Posted by We’re not sure whether we dread changes to the county cricket schedule or look forward to seeing just how demented something can become and yet still have people claiming it makes perfect sense. However, the latest changes are… all right.
Now, we aren’t feeling tip-top today, so there’s every chance that this is some sort of hallucination, but as the schedule was not described to us by Spider-man, we’re going to consider it to be genuine.
Friday night Twenty20
This is good. We definitely suggested this about six years ago, but can’t find the post. You get home, your mates come round, you supply them with beer and jerk chicken and you watch a Twenty20 match.
Alternatively, you get home, decide you don’t want to meet your friends because it involves a modicum of effort, so you phone for a takeaway and drink a bottle of gin while watching the first innings of a Twenty20 match before passing out midway through the second.
This is perfect, except for the fact that hardly anyone can watch said matches, because they’re all on subscription TV. Thinking back, that was the main reason why we wanted Friday night Twenty20. We wanted it on terrestrial TV as a means of promoting the sport.
Ah well, it’s still not a bad result. Overall, we approve.
Sunday starts for County Championship matches
This isn’t exactly a rule, but it will be true for much of the season, which is a massive improvement on the current scenario where matches can start on any day of the week, including the eighth day of the prehistoric Baltic nine-day week.
At least we have half an idea what the hell’s going on. We never thought we’d see the day when we had even a sixteenth of an idea what the hell was going on.
Not quite as much one-day cricket
And 50-overs an innings instead of 40. Again, fine by us. Counties don’t need to play more than eight one-dayers and if they’re all to take place in July and August, it seems like a fairly manageable tournament.
We mean that from a fan’s perspective. It’s hard to keep up with these competitions. We generally only realise that a county has won something when a firework is let off.
Conclusions
Not perfect, but remarkably sensible. We fully expect a county chairman to complain and for there to be a full review resulting in an additional 40-over league being brought in before the week is out.
You wait a lifetime for a sensible development in English cricket, and then two come along in the same week (see KP post).
Now all we need is some proper (ie. non-IPL) cricket on proper free to air telly. Then all will be if not right in the world then at least a little better.
It’s Friday, it’s five to five and it’s Crackerjack cricket!! Whoopie, kids.
Excellent observation, Ged. We have discussed introducing Double or Drop into cricket before. This is surely the moment.
Why do we want to promote the sport? The fact that 90% of the sport-watching population only cares about football helps a great deal in identifying the 95% of people I don’t want to talk to.
Howe_zat is Mitt Romney! Who woulda thunk?
Mitt Romney!!??
How could you do that dreadful thing to Big Bird, Howe-Zat? You should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.
What did Joel Garner ever do against you?
More importantly, does Howe_zat have folders full of women?