Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2020

7 www.sheffieldcricketlovers.org.uk The voice of county cricket for many of us got the evening underway by asking if the first-class game in this country can support 18 counties. We may be on the slippery slope to ten counties, he reckoned, because from the 2020 season the first division of the County Championship will have ten counties, while the second will be made up of eight. Both divisions will still play 14 matches – not enough in Kevin’s view for finding future Test cricketers, and poor value for county members as well. The new structure will also devalue the status of the county champions because a full round of home and away fixtures will not be played in the first division. Moving on to the fortunes of Yorkshire, he felt that whilst there was room for improvement on the field (the club’s fourth-place finish in the 2018 County Championship was a mere two points ahead of relegated Lancashire), it was events off the field that coloured the season – the release of Liam Plunkett to the IPL for the first six weeks of the season; the move of Jack Brooks to Somerset on a lucrative three-year contract; the loss of targeted signings to other counties; and the influence of adverse social media comments on the welfare of the club. Kevin was critical of the ECB’s initial marketing strategy for its new 100-ball competition, which suggested that young people are not attracted to cricket and that The Hundred is not intended to appeal to existing cricket watchers. In his opinion, the ECB should have said that its aims are to attract a new audience to add to those already following the game and to make cricket even more appealing to young people. Always prepared to offer his views, Kevin didn’t shirk the vexed question of pitches, maintaining that counties are entitled to prepare pitches that are best suited to their bowling attack. If the ball turns on the first morning then batsmen have to find ways of coping (ideal practice for playing in the Indian subcontinent), just as bowlers should work on strategies for flat pitches. As a case in point, Surrey re-laid the square at the Oval because too many of their home fixtures were ending in draws as a result of dead pitches. In closing, Kevin suggested a couple of changes to the running of the game. First, the introduction of a transfer system to adequately compensate poorer counties for the loss of their star players to richer counties; and second, scrapping the complicated bonus point system in the County Championship and replacing it with a reward for first innings lead. County shake-up makes poor value 15 October 2018 Kevin Howells BBC cricket broadcaster Dorothy Betts with Kevin Howells