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The loss of players for England duty does need to be looked at, especially as regards the Lions (A-team) games and calling up thirteen men for a week before a Test match. Yorkshire, for example, lost Bairstow and Root to the Lions at a crucial period and have also had to put up with Bresnan being on drinks carrying duties for England instead of leading their attack at various times this season (although he did at least get a game in the end). Bairstow also missed a CC game last week because he was backup for the Ireland game - a fairly fruitless experience as it wasn't even as if he got to spend a bit of time with the first choice one day squad. Yorkshire haven't played well this year, but losing key men at crucial times has compounded their descent into relegation woes. Does the pride of having a couple of men called up for the England reserves outweigh the loss of status in dropping to Division 2? I think not.

As to chief execs who wish to simply see their counties as feeders to the England set up, I suggest they submit their resignations at the earliest possible opportunity. They do not own the county. They run cricket in trust, and if they don't want to run it as a domestic sport they are free to leave. The members and supporters who invest a lot of money and time in following their county tend to quite enjoy watching their team compete for honours in whatever format. I feel they are more important than they few decision makers whose plush ivory-towered executive boxes have allowed them to forget what the sport of cricket is really all about.

As a Somerset fan watching a likely second consecutive season of nearly winning everything, I am frustrated at losing key players at key times. Somerset are not a wealthy club, so losing a player means a huge drop in ability to the replacement. For the current Championship game we lost Trescothik to injury, and this just happened to coincide with Kieswetter and Buttler going off on England duty. Needless to say a dismall total of 200 was all that we could muster against an awful Hampshire attack. Where does the control that England have end? What if Hildreth had also been in the England team, or Trego? At what point do England have to hold off to allow a team to compete in it's own right. The extreme is that a county side is so successful that they lost their whole team to England. So at what point would the cutoff be. What would have happened if Somerset had demanded to hold on to Kieswetter this week to cover for Trescothik's injury? To me it is not clear to what extremes England can go to destry a county sides season. To me, a fan of the county game, it spoils what could be a great competition.

Well hardly a rush of support for changes to made so supporters must believe the system is fair and not worth fighting for. I respect that and will also move on. The Cheif Executives have got it right.
However a couple of good posts and I thank you for them.
Robbie we must remember players deserve the right to play international cricket. Bigger crowds, bigger wage packets and most importantly tested against the best players.
We spectators who feel short changed by it all just have to realise the majority and the money will always come out on top.
Sit back and enjoy another interesting finish to the season and believe the teams which win and those which lose deserve to do so. They've certainly entertained us along the way.

That international cricket attracts so much money and, in effect, subsidises the county game means that the England team are always going to have the controlling hand over players' availability.

The question for the ECB is finding the right balance between making sure the England team is successful, and ensuring that the county game is strong and credible enough to provide the England players of the future. I'm not sure currently they have this balance right, and the withdrawal of several players from county cricket to go play in Ireland is a good example of this. The championship can't continually be shorn of quality players if it's to retain any credibility, and if more and more county players are withdrawn at crucial times of the season, the counties might be entitled to feel that they're being penalised for producing high quality, English-qualified youngsters.

There may also be conflicts of interest – with the England selectors quite often combining their selectorial role with that of a county job, it could lead to accusations of bias should one county's players be withdrawn for England duty when that of the England selector's are not.

Injuries have been as big a hindrance to Somerset's championship chances as have England call-ups, but the climax to the Championship season isn't nearly as exciting as it would have been if they'd been able to compete with a full-strength side.

Sorry, but I'm an old fudward-dudward when it comes to cricket. I was shocked to learn that matthew Hayden had come out of cricket retirement to play for a debenture side. As I understand it, these teams represent sheckles, lolly, dosh, beer-tokens, call it what you like. I'm not a fan of t20 at any level. But to play for a business is pretty appalling and runs counter to the cricketing ethos as I see it (obviously mine is a subjective view). In any évent, it might objected that this has been going on in the subcontinent for decades (don't the Pakistan players play for banks?).

I agree with the suggestion aired by Kevin Howells (a wonderful spokesman for the County Championship) that counties recieve compensation for loss of key players on England call up. But emphatically not if the t20 format goes the way of debentures (a la the Big Bash in Aus). Remember that that scoundrel Standford (excuse my French) was a stone's throw away from implementing a privately run international comp.

Call me an hypocrite if you like but I still followed England's t20 game last night and was chuffed for Stuart Broad. But the top order looked a little mercenary to me, KP excluded. I don't understand why Kieswetter beats the best keeper-batsman out of the side.

Bottom line for me: there's a real risk that t20 ruin and debase cricket.

Sorry for the typosaurus at 5: "beats" should have read "keeps"; indeed it would have read "keeps" had I typed "keeps" instead of "beats". Would it surprise you to learn that many people (those dear to me included) think me a witless bore?

Lastly, I'd support an ECB tough stance on the IPL: e.g. contracted players forbidden to participate on pain of excommunication.

Never say "lastly":

I'd also like to see (given that t20 is going to rake it in) ticket pricing for Test matches off-set. Prioritise the importance and impact of Test cricket. That means, as though back to square one, supporting the County Championship.

With an element of financial reality kicking in at county level we seem to have seen far less of the overseas player and more reliance on home grown talent. This does mean that call-ups will have a potentially negative effect on the best developers of youth. So financial compensation would not be unreasonable any points based system would be harder to justify.



But this brings me to the recreational game - even the premier league sides get no direct financial support from the ECB or counties. ECB money goes direct to the counties as do recreational league fees. This is not to say that the counties don't support club cricket to varying degrees they administrate the recreational leagues, Clubmark accreditation scheme and facilitate courses for match officials and coaching (subsidised by money from SKY).



For many years the counties have looked down upon the club structure and cherry picked young players from school and districts for their academies. Now more than ever the counties need to reduce the cost (& size) of their academies and identify players from local league clubs. But recreational cricket clubs continue to struggle financially and to retain players adults and teenagers in the game becomes ever harder.

The main issues are time and money. Recreational cricket also suffers with format and over rate issues. The enthusiastic young cricketer with a whole day (or weekend) to kill playing league cricket is a rare breed. Adult players are retiring earlier due to family and work commitments. Unless the game evolves fewer will play the game beyond their twenties or thirties as a past time let alone as a county or test player.

Kevin Howells is one of the very few who really know and love the County Championship - other than those of us who actually watch it as paying members - and full marks to him for flying its pennant. In this article he does beg the question that Mike Atherton confronts at regular intervals - namely the whole fixture scenario. There is too much international cricket and the recent farce in Dublin was a classic example. The national cricket authorities, and the ECB is no better nor worse than others, continually pile additional international fixtures into the calendar leaving the County Championship shorn of its purpose and meaning. There are too many Test Matches, too many 1 day and T20 games and that includes too many T20 games in the domestic season. We need to look at New Zealand and West Indies to see what the future may hold and, desperately sadly, even India and maybe Australia - this is bread and circuses come to the County Championship - we even had Buttler of Somerset - not an unwanted 12th man - returning to the side for the second day of the current match against Hampshire - in legal terms that's abuse of privilege.
The very rationale of a First Class game is that it takes place within a high quality domestic programme - each national authority is abusing that definition. We should not be treating the symptoms but going to the heart of the problem - namely the undue balance given to the international programme - a Test Match should be a special and fairly rare occasion - a wet May match against a second string West Indies team is going down the route of football friendlies.
All that said there will be always be muttering among the many conspiracy theorists within the County memberships (and isn't being a conspiracy theorist a sine qua non of County membership?) who will claim that the only way Loamshire won the title was that Borsetshire provided three players to the England side -'twas ever thus.

I think the Buttler incident is a little unfair but on the other hand because of a single International T20 match Somerset were deprived of their number 1 and number 2 wicketkeeper(although I think we number those two the wrong way round in stumpwork). In a tight championship race where they've already lost their Captain through to injury it's a little unfair to call abuse of privilege. Especially when said player didn't even feature in the T20i although watching Samit Patel walk out when he did instead of Buttler had me screaming at the TV has anyone in the England set-up watch him finish out an innings or did they pick him just because people said he was good?

I think a balance must be found Notts have to make do without Swann or Broad virtually all season. Essex loose Cook when he's in the form of his life. I think it maybe getting to the stage central contracts aren't good enough, should these players even be signed up to a county? It also seams County Championship form is having nothing to do with selection otherwise why was Morgan elevated? Yeah he was a handy one-day player and looked amazing last night but is anyone convinced of him at test-level yet? No because he never had to prove himself he got given his place. He also got given it when two players were doing the hard yards (Bopara and Hildreth) in the CC while he took the IPL's money. I don't think it's a coincidence both these players have suffered in severely form since not being selected, they tried really hard and were getting the runs required that put them in contention and lost the place based on a single Lions match to someone who had a poor IPL.

Club needs to be compensated but if were not even going to use the CC as a basis for building the England team what's the point? We take players out when they are most needed by certain clubs to play ODI's and then we don't select the Test team replacements based on Championship form. It just doesn't add up in my book. Why can't we be like Football and have designated international slots for the ODI and T20i stuff? And stop messing teams about at the crunch point of the season? I have no problem with players being called away for Tests it'll be hard to work around those anyway but it's unfair to deprive teams for 4 days of their players.

Hi Kevin,

I am a Hampshire fan and the T20 finals day left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

I watched the first semi and saw Lancashire cruise to 53 (or 56?) for one and looked well on course for victory, the Foxes bowlers looked to have nothing that game. Then the rain came and eventually the super over, which is a complete lottery.

Then the Hants - Somerset game. We finished on 138-4 in 15.5 overs. If it was 20 overs the score would of been around 170-180 and Somerset would never of reached that score IMO or even got close.

They would not of chased down 140 in 16 overs either against our spin.

The revised 95 off 10 was a joke, 3 overs of powerplays and ALL TEN wickets, I knew we were in trouble. We then had them 94 - 6 after the ten and they still somehow had a tie !

If the weather had not arrived and it was a 20 or 16 over game our spinners would of rolled them, they took wickets even in their 2 over spells.

I know some people might like the 'drama' of a one over game but after watching Hants start the campaign on -2 points and then win the group with ease (lots of home and away wins, inclusing a mauling at Hove by over 100 runs) and know they never would of got close to our score without the rain it was very annoying.

We had the highest run scorer by a mile in Afridi ( Who should of been a deserved MOM) and took 6 Somerset wickets.......and still lost.

The 2 teams who played much better cricket both lost in the semi's because of weather that resulted in the farcial one over lottery.

I'm not a Hants homer, I have said to people all season that we are one of the worst county champ teams and deserve to go down but we were the best T20 team by a mile and to lose our crown because of that farce was a complete joke.

I do understand the need to finish the games on the Saturday because of the fans but when you know Somerset would not of got close to our total and then the weather gives then a 10 over bash it was very frustrating.

And to make it worse the pitch dried for the final and spun alot, we would of run over Leicestershire.

I just came away with a complete feeling of injustice towards Hants and Lancs.

It does seem unfair that Somerset are deprived of some of their best players for their biggest matches (although I should point out that Keiswetter was there for finals day, and was quite poor), but it's the same for all the counties. Essex are without Cook for much of the time; Surrey without KP, etc... In some ways Somerset are lucky that Trescothick no longer wants to play international cricket, or we could be posting pathetic totals all season!

@bronx
Sorry, and I wouldn't normally do this, but your post drove me mad. It's "the score would *HAVE* been", "Somerset would never *HAVE* reached that score". "Would of" makes no sense (it's like saying "I of been to the pub").
I don't normally post grammar lessons on the internet because it's rude, but you did that four times in the first five sentences. Sorry.

Bronx what would you suggest was a fair score then?

Hants scored at a rate of 8.625 runs per over and had lost six wickets in 15.5 overs. Hampshire knew this would be 18 then 16 over match so the score should reflect whats the batsman would of managed with all wickets in hand(if the game had finished significantly early instead of one ball wickets in hand would of counted). So while the elements in their innings didn't help it was a 16 over match for the majority of their innings so they knew they were going to bat those 4 overs. Makes a huge difference to mentality and aggression so you can't predict what they would of got in 20 as they were never truly batting 20 overs out. thus they didn't have the traditional 10-14 over lull in scoring rate.

Somerset are then given 10 overs at 9.5 an over so they are being asked to score at 1 runs an over more than Hampshire was required and got 2 overs less in powerplay (or do you think it's fair when Hants had 5 over in their 16 that Somerset get none in their 10?). All your bowlers are allowed to bowl half their overs so while we got less overs of the 'good spin' (I thought it was Cork the seamer who had one of the few good overs that saved the match but ho hum different match I was watching) there was also less over of potential pies to be slogged out the park.

Now personally I think D/L always seams favor the chasing side and I still think it slightly happened here but it wasn't completely a utter rubbish like I've seen in the past for par scores. Remember Somerset were asked to get 69% of the score in 63% of the overs. I think your wearing a little bit of rose tinted specs here to how much in favor that was to Somerset.

Thanks again for some very intersting comments. I must stress that in my argument I was only talking about those players not on central contracts. But it remains there is not the support for change to made so overall we will sadly have to carry on accepting the variable factors of weather and England call ups when deciding whether or not the most successful clubs are in fact the best.
Overall to my eyes there have been some dodgy pitches, some dodgy batting and some half decent bowling on some helpful surfaces. To be balanced there have been some outstanding individual shows and nearly always entertaining.