Kolkata: While the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has come to a decision to introduce a new regional eight-team T20 competition from the year 2020, it seems that the traditional County Cricket in ‘whites’ which has been ever present since the game started, is on the brink of extinction.
The new city based tournament, which shall compete with the likes of the Indian origin Indian Premier League (IPL) and the Australian Big Bash League has simply been thought of to make the sport more popular and extend its reach. Also, in a survey conducted by the ECB three years back showed that an American wrestler was more popular to the children over ex skipper of England, Alastair Cook.
“We have to think differently if we are going to be successful in attracting family audiences to our competitions” said ECB chief Tom Harrison. “This is about growth and creating something dramatically different for English Cricket,” he added.
While this explanation of the ECB may be well justified and true, but what the creation of this new league does is destroy a tradition. A tradition over 130 years. To add to the frowns of the counties, none of the 18 major teams are due to feature in the new event.
Instead, eight new teams, drawn from cities would be playing the league from 2020. The current constitution of the ECB which clearly states that each and every competition has to be open to the counties, is set to undergo an amendment and the counties are being asked to agree to this constitutional change.
Since the ECB will be leaving no stones unturned to promote the new regional league, it is expected that the counties will be suffering a huge blow. Not only will it lose its popularity, but the financial condition of the clubs may stumble down heavily. It is quite obvious that a league backed by the ECB and a good popularity shall attract the sponsors, who may switch sides and withdraw themselves from the less popular counties.
Also, tussles regarding distribution and broadcast is bound to happen as the channels would definitely want to broadcast the more popular T20 league. In order to compensate for this, the ECB has decided to provide a sum of 1.3 million pounds to each of the counties for a tenure of 5 years. But the question here is that is it enough?
When the new league has the support of the ECB, let’s assume that it is taking place, no matter how much dissent it faces. While the board is trying to overshadow the traditional 50 overs county cricket with a brash and new T20 league, it would be wise if they could invest in and promote the already in existence NatWest T20 Blast.
The league was getting a steady increase in its popularity year after year and this year, the ticket sales have gone up by 35%, that too without the support of the board. Had the ECB supported it, both the NatWest would have been profited and the Counties could have been retained.
(with inputs from The Express Tribune)