Tag: Ashes

Cricket, Sport

A Valentine’s gift

The ECB came up with the perfect Valentine’s gift for County Cricket, one which expressed their feelings for it in no uncertain terms. There were neither flowers nor hearts here, instead a list of venues for Tests, ODIs, T20 Internationals, domestic trophies and the ECB’s much heralded, but rather less keenly anticipated, T20 Competition from 2020 to 2024.

The Test venues see a return to the traditional six venues – Lord’s, the Oval, Edgbaston, Trent Bridge, Headingley and Old Trafford – with recent hosts Sophia Gardens, the Rose Bowl and the Riverside missing out.

Credit where credit is due, this makes a lot of sense to me. The six grounds selected are the best for Test cricket in my opinion, although those who missed out after investing heavily to host tests, with the ECB’s encouragement, have reason to be less pleased. The other caveat is Trent Bridge missing out on an Ashes Test in 2023 as well as in 2019, which is a crying shame. Not only is there a great atmosphere at Trent Bridge Tests, but England’s record there in recent years, particularly against Australia, is excellent and why the ECB want to give that advantage away, not once but twice, is beyond me.

The ODIs and T20 Internationals are split across the Test venues, plus the three recent grounds that missed out, Sophia Gardens, the Rose Bowl and the Riverside, and the County Ground, Bristol. Two of these, the County Ground and the Riverside, will get an ODI each year.

The one glaring omission from the shorter formats is the County Ground, Taunton, which hosted its first T20 International in 2017. Somerset CCC have spent a considerable amount redeveloping the ground, in part for the opportunity to host international cricket. To have achieved that ambition in 2017, but then have future opportunities taken away is an almighty kick in the teeth.

The venues of the “As yet unnamed T20” competition, as it appears to be known at the moment while the ECB marketeers smooze potential sponsors, are no surprise at all: the six Test venues plus the Rose Bowl and Sophia Gardens. They are the ECB’s favourites, with Sophia Gardens thrown in so that the governing body can say that it has fulfilled its remit of “England and Wales”, while on the other hand taking Test matches away from one of the countries in its jurisdiction.

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New T20 Competition Venues

For someone looking in from the outside it would be hard to see how a selection that leaves large swathes of the country without a venue nearby, with 25% of teams in London and none in the whole of either the south west or the north east, has even considered where potential supporters may live.

The reason for this, of course, is the ECB was never going to risk upsetting the big boys, nor the likes of Sky who prefer the comfort of the bigger grounds. As for existing supporters, well, they are a bit of an irrelevance as the ECB is confident that the new competition will attract an entirely new audience. They want to get away from the ‘boozy night out’ image of the T20 Blast and attract families instead.

Does the new fanbase exist? We’ll only find that out in 2020 but grounds like the Oval and Lord’s certainly contain a good proportion of work nights out or similar for the T20 Blast and replacing them is not going to be easy, especially given cricket’s low profile. There will be some games on free to air (ten, including the final) to improve the profile, but this is not even a quarter of the games that Australia’s Big Bash gets in a country where cricket is far more popular than it is here (notleast because all cricket is free to air). Current County members cannot be relied on to attend, given they are broadly against the new competition, which devalues the County game by its very existence. Of course, some in the areas where the new competition will go along, but it will be a small proportion who pay over and above County membership to watch T20.

And so to the final betrayal in the ECB’s Valentine’s message: the domestic 50 over competition. We already knew that this competition would suffer by being played concurrently with the “As yet unnamed T20”, but with 100 or so players unavailable because they will be playing in the T20. To add insult to injury, the ECB’s list tells us that the final for this will no longer be held at Lord’s but at Trent Bridge.

Taking away the opportunity for players and supporters to experience a Lord’s final kills a bit of the game. Sure, it will still be a final but without the setting of Lord’s it won’t mean quite as much. I remember the finals I’ve been to at Lord’s, the incredible surge of joy when Gloucestershire have lifted trophies and the elation evident on the players’ faces: that will never be replicated at Trent Bridge. As Durham’s Chris Rushworth tweeted after the news came out:

“No final at @HomeOfCricket can’t imagine I’m the only cricketer that feels slightly gutted by this! Showpiece of a county players season IMO. I’m lucky enough to have played and won a final there, it will be a big loss on the calendar! “

There is no doubt that there will be many who welcome the ECB’s announcement, but they are within the media, the Counties who stand to lose least and the higher echelons of the game who will profit if it is successful. For the supporters it is simply a betrayal, the confirmation that the ECB cares not a jolt for County Cricket fans. Many of us have long felt that: we’ve seen the County schedule switched again and again, Championship matches pushed out to the extremes, and now a new competition which, if successful (and that’s a big if), could be a death sentence for the County game as we know it.

It’s a crying shame that supporters are far more cynical about the ECB than the County executives, most of whom voted the new T20 proposals through (with Middlesex and Essex voting against and Kent abstaining) in return for £1.3m. It didn’t take too long for things to begin to sour after that vote. In December, Elizabeth Ammon reported in The Times that the Counties who would not be hosting were upset that the model of ownership proposed for the competition (a subsidiary company of the ECB) was not what had been agreed (ownership by the Counties plus the MCC). This change could affect future changes to the T20 competition and freeze out the Counties.

I’d wager that there will be further betrayals to come, now that the votes have been bought and the tournament agreed or, to put it another way, after the turkeys voted for Christmas.Turkey

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Cricket, Sport

Only here for the cricket

With the Ashes only hours away it’s getting increasingly difficult to work out whether there is a circus coming to town or the cricket, such is hype and the silliness. News of an opening ceremony does nothing to quell this; has self importance reached such a level that a test series is masquerading as the Olympics?

Its unlikely that Danny Boyle has been brought in to curate the ceremony but the gradual shift from players simply walking out, to Jerusalem before home tests, to a whole host of anthems being sung, and now this, shows the clear direction of those marketing the game: razzmatazz first, cricket second.

In some ways this is echoed by the crowds at tests in the UK. Once the reason for shelling out on tickets was to watch the cricket, but, for what seems to be an increasing number, the main objective it is now to get on TV in a fancy dress costume or by building the biggest beer snake ever seen.

It’s not a phenomena reserved for cricket, Wimbledon too is having its moments. That was brought home during Andy Murray’s game against Andreas Seppi at the weekend: everyone is used to partisan crowds, and doubtless they help players, but suddenly there’s a group of twenty-somethings dressed identically in pink t-shirts, each bearing a letter of #MURRAY on their chest. It got them on TV, not just once but multiple times, but the problem was their order: first it was “AMURRY” then “#MURY” and then a whole host of different combinations, none of which was correct.

On the plus side this apparently illiterate but media-hungry group was in the back row and so they didn’t get in the eyeline of other fans, but that isn’t always the case. Come Saturday at the Swalec the likelihood is that some poor soul (and I hope it isn’t me) will be sat right behind a group of giant bananas in pyjamas and instead of a view of the pitch, gets a pointy, furry head in their face. Up in the Sky commentary box Bumble will wax lyrical about the costumes on show, but that’s easy to do from the comfort of a perfect view of the ground.

Even worse than the walking fruit, vegetables and cartoon characters though are the beer snakes and Mexican waves. Throughout the summer the TV cameras will focus on people – who have spent upwards on £75 for a ticket – putting all their efforts into stacking plastic pots and balancing ‘snakes’ several metres high for their own amusement. Anyone stuck behind the stacking and balancing will be less amused though, as they struggle to get a view of the match they have paid to watch, while those in front risk the thing collapsing on top of them (and, believe me, a shower of beer dregs is not a fun experience).

Mexican waves (not actually Mexican, but that poor nation has been saddled with the name) are another bugbear. If people want to stand up, wave their arms and throw torn up paper about then there are better places than a cricket ground. Like their own garden, or a park. But no, they do it in the ground, ruining the view for everyone else.

Is it all harmless fun? I suspect it is for those that indulge but everyone else has spent £75 for a ticket too and a bit of consideration for those that do want to watch the game would go a long way. Grounds have a role to play too; most have “No stacking” signs around the stadium to discourage beer snakes but, with the glorious exception of Lord’s, these rules are rarely enforced.

I have my own solution, which draws on the “no tolerance” seen at Lord’s but puts it to good use. First of all, fancy dress. If it doesn’t affect other spectators views of the pitch then it’s not a problem but if there’s a huge novelty head, which means those behind can’t see, then that head has to be taken off. Yes, I know they are now unlikely to get on the telly, but this is about cricket not a group of engineering students dressed as Tellytubbies. Anyone that doesn’t comply gets to wear their fancy dress down to the pub instead.

Beer snakes: three strikes and you are out. One initial warning, one final warning, then gone – before the thing reaches any height at all and disturbs other spectators. If it’s a group getting involved then they all go.

Mexican waves are the hardest to police but I’d take a hard line and throw out any spectator(s) starting one. In an ideal world it would be anyone participating, but there may not be enough stewards in the world for that.

Anyone thrown out for one of these misdemeanours gets their ticket confiscated and redistributed to families in the local area who can neither afford a ticket for the game nor the luxury of a Sky Sports subscription. In one fell swoop watching cricket is a much more pleasant experience for those in the ground and something that becomes available to those who wouldn’t normally get a chance to watch an international game. All I need to do now is get myself in charge of the game and sort this out.