When this subject comes round it  doesn’t  often start with whether there are too many Test match grounds, obvious enough question that it is. Did anybody ever think nine was the right number? Maybe they did, or at least were in favour of competition to upgrade facilities, although of  the  150+ home Test matches since 2000, England have played just 15 of them at Cardiff, Chester-le-Street and Southampton.

This is a very different pattern to the expansion of Test cricket that took place after WWII  when as more Tests were played, more were played at Edgbaston, Trent Bridge and Headingley. In the years 1970-99 England played 150+ Tests and all six grounds staged more than of 20 of them,  albeit that as five Test summers became six more often in the 80s and 90s, Lord’s staged two matches.

One ground then usually missed out and  with Lord’s and the Oval something of a given, it left three from four. In the 21st century with the three newcomers and seven Test summers, a problem; too many and not only in hindsight.

The  consequences of this financially were wholly unsurprisingly sizeable losses at some of the TMG counties, followed by debt write-offs (a great big ‘profit’ for Glamorgan in 2015)  and other financial restorations. Taken together on this horizon the smaller counties  have essentially broken even, although whether they are more sustainable now with The 100  is moot.

So too many smaller (non-TMG) counties ? Or the opposite and that  they are not  ‘county enough’,  too much like smaller versions of the Test match counties when they should be staging  more festivals in more places.  As cricket finds out whether there is enough interest to sustain both The 100 and The Blast, a big expense, it doesn’t need the  bonkerdom of shrinking the cricket map as well.