The End .of County Cricket?
By KENNETH GREGORY COUNTY cricket, like the provincial music hall, is an anachronism—the main difference being that music halls are not subsidised by football pools. To state this is not to disparage the heroic efforts of the various supporters' clubs, still less to attack county cricket, a hallowed institution of many years' standing, but merely to point out that county cricket is dying and will soon be dead. It may still exist a generation from now, an emaciated corpse undergoing constant blood transfusions; there will be no spectators and Lord's will probably advocate drastic measures.
'Admission sixpence, a shilling if Dr. Grace is batting.' Cricket has always required a stimulant of some kind or another, yet I doubt if the presence of Grace, Hobbs and Hammond in the Blankshire side of today could work the neces- sary miracle. For county cricket has become an economic impossibility. Consider the case of Hampshire last summer. It was a splendid and winning side, it possessed in the West Indian Marshall the greatest draw in the land. But if Test and TV spoils had not been added to those derived from whist drives and premium bond campaigns, Hampshire's loss on the season would have amounted to almost £6,500. Northampton- shire, another successful team, had a working deficit of £15,000, while Kent's chairman has lately sent out an appeal to that county's sup- porters for aid. Nottinghamshire, according to their chairman, are in danger of extinction, while Middlesex have succumbed to the lure of pools, which is rather as if Sarastro had played skiffie on the side.
Now 1958 was an abysmally wet season which afforded players as much practice at cards as at cricket. But how do we account for the fate of county cricket the previous summer? The average gate was a mere 1.600 a day, and since the crowds attracted to Old Trafford, Bramall Lane, Lord's and the Oval were far in excess of this figure it is obvious that on most grounds county cricket elicited a lamentably poor response. The average daily gate receipts must have been well under £200; assuming that each county has about forty playing days at home each season no financial juggling can reconcile income with expenditure, in the case of Nottinghamshire £40,000 in 1958.
If admission receipts bear no logical relation to expenditure the obvious answer would seem to be a higher entrance fee. Let us say five shillings to watch Blankshire play Loamshire; five shillings to watch some in-swing bowler pushing a batsman on to the back foot. Mr. G. 0. Allen contends that the pUblic are kept away by slow, turning wickets (Peter May wants better though not necessarily faster wickets!), yet does anyone really believe that a change in pitches will restore the fortunes of our county clubs? One may as well mention Mr. Swanton's correspondents who not so long ago mentioned their favourite big hitters. Of about fifty named, only three were post-war products. The truth is there are insufficient first-class cricketers to maintain seventeen county sides. Perhaps there never were—though I fancy the standard of our weaker sides is lower than it was twenty-five years ago when Northamptonshire could boast two men of England class in Bakewell and Clark—but formerly county cricket faced fewer rivals than it does today.
Mr. Allen sees slow wickets as one of the reasons for our late humiliations in Australia. To what, I wonder, does he attribute the shortage of English-born all-rounders? In 1928, admittedly a dry summer, nine men did the 'double' with Valiance Jupp scoring 1,500 runs and taking 166 wickets. But only one of these, Tate, was chosen for Australia the following winter. Can it be that the nature of cricketers has changed as well as pitches? Has professionalism, now virtually deprived of amateur competition, engendered a race of specialists, or do several of our profes- sionals with potential all-round ability find life too easy as it is?
Major M. F. S. Jewell, a member of the MCC, wants to see a return to three-day Tests (seven a season !) which would mean either smaller profits to be shared out or a greater drain on the best county men. Not much comfort for county cricket spectators. Should the Championship consist of fewer than seventeen sides; if so, do the faithfuls at Blankshire's headquarters manage without cricket or do they watch an exhibition between Yorkshire and Sussex? The average cricket crowd is not comprised of connoisseurs wholly indifferent to the result of a game; it wants to see its own side win and not to watch a Bradman double century in a drawn match. But when its own side does win frequently the response is too often apathetic.
We want better cricket, that is cricket of a higher technical order, and fewer first-class games. This can be accomplished only by the abolition of the present county system, which caters primarily for retired gentry who are willing to skip the more tedious hours by opening . their Trollope, and the institution of some alternative. Why not a regional competition with half a dozen sides (London, South-East, South-West, etc.) pro- viding each large ground with fifteen to twenty days' cricket a year? If this means the end of professionalism as we know it, we should remem- ber that Australia, West Indies and South Africa have set us a good example. The great players from these countries have realised themselves without playing cricket for six days a week throughout the summer. One hears that Benaud (and will his sixty-odd wickets during the last two Australian series persuade our legislators to cherish the thought of leg spin and restore the lbw rule to its pre-1935 state?) mixes cricket with journalism to the satisfaction of both parties con- cerned. Will May's skill diminish if he spends three days a week as a Times leader writer? County cricket, I agree, once gave pleasure, it filled a vital role in the English social scene. So did the Coketown Hippo.
then there's Craddock. I wouldn't say he was all that wonderful.'
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