Life, the Universe and Everything

Today the County Championship gets underway following last week’s curtain raiser where the reigning champions - Sussex - took on the MCC at Lord’s. On Friday the Indian Premier League’s inaugural match takes place in Bangalore. Frank Keating, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, predicted that this could mark the knell of English cricket’s domestic first class tournament; he doubted that it would reach its 120th anniversary which is only two years away.

Attendances at County Championship matches are smaller than those of the domestic limited overs tournaments, with the new kid on the block - Twenty20 - packing spectators into grounds across the country. I think that the novelty has had a chance to wear off, yet the initial excitement and enthusiasm for this form of the game has not diminished.

I sincerely hope that Keating’s prediction does not come to pass. I will be at the County Ground in Chelmsford tomorrow - weather permitting - to watch the second day’s play as Essex entertain Northants. As a full member at Essex, I only have to show my membership card to gain admission to all home matches except the Twenty20 games which cost extra. I shall not be attending those matches, and would still be absent even if they were included in my membership package. I attended a couple of matches in the inaugural season of the tournament and was not overly impressed.

I have been referred to by other cricket fans as a traditionalist - usually accompanied with a sneer - that is stuck in the past. I refute that: I enjoy limited overs cricket and will be at the Pro40 League and Friends Provident Trophy matches this season. It is specifically the Twenty20 competitions that I do not enjoy and so do not bother attend.

It is the very nature of the Twenty20 format that I object to. Virtually every delivery - most of which are full or even Yorker length, with very little variation - gives rise to runs or a wicket. I realise that this sounds like a strange thing to object to, so I will attempt to clarify. If you remove the lowlights from the match then the highlights become the norm and cease to be special: the impact of a boundary or a wicket is diminished as a result. If I really wanted to watch every delivery slogged to the boundary I would visit the local park during the summer holidays. The technique for this format of the game is divorced from that of the first class game with echoes of Rugby: both codes are recognisable as Rugby, but Union and League are very different games in both style and tactics.

I realise that Twenty20 has captured the public’s imagination and that anything that raises cricket’s profile can only be good for the game: I just hope that the obituary for the County Championship need not be published in the foreseeable future.