County cricket

Cricinfo still lumps first and second division matches in together in their live scores box

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< 1 minute read

Drives us mental.

Why do people most often visit Cricinfo? To check the scores. Yet if we look at the current live matches, there is no way of telling which match is in which division, unless you happen to have memorised the teams in each league.

At the time of writing, the list of England domestic matches reads:

  • Durham v Somerset
  • Gloucestershire v Essex
  • Hampshire v Warwickshire
  • Northamptonshire v Sussex
  • Nottinghamshire v Surrey

So that’s first division, then second division, then first division, then second division, then first division. Yet there is no obvious distinction between them unless you click through to the scorecard.

Smooth, Cricinfo. Smooth.

This is one small element which has contributed to this website’s official position of ignoring the second division.

One of the joys of county cricket is that the season is so long and sprawling and varied. There are countless stories to be told, concerning different players and their triumphs and despairs in the various formats. However, the canvas is so damn massive, the job of the media is surely to provide focus and help us make sense of things.

Cricket coverage is built on scorecards. You can easily follow the entire season without watching a ball being bowled; listening to a minute of commentary; or reading a single match report or interview. A very simple step towards providing greater clarity for county cricket followers would be for the world’s top scorecard repository to make it clear which division each frigging match belongs to.

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Similar deliveries:

Why we pay no attention to the second division of the County Championship Default ThumbnailEight counties in the first division of the County Championship? Default ThumbnailJames Vince’s batting average in the second division, first division and Test cricket Default ThumbnailAlastair Cook in the second division of the County Championship

33 comments

  2. Actually I quite like knowing that the second division team I follow is still playing, technically, “first class” cricket, rather than second rate.

    Long may the blurred distinctions continue.

    2. It’s okay, we’ve found it. It was David Hopps, who is most definitely one of the good guys.

  5. I struggle to even find the County Cricket pages nowadays. They seem to be deliberately hiding it. Just stupid IPL stuff on the front page.

    1. Irrespective of how often I have viewed the county tables, the route to them is never less than frustratingly opaque.

      It’s as if the website randomly refashions its structure every time I revisit in order to make finding out how Glos are doing not only depressing in its conclusion but also in its journey. Metaphors, eh? Tsch.

    2. You need to select the UK edition from the drop-down top-left. It should remember you’ve done this.

      Ordinarily, ‘global’ is the correct option, but not during the IPL.

      2. Really? We’re seeing one IPL scorecard and report and pretty much everything else on the whole page is county cricket.

      3. To be fair, it’s three “big pictures” of county to two of IPL now. But it was a lot more IPL-focussed in the run-up to both tournaments.

  6. maybe the TV companies (such as Sky) can telecast all first division matches live & ignore 2nd division matches (only show highlights at end of day)

    That might focus proper attention of everybody on first division rather than 2nd division

  7. Alastair Cook! Division Two! Century! Batting!

    You can keep your T20 World Blast Bonanza. This is cricket.

    1. 64.2
      Hampton to Cook, 5 runs

      Now there’s something I would pay a small one-off fee to watch a BBC website highlights package of.

      Liquid cricket.

      1. An all-run five, a helmet incident (fnarrrrr) or a boundary+extra combo?! Don’t leave us all hanging like this!

    2. With Durham taking 46 off the first five overs of presumably wayward dross in their second innings, it seems that you may at times be able to have your cake and eat it! Have you cake, eat it, and still be in possession of your already-eaten cake.

      This Somerset XI looks especially poor – plenty of has-beens, some never-weres and never-will-bes, a couple of promising youngsters and a smattering of utility players/journeymen. Average age probably about 33. This could be the year we finally achieve the drop!

  8. Talking of the second division, I saw a few overs of Northamptonshire against Oxford a week or so ago, in between rain showers. One of the Northants openers was lbw for 0. So he must be completely crap and unable to play.

      1. I can’t remember exactly, but it sounded a bit like something rude you might say when you were giving up and going home.

      3. If nominative determinism is worth anything these days then his safety-first approach to short-pitched bowling should stand him in good stead for a long and successful career.

    2. It took me a full two minutes to remember that Sussex were relegated last year and thus that opener’s score was in the second division and therefore meaningless. For those two minutes, though, I was convinced England had finally found Cook’s opening partner.

      That said, 282* against a Sussex attack including Magoffin and Shahzad, in the first half of April? That has to count for something, second division or not.

  12. Agree again, KC. What football website would list the fixtures with Manchester United v. Tottenham Hotspur followed by Leeds United v. Hull City, then followed by West Ham United v. Arsenal? You are spot on, KC – complete madness from a communication and promotion perspective. Excuse the shameless plug but my own blog website post about the Confusing Parallel Universe that is domestic cricket is all about this type of poor marketing of the game. It’s infuriating in the extreme. Keep up the hits on this subject KC. Maybe, just maybe someone might take note whether in the Cricinfo organisation or the ECB? PS Best wishes to James Taylor. That’s a harsh card to be dealt 🙁

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