to have said, a line that has made it to the game’s present; with the chief administrator of the ECB having declared its new competition to already be a success, good luck to those minded to give Ben Stokes out lb first-ball, whether it pitched outside the line, or for that matter whether it clearly didn’t.

Chris Arnot’s book is a gentle nostalgia for county cricket past, times fondly remembered in pleasant  and sometimes beautiful settings, places where supporters were close the game and its players. Quite what constitutes a cricket festival is given some leeway by the author,  but there are over 50 grounds recalled and he understandably concludes with the wish that the game’s festivals do not become an extinct species.

Certainly some of the nostalgia  comes from remembering when those at the very top of the game played on club and school grounds; and also  on municipal grounds as well at times, such  as Clarence Park in Weston photographed here in 1978, a venue where player facilities while not unusual for public parks then could now be euphemistically described as limited. In a very different world forty years ago, the game’s best players were paid salaries for the season that were not a long way north of what a new graduate could then expect.

The 1970s was a rather turbulent decade to end the relatively egalitarian post WWII era in  Britain, although cricket arguably did a  decent job of adapting to change with the then shorter forms of the  game. The Sunday League was to a considerable extent played on outgrounds, 100 in all, as the game renewed itself by going local,  sometimes very local;  in the middle of the decade the competition was won by a Hants team with three ICC Hall of Fame cricketers at Darley (pop 5,000).

In the decades that followed the middle classes politically re-asserted their interests and cricket festivals saw growing numbers of corporate hospitality tents, that were later to become permanent boxes as the county game centralised, contracting the number of places where it was played. In a changing economy some company grounds were no longer used and with the advent of  4-day cricket, the historic festivals at Weston-super-Mare, Bath, Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Eastbourne, Hastings, Folkestone, Maidstone, Ilford and Southend departed from the cricketing calendar. The festivals of the middle-classes, together with those of ‘Essex Man’, what went with them was the counties doing their bit for club cricket at those grounds and returning spectators giving in some cases decades long support to the game.

As to what this might tell anyone about the prospects for outground cricket in the future, in 2018 festivals there still are at  Arundel, Cheltenham, Guildford and Scarborough, and, if not necessarily named as such, 4-day games are on the calendar at Chesterfield, Colwyn Bay, Swansea, Southport and Tunbridge Wells as well. Most counties continue to play at least some cricket on outgrounds.

In the  August issue of The Cricketer the magazine’s editor makes the case for a more even distribution of the Championship games across the summer, something for the hearts and minds of the game’s  traditional supporters, although he does also make it clear that priorities in ECB fixture scheduling  are international cricket, the Blast, then other competitions.

If, as may well be, the amount of county cricket that is played in 2020 is reduced to some degree, it being a matter of which format(s), but that the financial distributions from the ECB to the counties are increased, then the extent to which outgrounds are used looks like a fairly open question. If the view that more Championship cricket should be played in July and August does prevail, it should at least maintain, if not extend, the number of 4-day games, albeit that  it might squeeze the number of limited overs fixtures.

The game of cricket is evidently caught between the centralising tendencies of the ECB and the counties, who still do something to spread the professional game around the country. This points to a fundamental problem, even if much of the public debate this summer has been over the merits or otherwise of a yet to be tried format for the game.  The county game has in the past done very similar competitions at the same time,  30 balls to make a point of  difference rather than 20, and in 1981, almost entirely forgotten now, 7 a side 10 over cricket was tried at football grounds.  It didn’t work then, although T10 cricket, 2 hour games, might well in the future.

On the long view county outgrounds are a marker of sorts, cast now as something of a counterweight to the game’s globally minded elites, who appear determined to introduce a competition in which they will regulate the integrity levels of the teams they will create, own and manage. Chris Arnot at the end of his book points to the continuing success of cricket at  Scarborough and the need for individual festivals to pay their way; to which amen, although coming at this more generally prompts the question could the game of cricket really afford  to not continue with its festivals?