The county championship has begun once again, and is awash with Australian overseas players. Fifteen will play for English counties this summer, while it has been 9 years now since Mason Crane played his one match for New South Wales.
This shows me that the English game has become reliant on the overseas player, and that our beloved county championship sides are not producing enough talent.
The ACB took a chance in the 1980s when they said it wasn’t about winning the Sheffield Shield anymore, it was about producing test match players. Since then, it has been extremely rare to see overseas players, let alone English ones, being signed by the Aussies. Crane, Ian Botham and Graham Hick being the only ones I can think of since Tony Lock and Colin Milburn in the 60’s and early 70’s.
The Sheffield Shield consists of only six teams. This makes breaking into the state teams even harder. Whereas the championship has eighteen counties and around 450 registered players this summer.
There will be many great players who will never play Shield cricket because of the standard required to get to that level.
This will only improve the standard of the grade and club cricket. So many players fighting for so few spots can only be a good thing in my opinion.
To make the championship stronger, I would propose a 3-division system replacing the current 2, six sides in each division and promotion and relegation would be a 1 up and 1 down structure. There would be 10 matches a year, one home and one away fixture against each county in the division.
I believe a drop to 10 matches a year would also improve the quality of the cricket, because there would be fewer games to get yourself into the international shop window. You would also be playing against counties that would be of similar ability to your own; no easy runs against a team that is rock bottom of the league with a line-up not strong enough to compete in division 1.
Further importance should be placed upon minor counties cricket, or the NCCA as it is now referred to. This should be the proving ground for young cricketers looking at making the step up to county 2nd elevens. The fact that only four 3 day fixtures are played in the NCCA is a farce. How are young players supposed to showcase their talents in such a short season? There are other options available; Zen Malik finally made the jump to county cricket through the SACA – the South Asian Cricket Academy – which runs programs that allow cricketers to represent the SACA and play against county 2nd and 1st XIs to allow them a shot at a professional contract. This program has produced 18 graduates, which is tremendous, really, because I can’t imagine the NCCA has produced 18 first-class cricketers in the last 5 years. Rory Haydon from Staffordshire made the jump to Derbyshire last summer, but he has been the only player I can think of who bridged the gap last season.
Tom Taylor of Worcestershire made this step a few seasons ago, but was overlooked by the NCCA setup. He has gone on to be very successful at Worcestershire, but he could have slipped through the net. Any talent that goes unfulfilled is a waste, and the county game will only suffer. The ECB needs to make our game better. Perhaps offering more funding if a team does not have an overseas player, or increased funding for producing more homegrown players in the 1st XI. Then the counties would be able to look closer to home, rather than just signing the Aussie overseas players to solve their problems.
