By Andy Frombolton

The ECB has recently sent an Invitation To Tender (ITT) to all 18 men’s First Class Counties (FCC) plus MCC seeking expressions of interest in becoming one of 8 proposed Tier 1 (premier) women’s cricket counties.

In several places, the ITT refers to the idea of there being relegation and promotion after the initial 4-year period.

This article explains how it would be almost unworkable in practice and disastrous in reality; requiring teams to prioritise survival over talent development, pushing talent towards the teams deemed safest from relegation, and potentially deterring FCCs from bidding for Tier 1 status.

Starting with the basics, what would be the methodology for determining the Tier 1 team to be relegated? Very easy if the same team came bottom of both competitions, but what if the same team won the T20 competition and came last in the 50-over competition? What if a team’s results had been significantly impacted by injuries to key players or England call-ups or even by weather? (Remembering the 2021 Men’s T20 Blast where Sussex had 5 games rained off whereas no northern team lost more than 1 game to weather.) Relegation wouldn’t be like going from Division 1 to Division 2 in the Men’s County Championship, it would be brutal and binary (going from professional to amateur).

Obviously, the same question applies in respect of the team to be promoted. With 10 (or possibly 11) FCCs playing in Tier 2 it’s even less likely that the same team would win most competitions.

But let’s imagine that a methodology was developed to determine the teams to be relegated and promoted …

At the macro level, the geographic spread of Tier 1 teams (which the ITT stresses will be an overarching goal in the initial selection of successful bidders) could swiftly be distorted or rapidly dismantled. To illustrate the point, imagine the first team to be relegated was the North East / ‘Yorkshire’ team and the promoted county was located in the South East. The following year, the North West / ‘Lancashire’ team is relegated and, again, the promoted team is from the South East. Suddenly, there’s no Tier 1 cricket north of the Midlands, and a huge concentration of Tier 1 counties in the South East.

The situation is even messier at the micro level …

The relegated team would need to release all its contracted players (paying compensation to those in the middle of multi-year contracts) as well as associated coaching and support staff. Players with local commitments, mortgages, etc. might not be able to move and could swiftly run into financial difficulties. The relegated club may also have developed resources or facilities for the women’s team which they can no longer afford or which are now surplus to requirements. To mitigate this financial risk, counties would be forced to only offer 1 year rolling contracts to their players and staff – which is hardly conducive to persuading women that good careers exist in cricket and certainly not allowing them to plan their futures with any confidence.

And, if the audience and demand for the women’s game has grown as hoped, the relegated team will have played its part in this success (both in terms of providing an entertaining product and investing their own money in the team). Their reward? Expulsion at the very time when the game should be moving to a sustainable footing and some of their sunk costs might be recovered?

For the promoted team, the reward for most, and possibly all, of the amateur players who were responsible for securing the promotion would be to lose their county places, since the newly-promoted team will need to rapidly migrate to a fully-professional squad ready to compete the following season. A few of the victors might pick up professional contracts on the back of their performances, but the rest would need to move to another Tier 2 county (or perhaps might just choose to leave the game). (This is a serious issue – the ITT would create a situation where the most talented amateur players in 10 counties would be denied the chance to play for their county.)

The promoted club would then have the off-season to negotiate a funding agreement (assuming acceptable terms can be agreed) and sign a venue agreement with the ECB, wherafter it would need to recruit a full squad and support staff from scratch. A wholesale novation of staff from the relegated club isn’t realistic – the promoted team might not want (or might not be able to afford) certain players or support staff, and conversely the impacted players and staff might not want (or be able) to move to a new location. The only other source of players would be the county’s existing amateurs (who may not aspire to be professional cricketers) and out-of-contract or released players; collectively this might allow you to assemble a team, but not necessarily one with a good chance of not being relegated at the end of the following season.

These issues might easily be enough to deter possible bidders, but if they didn’t, they would certainly promote short-termism in player recruitment and a disincentive to invest in developing young talent. If the primary motivation becomes survival, a team’s outlook becomes myopic.

Within the chosen Tier 1 counties, it is almost certain that there will be significant differences in their respective spending power. Many of the best players would gravitate towards the richer counties, which could offer them more in the way of support and facilities (and perhaps better out-of-season overseas opportunities if their coaches are well connected). So, although money isn’t a guarantee of on-field success, it makes it more likely that the battle to avoid relegation wouldn’t be an 8-way battle but one fought out between the 3-4 smaller clubs.

For all these reasons, the idea of promotion and relegation needs to be abandoned. 

Players could then commit to teams with confidence and counties could afford to take a longer-term view towards the time when the women’s game achieves a self-sufficient and sustainable basis. 

The ECB could still reserve the right to terminate a county’s Tier 1 status if it failed to meet specified metrics in terms of player support, delivery of pathway programmes or required support to adjacent counties; much like a school being put in special measures, either installing their own management and staff, or (where this was viable) finding an adjacent FCC willing to take on the role.

And, Tier 2 teams which consistently produce a disproportionate number of players who go on to secure Tier 1 contracts could be rewarded with a bigger share of the funds provided to this level, thereby allowing them to invest in their local pathway and be well placed to make a bid for Tier 1 status if the number of clubs was ever increased.