Two big cricket stories emerged this week: Eoin Morgan's moan about the state of English T20 and the publication of the ECB's 2014 National Playing Survey. Both were rather negative but I would hesitate to say that they completely support each other.
Morgan seemed to be criticising the prolonged nature of the T20 Blast as it prevented players (presumably like him) from increasing their exposure to overseas tournaments and overseas stars from bringing a little glitz and glamour to our shores. True, the ECB revealed that average attendances for the domestic T20 last summer fell but you can't judge a new concept on one season, especially for a sport that is so reliant on good weather. However, the experiment with a summer T20 window and Finals Day separated by a month was deemed unsuccessful, and that doesn't surprise me at all.
Morgan wants an IPL-like city franchise format. True, there are too many counties to fit in a twin league system where every side pays every other. However, the ECB rightly confers primacy on first-class cricket, and I still feel the county system has served us well in that regard. T20 is so unpredictable that England were winners just a few years ago and there remains no obvious favourite to triumph next time around. A bunch of pointless teams like London Lions, Brummie Bulldogs or Chelmsford Chieftains will merely kill T20 while simultaneously confusing the casual or potential cricket fans, thus killing the domestic game entirely - and then where will English cricket be?!
Of course Eoin Morgan probably doesnt care much about the system that has brought him fame and fortune. He is a failure at Test level and has done very little for Middlesex's Championship credentials in recent years either. If, like that man Pietersen, he wants to travel the world warming benches while trousering huge quantities of dollars, that's fine. Off you go. Naturally, players are divided between their preferences for the short or long versions of the game. Horses for courses.
The better cricketers tend to prefer first-class cricket while T20 allows them to let their hair down a bit and wear colourful pyjamas in front of large crowds. Younger ones brought up on twenty-over thrashes might go the other way, preferring a hit-and-giggle to the more demanding, skilful, thoughtful and patient version. With two quite different approaches to the same sport, cricket must be unique in professional world sport. Not even FIFA has proposed a Ten10 format of ten-minute ten-a-sides with ten metre wide goals, and let's hope Sepp Blatter doesn't read this blog!
There must surely be room for both in the English game. I have to admit that my closeness to cricket has waned ever since Sky hoovered up all but the occasional Test highlights programme on a minority channel like Five. While never as big as football, cricket has become an even more niche entertainment, slipping below even tennis and golf, which still attract interest albeit in relatively short windows during the summer. The vagaries of the British weather, economy and society have each played their part in falling TV audiences and the numbers who play the game, arguably more important than any other group of people in cricket.
For all of Sky TV's bombast and hype, live audiences for even the biggest ODI, T20 contest or even England Test match are way below what used to be achieved by BBC2 coverage twenty years ago. The media landscape has changed, of course, with Sky money bolstering the ECB and Test grounds pricing all but the richest corporate spectator out of the stands. Bring your young boys (or girls) with you and the day could easily set you back £200-plus. Ridiculous! Football - and its extended 11-month season in particular - has a lot to answer for.
I'd like to see cricket back on the BBC - even if only in a Match of the Day-esque highlights package at 10pm each night on BBC2. With Test players mostly banned from domestic cricket (again a huge PR disaster for counties) we need to become more familiar with the rest of the performers who grace our grounds week in week out, and that can only happen through exposure on terrestrial channels which attract audiences fast greater than those on the self-described Home of Cricket. It's not just about the Cooks, Andersons, Buttlers and Pietersens. There's so much to enjoy from the Hogans, Rashids, Overtons, Wheaters and Bell-Drummonds of this world, the experienced and the international stars of the future, if only we know who they were.
I have got to know many through researching this blog, with the help of websites such as ESPNCricinfo, but to see them live or on the box would be so much more enjoyable. However, I doubt it will happen. Money talks and the authorities will always prefer to take the cash and see cricket dwindle to a lucrative rump of T20 Finals Day and Ashes Tests. I hope this doesn't happen but I fear the worst. Morgan's moans are just bringing that dreadful day even closer.
