In this week’s vodcast, we discuss:
- The start of the County T20 Cup
- Is domestic women’s cricket too complicated?
- What Syd made of his first 100-ball cricket match
- Does the media need to be more critical of women’s cricket?
- Good news for coverage of women’s cricket via the ECB Reporter’s Network
To listen to our appearance on the Broken Trophy podcast, click here.
CRICKETher 
I quite agree about players playing for different teams. Identifying with players really helps develop bonds. I’m a Notts and Lightning fan, Now, for example, S Bryce is at Kent; the bonds are weakened. The 100 makes this even worse, and for men too, but I won’t be watching that anyway. But the whole thing is a mess of one scheme stuck on top of another.
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Why don’t all the women’s county games have live feeds, via FrogBox or the such like? I would have thought this was fairly easy to organise, either by the clubs or the ECB.
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I agree that it does all look a bit ‘quart in a pint pot’ if you consider we have The Hundred AND regional T20 AND regional 50 over AND official county T20 AND unofficial county 50 over. Not sure what the alternative is, given that this site is a committed supporter of county cricket but also acknowledges that the regional competitions have been successful. I couldn’t stomach a system whereby 8 counties were selected to become professional and the rest were left to contest what might be an equivalent of the men’s Minor Counties Championship. To use a topical reference, that just seems to have more than a whiff of the European Super League about it, where certain counties become protected from relegation just because they happened to be amongst the elite at a given point in time. There are counties such as Hampshire and Worcestershire who have risen through the divisions and I’m a big believer of maintaining a meritocracy, where sports teams can all aspire to be the best. Syd might not have been too happy if 8 counties were selected to go professional and Berkshire weren’t one of them? I’d love to hear more from Syd and Raf and from any other contributors to this site on this – how would domestic women’s cricket look if you were given a blank piece of paper and were given sole charge of putting together an appropriate structure?
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A blank piece of paper seems like an excellent idea. Let’s rip it up and start again!
I’d have just 2 sets of teams – the counties, and regions. Ideally these would play both T20 and 50 overs (possibly also with a 2 Inns competition for the regions). And the regions would select from their counties only. So, for example, an East Mids team would have the best players from Lincs, Notts, Derbys, and Leics. And the England contracted players could play in the regional competitions, but not necessarily the county level.
If The Hundred had claimed from the outset that one of its raison d’etres was to promote parity between men and women, it would have brought a lot more established fans on side. Having the same teams is a good idea. But this came later, after most existing men’s county fans had already been told it’s not for them. Compiling regional men’s teams to play in the same tournament as the women’s regionals would make sense. I would have got behind both East Mids teams, though, again, with players only from those counties – no Root, Brunt, et al.
Finally, for both M and W, I would run some kind of 2nd XI style tournaments contemporaneous to the regionals, so those who didn’t get picked for the regional sides still played. And the primary 50 over competition, for both M and W, would take place another time – shortened if needs be, but not devalued by missing players.
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