It is now some weeks since the end of the 2016 cricket season, and some time since my blogging colleague John Winn reminded me the I had not done my usual end of season rant. Perhaps I am mellowing in my old age, but perhaps not as there are several subjects I am happy to have a go at.
First of all let us consider the final of the competition for various Yorkshire League champions which took place yesterday in Abu Dhabi. Congratulations to the winners Wakefield Thornes and to runners up Pudsey St Lawrence for putting on a fine show, after losing early wickets in pursuit of a huge total. Much has been made of the large audience on twitter and live streaming from the ground, with figures of up to 10,000 people said to have been involved.
However am I a lone voice, in this sea of euphoria, who feels that a Yorkshire competition final should be played in Yorkshire. Then perhaps this alleged figure of 10,000 people might have been able to watch the game live, ideally as part of the Scarborough cricket festival.
We already have the nonsense of the early season MCC game with the champion
county being played at this overseas venue, when many of the champion county's members and supporters would like the chance of seeing their team start the season at Lord's. This leads me onto another subject regarding the treatment of county cricket's long standing and traditional supporters. Apparently the frantic search for 'new people' to watch cricket takes no account of the traditionalists, who are regarded as all of an age who are going to die out in the near future
Be that as it may, but surely such longstanding support deserves some recognition by the money men who now seem to rule the game. The administrators in their headlong dash for more money making ideas, which all seem to revolve around T20 in whatever shape they can think of next, must realise that the county championship is a competition to be valued in it's own right, not merely as a source of England cricketers.
The competition should be marketed, not ignored. The Test players must have time to play in it. Highlights programmes should be shown regularly on TV and Sky should be persuaded to show more games live than the token one or two per season. The interest aroused by the Middlesex v Yorkshire game at Lord's was just one example of the cricket that is on offer, but so often ignored by the media at all levels.
Another of my ongoing complaints is the standard of cricket photography in the press these days. Despite all the high powered modern equipment available today's photographers do not seem to have the patience to capture the moment, when something actually happens. They only press the button after it has happened and invariably come up with players celebrating rather than a batsman's shot or the stumps being disturbed in a magic moment. I could go on about press reports made up largely of unintelligible quotes from players, but will spare you from that.
Now what about the long delay in obtaining county fixtures for next season, which may of course be delayed further this year because of Kent's legal challenge regarding possible promotion. County second XI, Minor Counties and University fixtures take even longer to produce and when they do appear the venues are often still not arranged.
Perhaps the powers that be should be introduced to the officials of the Derbyshire Cricket League who find it possible to produce a full fixture list for ten divisions, north and south by the 8th October!
Finally it is good to see that a petition has been started to persuade the ECB that their points deduction from Durham in all competitions next season is overkill. Relegation was bad enough but to compound this already excessive punishment with even more is morally unjustified and does the game no good at all.
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