Not a good week for cricket

Posted by Tony Hutton

The small army of professional cricket watchers, probably getting smaller by the day, have not had a good week. The first item of bad news was the announcement of plans for the 2017 season which, among other things, will see a reduction of county championship cricket in the first division. Despite noises from several counties (Yorkshire among them) that this would be a bad thing, the money men have as expected won the day.

The re-action to this seems to have been rather muted, although in this part of the world there is consternation about the number of championship games at Scarborough being reduced from two to one. It is still not really clear when the championship cricket will be played as the fifty over games are to be in April and May. It will be a relief if proper cricket can be played in proper cricketing weather, but that is perhaps wishful thinking.

However the new season is approaching rapidly and travel plans have already been made. Too soon perhaps, as anothe slap in the face was on the horizon. Derbyshire county cricket club calmly announced that their two pre-season friendly games with Leicestershire and Yorkshire would be played at Derby behind closed doors! This was due to health and safety considerations surrounding the building of a new media centre.

For those of us planning to attend both games (not very many to be sure) the first question was why could not the northern half of the ground be closed, leaving the rest to provide room for the hard core spectators. The second question was why could the games not have been moved to other grounds either in Derbyshire or at their opponents grounds. No answer to these questions has yet been received. Although Derbyshire have now announced that the ground will be open for their game with Durham MCCU on the 11th of April. No thanks is my response to that - I will be elsewhere.

One thing is certain that the travelling cricket watchers will get a warmer welcome at Trent Bridge or Durham when the fixtures overlap, as they often do. Before all this happens we now have an exciting Yorkshire AGM back in the frame after years of sweetness and light (well almost). Mr. Boycott's return to the fray seems to have stirred a few people into action but the fact that the members are being instructed how they should vote may prove to be counter productive.

More bad news has now come in the death of Don Robson, the man who was the mastermind behind Durham's application for first class status. I remember well his visit to the Northern Cricket Society at Headingley some years ago when he told the story of how this great event took place. He left a lasting impression with his enthusiasm and wise words. A great loss not just for Durham but cricket as a whole.

Of course earlier in the week we had snow and more heavy rain which will not have helped all those clubs in the North of England still trying to repair the damage of the winter floods. There does seem to be good news coming out of Carlisle where a lot of work has been done and they are hoping to start the league programme on time and be ready to stage a Cumberland Minor Counties game on 5th June. Good luck to them and all the other clubs who have suffered.