Willoughby63
User Title Purchaser
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2019
- Profile Flag
- England
I know that it is not necessarily a T20 competition, but this is the best suited section of the forum in my opinion. What are your views on the new format and the teams?
The Hundred
- Thread starter Willoughby63
- Start date
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
There is simply nothing to be gained from having The Hundred. It's ridiculous. And it's a whole lot of money being thrown at the problem.
Apparently, the reason they've created a whole new format for the endeavour is because the Sky contract contained a stipulation that there could be no first-class, List A or Twenty20 cricket on non-Sky TV channels, so they had to come up with a format that wasn't any of those other formats. And like... yeah, cool, I guess. Ish. Maybe. But there's no need at all to so completely reinvent the wheel, because what's coming up for the Hundred will barely even be cricket.
But my biggest issue with all of this is that it's simply not how sport in England works. People come out to support clubs they identify with, not franchises that just happen to be in the area. Nobody's going to be "Trent Rockets 'til I die" except for meme purposes. Or maybe if they really really like Trent Rockets' crisps.
The biggest obstacle for cricket at the moment is that there's no cricket on free-to-air television. That's something that they're trying to address in all fairness. But the second-biggest is that there are whole big areas of England with no cricket to watch anywhere near them. I have a friend in Reading who'd love to go for a night out at the T20 Blast, but encounters the difficulty that there's no county cricket within two hours travel of them. So they miss out.
Reducing the number of teams to watch from eighteen to eight won't fix that.
A Football League style structure absolutely would do.
Apparently, the reason they've created a whole new format for the endeavour is because the Sky contract contained a stipulation that there could be no first-class, List A or Twenty20 cricket on non-Sky TV channels, so they had to come up with a format that wasn't any of those other formats. And like... yeah, cool, I guess. Ish. Maybe. But there's no need at all to so completely reinvent the wheel, because what's coming up for the Hundred will barely even be cricket.
But my biggest issue with all of this is that it's simply not how sport in England works. People come out to support clubs they identify with, not franchises that just happen to be in the area. Nobody's going to be "Trent Rockets 'til I die" except for meme purposes. Or maybe if they really really like Trent Rockets' crisps.
The biggest obstacle for cricket at the moment is that there's no cricket on free-to-air television. That's something that they're trying to address in all fairness. But the second-biggest is that there are whole big areas of England with no cricket to watch anywhere near them. I have a friend in Reading who'd love to go for a night out at the T20 Blast, but encounters the difficulty that there's no county cricket within two hours travel of them. So they miss out.
Reducing the number of teams to watch from eighteen to eight won't fix that.
A Football League style structure absolutely would do.
A.P Haux
The Meowest Avenger
I wonder what went through their minds while thinking about this format.... Even the T10 league sounds better than the hundred to me.
Bevab
Staff Member
In all fairness, a T10 league with rules heavily favouring the bowlers (only five wickets, test match style wides, no powerplay) would be a lot more interesting than what The Hundred is shaping up to be.
Gotta say though, they have certainly got the second best list of players available for a domestic league after IPL which is sure to bring in a lot of viewers!
wasteyouryouth
Verified
I've got so many thoughts on this and if you don't want to read them they can be summed up by this famous Community gif.
(The ECB being Steve Buscemi of course)
It's been cooked up by a marketing company, that is one of the stakeholders who will make money from it, along with the players and the bungs counties have been given. Whether it's a success will determine how much money the counties and ECB make from this endeavour and whether or not it lasts beyond a couple of seasons.
Now, T20 seemed like a natural step, maybe not to a lot of people who thought it was sacrilege, but I used to play T20 when I was younger so it never seemed to be extreme. The Hundred is is basically changing the rules of cricket not the duration. What @Aislabie says: that it is being created as to 'fit' within, or outside, the Sky contract is always what I thought. The ECB know they have a serious problem with cricket viewership and participation (which was so predictable when cricket left free-to-air) but they can't/won't stop suckling on Sky's money teet. Strangely the only cricket that has been on FTA was the good old days when ITV used to show the IPL. I'd watch that everyday, when it went to SKY I stopped watching. I have access to SKY, but it's through Sky Go and involves logging in and setting it up so I could never bothered. I can't watch it all now as it's on BT. My mate is a teacher and he said loads of his students also watched when it was ITV.
Everything about this tournament makes me cringe; the cynical nature at which it's being sold, the complete lack of need for it, the hilarious team descriptions on The Hundred website (https://www.thehundred.com/ check them out, it's painful and hilarious to read) and mostly recently encouraging children and families by tempting them with snack foods. The KP sponsorship will last as long as it is allowed, before there is a crackdown that means sponsorships in sports is not allowed from snack food companies. Maybe it'll just end up being 'you can't sell kids jerseys with that sponsor on' but I can see it happening.
T20 is now apparently too long to fit into a nice TV schedule. Well, there's a simple answer to that: harsh penalties against teams. Add a shot/delivery clock. Put in points deductions for missing overs. It can't be difficult to devise a system that incentivises quick play to the point that teams will avoid slow play.
They want to get families in, well I can see it being a similar crowd to the T20 matches I've been to - minus a lot of the people who are diehard county fans or stubborn like me.
@Bevab They have a great list of players, could they not get these for the Blast though (if that was tweaked to be more suitable)? The ECB could take a stake and invest some of this cash they're spending on The Hundred to support a tournament that is, despite their best efforts (final's day half way into September?) thriving. And the best England players will be playing for England against Pakistan at the same time.
If big names or players from countries (Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Harbhajan) can get new people in grounds (we see in international games there are huge numbers of British Asian cricket fans, that don't necessarily make it to domestic or English cricket) - maybe this could have been tried during the Blast. Is there going to be that much crossover of someone going to the Manchester Originals to watching Lancashire matches when the one day cup and Blast will be watered down?
I've been wondering lately do we have to embrace it for the sake of cricket in this country or can we just hope it fails and laugh about it? I hope the less cynical motivations work; sparking interest, getting more kids wanting to play cricket. That being said, it's hard to know if the knock on effect to English cricket will be better or worse if it succeeds or fails. If it is a success then why wouldn't Sky just throw more money at the ECB to make it an exclusive part of their cricket coverage? Then we could be back at square one. If it fails what will be the fall out - what will the ECB try next? Maybe they'll resort to the obvious option, even if it's painful initially, by saying to SKY: we can't give you everything no matter how much money you put in front of us.
Blast matches (hell, even one day cup) on afternoon/early evening on weekends on the BBC would be perfect. I can't see how the BBC or another broadcaster would turn it down if it was offered to them at an affordable price. Although, evidently, the ECB can't do that. Of course we live in a far different landscape than when cricket was last on FTA TV, so maybe the really radical option would to have been looking to have more matches streaming on YouTube or Twitch.
Big question I'd like to know: is anyone here actually going to go and watch? I'll probably give it a look on TV but my closest team is far enough that I have only ever been to two Blast matches (I've been to finals day about five or six times, even travelling to the one in Cardiff), but I'm certainly not going to travel for an even shorter format.
It's been cooked up by a marketing company, that is one of the stakeholders who will make money from it, along with the players and the bungs counties have been given. Whether it's a success will determine how much money the counties and ECB make from this endeavour and whether or not it lasts beyond a couple of seasons.
Now, T20 seemed like a natural step, maybe not to a lot of people who thought it was sacrilege, but I used to play T20 when I was younger so it never seemed to be extreme. The Hundred is is basically changing the rules of cricket not the duration. What @Aislabie says: that it is being created as to 'fit' within, or outside, the Sky contract is always what I thought. The ECB know they have a serious problem with cricket viewership and participation (which was so predictable when cricket left free-to-air) but they can't/won't stop suckling on Sky's money teet. Strangely the only cricket that has been on FTA was the good old days when ITV used to show the IPL. I'd watch that everyday, when it went to SKY I stopped watching. I have access to SKY, but it's through Sky Go and involves logging in and setting it up so I could never bothered. I can't watch it all now as it's on BT. My mate is a teacher and he said loads of his students also watched when it was ITV.
Everything about this tournament makes me cringe; the cynical nature at which it's being sold, the complete lack of need for it, the hilarious team descriptions on The Hundred website (https://www.thehundred.com/ check them out, it's painful and hilarious to read) and mostly recently encouraging children and families by tempting them with snack foods. The KP sponsorship will last as long as it is allowed, before there is a crackdown that means sponsorships in sports is not allowed from snack food companies. Maybe it'll just end up being 'you can't sell kids jerseys with that sponsor on' but I can see it happening.
T20 is now apparently too long to fit into a nice TV schedule. Well, there's a simple answer to that: harsh penalties against teams. Add a shot/delivery clock. Put in points deductions for missing overs. It can't be difficult to devise a system that incentivises quick play to the point that teams will avoid slow play.
They want to get families in, well I can see it being a similar crowd to the T20 matches I've been to - minus a lot of the people who are diehard county fans or stubborn like me.
@Bevab They have a great list of players, could they not get these for the Blast though (if that was tweaked to be more suitable)? The ECB could take a stake and invest some of this cash they're spending on The Hundred to support a tournament that is, despite their best efforts (final's day half way into September?) thriving. And the best England players will be playing for England against Pakistan at the same time.
If big names or players from countries (Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Harbhajan) can get new people in grounds (we see in international games there are huge numbers of British Asian cricket fans, that don't necessarily make it to domestic or English cricket) - maybe this could have been tried during the Blast. Is there going to be that much crossover of someone going to the Manchester Originals to watching Lancashire matches when the one day cup and Blast will be watered down?
I've been wondering lately do we have to embrace it for the sake of cricket in this country or can we just hope it fails and laugh about it? I hope the less cynical motivations work; sparking interest, getting more kids wanting to play cricket. That being said, it's hard to know if the knock on effect to English cricket will be better or worse if it succeeds or fails. If it is a success then why wouldn't Sky just throw more money at the ECB to make it an exclusive part of their cricket coverage? Then we could be back at square one. If it fails what will be the fall out - what will the ECB try next? Maybe they'll resort to the obvious option, even if it's painful initially, by saying to SKY: we can't give you everything no matter how much money you put in front of us.
Blast matches (hell, even one day cup) on afternoon/early evening on weekends on the BBC would be perfect. I can't see how the BBC or another broadcaster would turn it down if it was offered to them at an affordable price. Although, evidently, the ECB can't do that. Of course we live in a far different landscape than when cricket was last on FTA TV, so maybe the really radical option would to have been looking to have more matches streaming on YouTube or Twitch.
Big question I'd like to know: is anyone here actually going to go and watch? I'll probably give it a look on TV but my closest team is far enough that I have only ever been to two Blast matches (I've been to finals day about five or six times, even travelling to the one in Cardiff), but I'm certainly not going to travel for an even shorter format.
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
Okay so if I were King of the ECB with unfettered power to tear up contracts and stuff, I'd probably be pretty cavalier about the whole thing and set up that Football League style T20 that I mentioned.
The goal would be 64 teams. So for starters, let's create two teams for each first-class county board, and one for each minor county board.
Okay, so that's a lot of teams - how exactly does one plan to organise them? My answer is in four divisions:
Premier Division (Tier 1)
Three up, three down 
National Division (Tier 2)
Three up, three down
Second and third place teams from Tier 3 divisions have a four-team playoff for third Tier 2 place.
North Division (Tier 3)
South Division (Tier 3)
Therein lies the crux of The Cricket League. Each division has 16 teams, who will play 30 Twenty20 matches across the season. ("30!" I hear you cry, "But that's loads!" / "Yes," I reply, "I'll get to that")
The cricket season is roughly 25 weeks running from April to September. With 30 games to get into that time, it sounds like quite a crowded calendar. However, with matches on at least 20 of those weekends, and some more on weekday evenings (especially in the summer) it seems completely manageable.
The cricketing week will be split into two halves: Monday-Thursday (which is prime time for the County Championship) and Friday to Sunday (which is prime time for The Cricket League)
Week-by-week schedule:
The County Championship
With the change to 64 club teams, it seems like the County Championship is dead in the water, but not so: Northamptonshire, for example, would be able to pick any player who was contracted to Milton Keynes or Northampton, or any player attached to a non-Cricket League club. Non-contracted players would be paid via match fees. Essentially, this would take the counties back to being representative teams.
The Knockout Cup
A 64-team straight knockout for the one-day crown. It'd be cricket's FA Cup.
The Cricket League
This is what those 64 teams would exist for. Now, there would be some pretty significant changes, as well as literally all of the other significant changes I've already listed. Kolpak and overseas players wouldn't be a thing anymore: teams would simply have a strict salary cap imposed upon them, and it would be their job to keep within it. For every English-qualified player they signed, they would get a small increase to their salary cap. This would essentially serve both to raise standards by not restricting the teams' ability to sign whomever they wanted to sign, as well as ensuring that any overseas player must essentially be worth both their salary, and the additional hit to the salary cap.
Premier Division teams would also be able to take advantage of a "Designated Player" rule, whereby they would be able to nominate one player whose salary does not contribute to the salary cap. This would be a way to incentivise top-quality players to turn up for Premier Division cricket.
It would also be great for marketing to structure squads this way. Let's have a hypothetical look at a potential Northants side for a moment:
Similarly, if the England and Wales cricket board could finally get their heads out of their collective arses and facilitate a Welsh national team, now would be the time.
Get it on TV
A Match of the Day style highlights show on free-to-air television is a must. At least one match out of the eight played in each round of the Premier Division is a must. Live streaming of lower division matches is highly encouraged, along with a Football League Show style highlights package for lower-division fans to keep on top of things. No longer just sell all the rights together as one big blob, but partition them a little bit to do what's best for the game.
This post has gone on for too long
So I shall stop. But honestly, with the amount of money used to bribe counties to go along with the idea, the amount that has already been spent on re-training officials and re-writing the laws of the game and software used to track it, setting up a huge league structure like this wouldn't be a great deal worse.
And you could probably interest other sports teams (particularly football and rugby clubs) in ownership of teams near them, which could bring in a whole new wave of fans. Imagine, for instance, if you had Manchester United Cricket Club, with the legions of supporters who might be tempted to attend their beloved football club's cricket wing? The only danger of this, and it would be a real danger, would be the alienation of Manchester City fans so it would have to be something done oh-so carefully. But it could be a boon for the game if an administrator had the courage to do it.
The goal would be 64 teams. So for starters, let's create two teams for each first-class county board, and one for each minor county board.
First-class counties (36 teams)
Derbyshire -
Chesterfield,
Derby
Durham -
Durham,
Sunderland
Essex -
Chelmsford,
Southend
Glamorgan -
Cardiff,
Swansea
Gloucestershire -
Bristol,
Gloucester
Hampshire -
Portsmouth,
Southampton
Kent -
Bromley,
Canterbury
Lancashire -
Liverpool,
Manchester
Leicestershire -
Leicester,
Loughborough
Middlesex -
Richmond,
Westminster
Northamptonshire -
Milton Keynes,
Northamptonshire
Nottinghamshire -
Mansfield,
Nottingham
Somerset -
Bath,
Taunton
Surrey -
Guildford,
Lambeth
Sussex -
Arundel,
Brighton & Hove
Warwickshire -
Birmingham,
Coventry
Worcestershire -
Kidderminster,
Worcester
Yorkshire -
Leeds,
Sheffield
Minor counties (22 teams)
Bedfordshire -
Bedford
Berkshire -
Reading
Buckinghamshire -
High Wycombe
Cambridgeshire -
Cambridge
Cheshire -
Warrington
Cornwall -
Truro
Cumberland -
Carlisle
Devon -
Torquay
Dorset -
Bournemouth
Herefordshire -
Hereford
Hertfordshire -
Watford
Huntingdonshire -
Peterborough
Isle of Wight -
Newport
Lincolnshire -
Lincoln
Norfolk -
Norwich
Northumberland -
Newcastle
Oxfordshire -
Oxford
Shropshire -
Shrewsbury
Staffordshire -
Wolverhampton
Suffolk -
Ipswich
Wales Minor Counties -
Colwyn Bay
Wiltshire -
Swindon
Six more teams from other places (6 teams)
A third Yorkshire team -
York
Scotland -
Edinburgh Knights,
Glasgow Warriors
Continental Europe -
North Holland,
South Holland,
Vikings
Derbyshire -
Durham -
Essex -
Glamorgan -
Gloucestershire -
Hampshire -
Kent -
Lancashire -
Leicestershire -
Middlesex -
Northamptonshire -
Nottinghamshire -
Somerset -
Surrey -
Sussex -
Warwickshire -
Worcestershire -
Yorkshire -
Minor counties (22 teams)
Bedfordshire -
Berkshire -
Buckinghamshire -
Cambridgeshire -
Cheshire -
Cornwall -
Cumberland -
Devon -
Dorset -
Herefordshire -
Hertfordshire -
Huntingdonshire -
Isle of Wight -
Lincolnshire -
Norfolk -
Northumberland -
Oxfordshire -
Shropshire -
Staffordshire -
Suffolk -
Wales Minor Counties -
Wiltshire -
Six more teams from other places (6 teams)
A third Yorkshire team -
Scotland -
Continental Europe -
Okay, so that's a lot of teams - how exactly does one plan to organise them? My answer is in four divisions:
Premier Division (Tier 1)
Three up, three down National Division (Tier 2)
Three up, three down Second and third place teams from Tier 3 divisions have a four-team playoff for third Tier 2 place.
North Division (Tier 3)
South Division (Tier 3)
Therein lies the crux of The Cricket League. Each division has 16 teams, who will play 30 Twenty20 matches across the season. ("30!" I hear you cry, "But that's loads!" / "Yes," I reply, "I'll get to that")
The cricket season is roughly 25 weeks running from April to September. With 30 games to get into that time, it sounds like quite a crowded calendar. However, with matches on at least 20 of those weekends, and some more on weekday evenings (especially in the summer) it seems completely manageable.
The cricketing week will be split into two halves: Monday-Thursday (which is prime time for the County Championship) and Friday to Sunday (which is prime time for The Cricket League)
Week-by-week schedule:
- T20 Festival Week / T20 Festival Week (This would be a week-long event in which the first 16 games from each division would be held in a sunnier place, and live-streamed over the internet. Places like La Manga, Barbados, Dubai and others would all be possible.)
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (64) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (32) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (16) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (8) / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (4) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Knockout Cup Final
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Promotion Playoff Day / Twenty20 Finals Day (Finals Day is the biggest event on the cricketing calendar and it should absolutely stay that way. The top four teams from the Premier Division will juke it out for the title)
The County Championship
With the change to 64 club teams, it seems like the County Championship is dead in the water, but not so: Northamptonshire, for example, would be able to pick any player who was contracted to Milton Keynes or Northampton, or any player attached to a non-Cricket League club. Non-contracted players would be paid via match fees. Essentially, this would take the counties back to being representative teams.
The Knockout Cup
A 64-team straight knockout for the one-day crown. It'd be cricket's FA Cup.
The Cricket League
This is what those 64 teams would exist for. Now, there would be some pretty significant changes, as well as literally all of the other significant changes I've already listed. Kolpak and overseas players wouldn't be a thing anymore: teams would simply have a strict salary cap imposed upon them, and it would be their job to keep within it. For every English-qualified player they signed, they would get a small increase to their salary cap. This would essentially serve both to raise standards by not restricting the teams' ability to sign whomever they wanted to sign, as well as ensuring that any overseas player must essentially be worth both their salary, and the additional hit to the salary cap.
Premier Division teams would also be able to take advantage of a "Designated Player" rule, whereby they would be able to nominate one player whose salary does not contribute to the salary cap. This would be a way to incentivise top-quality players to turn up for Premier Division cricket.
It would also be great for marketing to structure squads this way. Let's have a hypothetical look at a potential Northants side for a moment:
- Richard Levi (South African international!)
- Adam Rossington (England youth international!)
- Josh Cobb (England youth international!)
- Ricardo Vasconcelos
- Alex Wakely (England youth international!)
- Ramith Rambukwella (Sri Lankan international!) (So what if they'll never sign him - someone ought to)
- Rob Keogh
- Gareth Berg (Italian international!)
- Tom Sole (Scottish international!)
- Graeme White (England youth international!)
- Blessing Muzarabani (Zimbabwean international!)
Similarly, if the England and Wales cricket board could finally get their heads out of their collective arses and facilitate a Welsh national team, now would be the time.
Get it on TV
A Match of the Day style highlights show on free-to-air television is a must. At least one match out of the eight played in each round of the Premier Division is a must. Live streaming of lower division matches is highly encouraged, along with a Football League Show style highlights package for lower-division fans to keep on top of things. No longer just sell all the rights together as one big blob, but partition them a little bit to do what's best for the game.
This post has gone on for too long
So I shall stop. But honestly, with the amount of money used to bribe counties to go along with the idea, the amount that has already been spent on re-training officials and re-writing the laws of the game and software used to track it, setting up a huge league structure like this wouldn't be a great deal worse.
And you could probably interest other sports teams (particularly football and rugby clubs) in ownership of teams near them, which could bring in a whole new wave of fans. Imagine, for instance, if you had Manchester United Cricket Club, with the legions of supporters who might be tempted to attend their beloved football club's cricket wing? The only danger of this, and it would be a real danger, would be the alienation of Manchester City fans so it would have to be something done oh-so carefully. But it could be a boon for the game if an administrator had the courage to do it.
Willoughby63
User Title Purchaser
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2019
- Profile Flag
- England
How do you decide who goes into which division and where would these teams play?Okay so if I were King of the ECB with unfettered power to tear up contracts and stuff, I'd probably be pretty cavalier about the whole thing and set up that Football League style T20 that I mentioned.
The goal would be 64 teams. So for starters, let's create two teams for each first-class county board, and one for each minor county board.
First-class counties (36 teams)
Derbyshire -Chesterfield,Derby
Durham -Durham,Sunderland
Essex -Chelmsford,Southend
Glamorgan -Cardiff,Swansea
Gloucestershire -Bristol,Gloucester
Hampshire -Portsmouth,Southampton
Kent -Bromley,Canterbury
Lancashire -Liverpool,Manchester
Leicestershire -Leicester,Loughborough
Middlesex -Richmond,Westminster
Northamptonshire -Milton Keynes,Northamptonshire
Nottinghamshire -Mansfield,Nottingham
Somerset -Bath,Taunton
Surrey -Guildford,Lambeth
Sussex -Arundel,Brighton & Hove
Warwickshire -Birmingham,Coventry
Worcestershire -Kidderminster,Worcester
Yorkshire -Leeds,Sheffield
Minor counties (22 teams)
Bedfordshire -Bedford
Berkshire -Reading
Buckinghamshire -High Wycombe
Cambridgeshire -Cambridge
Cheshire -Warrington
Cornwall -Truro
Cumberland -Carlisle
Devon -Torquay
Dorset -Bournemouth
Herefordshire -Hereford
Hertfordshire -Watford
Huntingdonshire -Peterborough
Isle of Wight -Newport
Lincolnshire -Lincoln
Norfolk -Norwich
Northumberland -Newcastle
Oxfordshire -Oxford
Shropshire -Shrewsbury
Staffordshire -Wolverhampton
Suffolk -Ipswich
Wales Minor Counties -Colwyn Bay
Wiltshire -Swindon
Six more teams from other places (6 teams)
A third Yorkshire team -York
Scotland -Edinburgh Knights,Glasgow Warriors
Continental Europe -North Holland,South Holland,Vikings
Okay, so that's a lot of teams - how exactly does one plan to organise them? My answer is in four divisions:
Premier Division (Tier 1)
National Division (Tier 2)
Second and third place teams from Tier 3 divisions have a four-team playoff for third Tier 2 place.
North Division (Tier 3)
South Division (Tier 3)
Therein lies the crux of The Cricket League. Each division has 16 teams, who will play 30 Twenty20 matches across the season. ("30!" I hear you cry, "But that's loads!" / "Yes," I reply, "I'll get to that")
The cricket season is roughly 25 weeks running from April to September. With 30 games to get into that time, it sounds like quite a crowded calendar. However, with matches on at least 20 of those weekends, and some more on weekday evenings (especially in the summer) it seems completely manageable.
The cricketing week will be split into two halves: Monday-Thursday (which is prime time for the County Championship) and Friday to Sunday (which is prime time for The Cricket League)
Week-by-week schedule:
Now, that whole structure accommodates fourteen rounds of County Championship play, which is still somewhat higher than I would like it to be but it will do for now. So let's talk a little bit more about the competitions:
- T20 Festival Week / T20 Festival Week (This would be a week-long event in which the first 16 games from each division would be held in a sunnier place, and live-streamed over the internet. Places like La Manga, Barbados, Dubai and others would all be possible.)
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (64) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (32) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (16) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (8) / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (4) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Knockout Cup Final
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Promotion Playoff Day / Twenty20 Finals Day (Finals Day is the biggest event on the cricketing calendar and it should absolutely stay that way. The top four teams from the Premier Division will juke it out for the title)
The County Championship
With the change to 64 club teams, it seems like the County Championship is dead in the water, but not so: Northamptonshire, for example, would be able to pick any player who was contracted to Milton Keynes or Northampton, or any player attached to a non-Cricket League club. Non-contracted players would be paid via match fees. Essentially, this would take the counties back to being representative teams.
The Knockout Cup
A 64-team straight knockout for the one-day crown. It'd be cricket's FA Cup.
The Cricket League
This is what those 64 teams would exist for. Now, there would be some pretty significant changes, as well as literally all of the other significant changes I've already listed. Kolpak and overseas players wouldn't be a thing anymore: teams would simply have a strict salary cap imposed upon them, and it would be their job to keep within it. For every English-qualified player they signed, they would get a small increase to their salary cap. This would essentially serve both to raise standards by not restricting the teams' ability to sign whomever they wanted to sign, as well as ensuring that any overseas player must essentially be worth both their salary, and the additional hit to the salary cap.
Premier Division teams would also be able to take advantage of a "Designated Player" rule, whereby they would be able to nominate one player whose salary does not contribute to the salary cap. This would be a way to incentivise top-quality players to turn up for Premier Division cricket.
It would also be great for marketing to structure squads this way. Let's have a hypothetical look at a potential Northants side for a moment:
That's not even so great of a side, but by emphasising players' international experience it suddenly becomes very marketable. Especially if players are encouraged to represent teams for whom they have heritage: if Vasconcelos were encouraged to become a Portuguese international! or if Keogh were encouraged to become an Irish international! then you could end up with a full team of internationals (sort of) which suddenly seems very exciting to the new casual fan.
- Richard Levi (South African international!)
- Adam Rossington (England youth international!)
- Josh Cobb (England youth international!)
- Ricardo Vasconcelos
- Alex Wakely (England youth international!)
- Ramith Rambukwella (Sri Lankan international!) (So what if they'll never sign him - someone ought to)
- Rob Keogh
- Gareth Berg (Italian international!)
- Tom Sole (Scottish international!)
- Graeme White (England youth international!)
- Blessing Muzarabani (Zimbabwean international!)
Similarly, if the England and Wales cricket board could finally get their heads out of their collective arses and facilitate a Welsh national team, now would be the time.
Get it on TV
A Match of the Day style highlights show on free-to-air television is a must. At least one match out of the eight played in each round of the Premier Division is a must. Live streaming of lower division matches is highly encouraged, along with a Football League Show style highlights package for lower-division fans to keep on top of things. No longer just sell all the rights together as one big blob, but partition them a little bit to do what's best for the game.
This post has gone on for too long
So I shall stop. But honestly, with the amount of money used to bribe counties to go along with the idea, the amount that has already been spent on re-training officials and re-writing the laws of the game and software used to track it, setting up a huge league structure like this wouldn't be a great deal worse.
And you could probably interest other sports teams (particularly football and rugby clubs) in ownership of teams near them, which could bring in a whole new wave of fans. Imagine, for instance, if you had Manchester United Cricket Club, with the legions of supporters who might be tempted to attend their beloved football club's cricket wing? The only danger of this, and it would be a real danger, would be the alienation of Manchester City fans so it would have to be something done oh-so carefully. But it could be a boon for the game if an administrator had the courage to do it.
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
Okay so, there are a few ways of doing that. My general approach would be:
Premier Division: Top sixteen teams from the T20 Blast
National Division: Bottom two teams from the T20 Blast, top eight minor counties, top six county second teams
Northern Division: Sixteen northernmost teams not yet in a Division
Southern Division: Sixteen southernmost teams not yet in a Division
But you could equally have an intermediate season where you split teams into four sixteen-team geographical divisions, then the top four go to the Prem, next four go to the Nat, and the last eight in the Tier 3 Divisions
As for where these teams would play, I based most of the locations on where there are good-quality outgrounds. But in the case of grounds like Newclose on the Isle of White you could just slap a couple of temporary stands in and grass banks and deckchairs, and have a capacity of a couple of thousand.
Willoughby63
User Title Purchaser
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2019
- Profile Flag
- England
Good idea, you just need to email the ECB now!Okay so, there are a few ways of doing that. My general approach would be:
Premier Division: Top sixteen teams from the T20 Blast
National Division: Bottom two teams from the T20 Blast, top eight minor counties, top six county second teams
Northern Division: Sixteen northernmost teams not yet in a Division
Southern Division: Sixteen southernmost teams not yet in a Division
But you could equally have an intermediate season where you split teams into four sixteen-team geographical divisions, then the top four go to the Prem, next four go to the Nat, and the last eight in the Tier 3 Divisions
As for where these teams would play, I based most of the locations on where there are good-quality outgrounds. But in the case of grounds like Newclose on the Isle of White you could just slap a couple of temporary stands in and grass banks and deckchairs, and have a capacity of a couple of thousand.
wasteyouryouth
Verified
Okay so if I were King of the ECB with unfettered power to tear up contracts and stuff, I'd probably be pretty cavalier about the whole thing and set up that Football League style T20 that I mentioned.
The goal would be 64 teams. So for starters, let's create two teams for each first-class county board, and one for each minor county board.
First-class counties (36 teams)
Derbyshire -Chesterfield,Derby
Durham -Durham,Sunderland
Essex -Chelmsford,Southend
Glamorgan -Cardiff,Swansea
Gloucestershire -Bristol,Gloucester
Hampshire -Portsmouth,Southampton
Kent -Bromley,Canterbury
Lancashire -Liverpool,Manchester
Leicestershire -Leicester,Loughborough
Middlesex -Richmond,Westminster
Northamptonshire -Milton Keynes,Northamptonshire
Nottinghamshire -Mansfield,Nottingham
Somerset -Bath,Taunton
Surrey -Guildford,Lambeth
Sussex -Arundel,Brighton & Hove
Warwickshire -Birmingham,Coventry
Worcestershire -Kidderminster,Worcester
Yorkshire -Leeds,Sheffield
Minor counties (22 teams)
Bedfordshire -Bedford
Berkshire -Reading
Buckinghamshire -High Wycombe
Cambridgeshire -Cambridge
Cheshire -Warrington
Cornwall -Truro
Cumberland -Carlisle
Devon -Torquay
Dorset -Bournemouth
Herefordshire -Hereford
Hertfordshire -Watford
Huntingdonshire -Peterborough
Isle of Wight -Newport
Lincolnshire -Lincoln
Norfolk -Norwich
Northumberland -Newcastle
Oxfordshire -Oxford
Shropshire -Shrewsbury
Staffordshire -Wolverhampton
Suffolk -Ipswich
Wales Minor Counties -Colwyn Bay
Wiltshire -Swindon
Six more teams from other places (6 teams)
A third Yorkshire team -York
Scotland -Edinburgh Knights,Glasgow Warriors
Continental Europe -North Holland,South Holland,Vikings
Okay, so that's a lot of teams - how exactly does one plan to organise them? My answer is in four divisions:
Premier Division (Tier 1)
National Division (Tier 2)
Second and third place teams from Tier 3 divisions have a four-team playoff for third Tier 2 place.
North Division (Tier 3)
South Division (Tier 3)
Therein lies the crux of The Cricket League. Each division has 16 teams, who will play 30 Twenty20 matches across the season. ("30!" I hear you cry, "But that's loads!" / "Yes," I reply, "I'll get to that")
The cricket season is roughly 25 weeks running from April to September. With 30 games to get into that time, it sounds like quite a crowded calendar. However, with matches on at least 20 of those weekends, and some more on weekday evenings (especially in the summer) it seems completely manageable.
The cricketing week will be split into two halves: Monday-Thursday (which is prime time for the County Championship) and Friday to Sunday (which is prime time for The Cricket League)
Week-by-week schedule:
Now, that whole structure accommodates fourteen rounds of County Championship play, which is still somewhat higher than I would like it to be but it will do for now. So let's talk a little bit more about the competitions:
- T20 Festival Week / T20 Festival Week (This would be a week-long event in which the first 16 games from each division would be held in a sunnier place, and live-streamed over the internet. Places like La Manga, Barbados, Dubai and others would all be possible.)
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (64) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (32) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (16) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (8) / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Knockout Cup (4) / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Twenty20 League / Knockout Cup Final
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- County Championship / Twenty20 League
- Promotion Playoff Day / Twenty20 Finals Day (Finals Day is the biggest event on the cricketing calendar and it should absolutely stay that way. The top four teams from the Premier Division will juke it out for the title)
The County Championship
With the change to 64 club teams, it seems like the County Championship is dead in the water, but not so: Northamptonshire, for example, would be able to pick any player who was contracted to Milton Keynes or Northampton, or any player attached to a non-Cricket League club. Non-contracted players would be paid via match fees. Essentially, this would take the counties back to being representative teams.
The Knockout Cup
A 64-team straight knockout for the one-day crown. It'd be cricket's FA Cup.
The Cricket League
This is what those 64 teams would exist for. Now, there would be some pretty significant changes, as well as literally all of the other significant changes I've already listed. Kolpak and overseas players wouldn't be a thing anymore: teams would simply have a strict salary cap imposed upon them, and it would be their job to keep within it. For every English-qualified player they signed, they would get a small increase to their salary cap. This would essentially serve both to raise standards by not restricting the teams' ability to sign whomever they wanted to sign, as well as ensuring that any overseas player must essentially be worth both their salary, and the additional hit to the salary cap.
Premier Division teams would also be able to take advantage of a "Designated Player" rule, whereby they would be able to nominate one player whose salary does not contribute to the salary cap. This would be a way to incentivise top-quality players to turn up for Premier Division cricket.
It would also be great for marketing to structure squads this way. Let's have a hypothetical look at a potential Northants side for a moment:
That's not even so great of a side, but by emphasising players' international experience it suddenly becomes very marketable. Especially if players are encouraged to represent teams for whom they have heritage: if Vasconcelos were encouraged to become a Portuguese international! or if Keogh were encouraged to become an Irish international! then you could end up with a full team of internationals (sort of) which suddenly seems very exciting to the new casual fan.
- Richard Levi (South African international!)
- Adam Rossington (England youth international!)
- Josh Cobb (England youth international!)
- Ricardo Vasconcelos
- Alex Wakely (England youth international!)
- Ramith Rambukwella (Sri Lankan international!) (So what if they'll never sign him - someone ought to)
- Rob Keogh
- Gareth Berg (Italian international!)
- Tom Sole (Scottish international!)
- Graeme White (England youth international!)
- Blessing Muzarabani (Zimbabwean international!)
Similarly, if the England and Wales cricket board could finally get their heads out of their collective arses and facilitate a Welsh national team, now would be the time.
Get it on TV
A Match of the Day style highlights show on free-to-air television is a must. At least one match out of the eight played in each round of the Premier Division is a must. Live streaming of lower division matches is highly encouraged, along with a Football League Show style highlights package for lower-division fans to keep on top of things. No longer just sell all the rights together as one big blob, but partition them a little bit to do what's best for the game.
This post has gone on for too long
So I shall stop. But honestly, with the amount of money used to bribe counties to go along with the idea, the amount that has already been spent on re-training officials and re-writing the laws of the game and software used to track it, setting up a huge league structure like this wouldn't be a great deal worse.
And you could probably interest other sports teams (particularly football and rugby clubs) in ownership of teams near them, which could bring in a whole new wave of fans. Imagine, for instance, if you had Manchester United Cricket Club, with the legions of supporters who might be tempted to attend their beloved football club's cricket wing? The only danger of this, and it would be a real danger, would be the alienation of Manchester City fans so it would have to be something done oh-so carefully. But it could be a boon for the game if an administrator had the courage to do it.
I'd steal the Euro T20 idea. A European Cup; in four groups of 6, like a Champions League; the 18 counties + 6 (from Scotland, Ireland and Netherlands). Top two through to a quarter finals and then finals day. Or you could just take the counties out of it and have franchise teams but that'd be a pretty big move.
I'd split the county championship into three conferences, regionally (North, South, Central). Six teams, play home and away. The top three in a round robin final or the the top three plus the best runner up in semis and finals. You could have a inter-conference round, where teams play a random side from another conference home and away.
North: Durham, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire
Central: Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Somerset, Glamorgan, Northamptonshire
South: Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, Essex
Do the same for the one day cup but make the groups randomly drawn each season and only play 3 home and 3 away games (including inter-group matches).
Ideally I'd have T20 Knockout: 18 county teams + 14 teams from a qualifying round from minor county teams and affiliate European teams like Denmark, Germany, Italy, Jersey. You could play it over two weeks, cram it in but have games every night.
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
I mean, there are many many ways to skin the cat and I don't profess to have all the right answers - just my own ideas of what might work. So I'm not about to slate anyone's ideas.
However, this trend of cramming in T20 tournaments into as small a timeframe as possible always feels a bit weird. Like, as part of a larger season it kinda makes sense as it becomes like a cricket festival. But it's not really how British sports leagues work; if we want to bring in and retain fans of other sports, we need to give them a season-long narrative to be invested in
That's not a critique of your suggestion of having a very dense club competition, more of the ECB's expectation that having The Hundred for a couple of weeks in the middle of a season is going to make people drop everything to fawn over the Trent Rockets and Oval Invincibles
Willoughby63
User Title Purchaser
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2019
- Profile Flag
- England
The drafts are coming up on Sunday, who do you want your local team to pick. (For the note, the area seem very poorly done - Northamptonshire are based at Lord’s).
Ed Smith
Gaffer
I don't even nearly have a "local" team tbh. Hard to be arsed when the nearest one is an hour and a half away.
Aislabie
Test Cricket is Best Cricket
I will half-arsedly support whichever team has Rob Keogh in it. I cannot imagine anyone picking Darren Stevens, even though they should.
If nobody picks either of those players, I will approach each game as a neutral and decide at the toss who to support based on which kind of crisp I most fancy at the time.
NILAYSHAH60
Dreamcatcher
Honestly the format seems to be a joke to me. I think The Hundred and leagues like T10 have made a game of Cricket look like a joke. I mean we have enough of T20 Cricket which has already changed the way people approach the game and with leagues like such where would we be heading now ?
Similar threads
