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Kent don’t look like a second division side to us. Quite apart from the Rob Key factor – which decides the matter and draws a line under it in itself – there are so many other decent players and so few poor performances.
Kent won four matches this season – one more than Somerset who came fourth. A combination of draws and bonus points has dispatched them to the near-worthless second tier. It doesn’t seem right.
The championship format is toss
We have two issues. The first is bonus points. You get 14 points for a win and you can pick up eight bonus points in a match. Eight bonus points is too many. It wields too great an influence. It’s also ridiculous that you can get five bonus points for batting, but only three for bowling. It encourages conservatism.
The second issue that we have is with the two-up, two-down nature of promotion and relegation between the two divisions. Two teams changing places is okay some years, but not every year. Look at it this way: are Worcestershire better than Kent? We might be wrong, but we suspect not.
It would be better if there were a play-off between the runners-up in division two and the second from bottom side in division one. That would be fair and it would also be quite an intriguing occasion at the end of the season.
Division two is toss
As for Kent specifically, we now have to consider Joe Denly achievements with the sneeringly aloof tone that we reserve for division two and we’re not happy about that. We much prefer to get carried away about things.
We can also reveal why Kent got relegated, by the way. It’s because of coach Graham Ford’s sub-moronic maths. He’s been keeping this flaw concealed, the devious little innumerate, but we can finally out him after this quote about how his players will respond next season:
“I know they’ll be giving 120% to get back to First Division status.”
They haven’t a chance. They’ll be declaring for seven and thinking they’re top when they’ve got no points if this is how the man deals with numbers.
I don’t like that play-off idea. One team who has had a poor season against another team who is towards the top of the league on the back of a good season. It’s not like competing against like – so seems wrong.
And it happens in the Pro40 – look what they did to that competition.
The second division is fucking rubbish.
If Tony Frost, a myopic landscape gardner can score a 1000 runs at an average of 80, it’s got to be shite hasn’ it.
Wait, what, so Ravi Bopara only looks good against second division bowling attacks, and James Foster only averages half as many as the brummie labourer?
Superb that second division and make no mistake.
Also, Kent will give us two wins a season now, so that’ll be nice.
I like the second division. Middlesex play in the second division, and because it is the second division, no one really cares, so we can go all out for the 20/20. Win that and earn more from this Stanford malarky then any first division counties if not all of them put together. And we still have the champions league to come. Who cares about division one. I do say scrape bonus points. 10 points for a win, 4 for a draw 2 if you lose by under 4 wkts or 50 runs.
Sadly, Soviet Onion, there are no “millions” on offer to Middlesex in the Stanford. Only England and The Superstars are up for millions.
The direct financial benefits of Middlesex’s winter jaunt are hugely over-esstimated by many.
Still, the fact that we can follow our County side during the winter IS a big plus.
Gedd Ladd, what money is available for Middlesex at Standford’s party? I can’t believe they’re going there for love…
A total purse of US$400,000 will be riding on the result.
From Stanfords site about the domestic clash of champions.
So they’re not going to do to badly out of it.
It’s not clear how much money is available for appearing and how much for winning the beano.
Ged’s right though – we’ll make little money after we’ve flown over our brave fellows and their retinue and housed them all and air-freighted in industrial quantities of biltong to fuel Henderson.
I appreciate everyone could find a case for arguing that the elements scuppered results for their team but switch the weather round for our last two Championship matches and we’d have stayed up – we were 160-1 after just 21 overs in our first innings against Surrey on Day 4 and sprinting towards the precious bonus point that would have kept us up when the umpires took the teams off for bad light and ended the match. In stark contrast, most of last week’s game against Durham was played in bright sunshine. We were pretty abysmal throughout that and deserved to lose but would have been safe had the weather affected the match as it had against Surrey (not that this would have been fair to Durham, before I’m lambasted!!).
I also accept that the bonus point system was in place before the start of the season and that nobody changed the rules midway through but it’s a travesty that we have been relegated because we played better this year in our second innings. Matches are decided over 4 innings and our season has effectively been adjudged over two. Somewhat ironic given we’re pretty much a specialist one day team!