Jonathan Agnew gets it wrong on how to save English cricket. What is to be done?
The BBC’s cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew has posted his thoughts on changes that need to be made to English cricket after the Ashes debacle where the England team again lost heavily to Australia.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/60016410
I should note that I know Aggers and generally respect his views on cricket. Of course like us all he has limitations and is to some extent of his time, but his views rightly command attention. Perhaps rather more so than some ex-players who sometimes seem to have agendas related to their personal careers.
However Agnew’s remedy for the travails of English cricket seem to me wide of the mark.
He is right that even if Joe Root remains as captain for now a new senior management structure needs to be put in place. There is not only the issue of the poor performance of the England team in red ball cricket there is the much wider question of racism which requires very serious attention.
One practical thing that a new senior structure could do quickly is to put a framework in place to allow Root to focus more on his batting and ban him from bowling his ‘spin’.
Agnew wants to scrap the new Hundred competition and he is on tricky ground here since the BBC is financially involved in it and broadcasts it. Its played nowhere else and ran in 2021 at the peak summer and in doing shifted County red ball cricket to the margins of the season. The result we’ve seen in Australia.
Those who think the Hundred was designed to undermine the 18 County structure and the red ball game were and are I think right. I found the Hundred quite enjoyable personally and it did a lot for women’s cricket. That said it wasn’t really much different to the T20 blast the tweaking of which was in fact the original plan- before the ECB allowed consultants at it.
Agnew suggests taking the artificial sides(8) that play the Hundred adding two more and using this to create a new red ball competition. He also suggests the existing 18 Counties continue with the Blast and 50 over competition and perhaps run their own 3 day red ball competition. This makes the season more cluttered not less.
Who in any case is going to watch Aggers new red ball game? Not Hundred spectators and not existing County fans surely, so who?
I’d suggest that its time to invest in and promote the County red ball game,. That would or should mean broadening very significantly the base from which the Counties get players beyond the existing public school focus. That would require administrative effort and the right kind of administrators in charge, preferably not ex-public schoolboys.
Investment can come commercially or from Government cash wise and its needed. If the game looks like its changing and there is some success then it will come.
Much of this is long overdue and there is no guarantee it will happen. Full marks to Jonathan Agnew though for making a largely disinterested contribution to an urgent debate.
Guardian Editorial labels Jonathan Agnew a ‘revolutionary’. My job is done… theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Leave a Reply