English board delays decision on domestic structure
The English cricket board will take the decision later on the structure of domestic cricket from the next season. This was after the English cricket board decided to set up a working committee which will
look at all the alternatives and come up with a feasible option.
The board met up on Wednesday to discuss the future of English county cricket after 56 representatives of the counties had held a meeting at Lord’s last week. Neither the representatives nor the English board
could come up with any solution for the format of the county cricket and hence the decision to wait till the working committee came up with the solution.
The issue borders around the number of games that the T20 Cup should have from the next season. Until the previous season, 2008-09, the teams were divided into three groups of six or seven each, with the
top eight teams going through to the quarter-finals. In the 2009-10 season, the number of groups were reduced to two and that increased the number of T20 Cup games to a mammoth 151.
The problem now is that the larger counties want to reduce the number of games because they had problems in filling up the grounds. On the other hand, the smaller counties saw full houses in most of their
matches and do not want the number of games to be reduced.
Generally speaking, 151 is too large a number for the fans to digest and overall, the crowds saw a massive reduction in number on average. However, given that the smaller counties had smaller number of seats
to fill, it helped them make profits.
Apart from the T20 Cup, discussions around the County Championship were also had and there were suggestions that the format could be changed there too. For now, it is a two division league, with each team
playing 16 games on a home and away basis and on the basis of promotion and relegation. It also seems like this format will continue.
The third competition is the Clydesdale Bank 40 competition for the one-day games. This may continue to remain untouched, though the board has admitted in the past that a fifty overs competition is a much
better way to go about it than a 40-over one.
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