So, the first round of county championship matches has concluded and the Blast is in full swing, and the Ashes are only a couple of weeks away. As I type England are making hay against Ireland, although things will be rather tougher against the old enemy I suspect.
Lancashire, my county, are undefeated but have been unable to force any wins, perhaps now regretting now signing a strike bowler as an overseas player. It is novel indeed to see Jos Buttler making the occasional appearance T20 as well, as he has made about 7 in the last 7 years in all formats! Surrey again look the team to beat, even with injuries to the likes of Jamie Overton somewhat depleting their attack.
One issue that has raised some eyebrows is Jason Roy’s decision to give up an England contract to play in the new US T20 league. Roy now only plays ODIs for England, having been dropped from the T20 side before the last world cup, and it is hard to criticise a player too much given the comparative shortness of a sporting career, and the fact that his brief sojourn in the test game merely showed gaps in his technique in red ball cricket. This winters tour to Bangladesh, which saw a weakened England side lose heavily with the non contracted players such as Alex Hales earning substantially more to play in the PSL, raises urgent questions as to how sustainable bilateral tournaments of this nature are moving forward. The international game outside of major tournaments seems to be regarded as an increasing irrelevance to players earning their corn in the global leagues.
That said, the Bazball approach does raise an interesting hypothetical scenario in which players such as Alex Hales and Roy himself were given a longer run in the side and encouraged to go out and hit the ball as far as possible. It is probably too late for these two fine white ball servants now, but Liam Livingstone may get another chance to show what T20 specialists can do in test cricket. It will be fun if it pays off, perhaps in India this winter.
The fact that Roy played in four different leagues over the winter does show an increasing demand for cricketers skilled in the white ball format, and the fact that the counties develop the players then see them so rarely (looking at you, Jos, as referred to above) has led Alec Stewart to raise the issue quite strongly in interview, suggesting county contracts need to be renegotiated.
While I am a county cricket fan at heart, the scenario of players choosing increasingly to play T20 only and the financial rewards available to them should set alarm bells ringing, even if no obvious solutions have presented themselves so far. Players will inevitably follow the money, and getting paid a lot more to play a T20 game rather than standing in the field for four days at a remote out ground will present itself to many players as an attractive option.
Around 20% of the county players were involved in T20 leagues over the winter, and as more and more players chase the big bucks it seems inevitable that more players will choose to specialise. The ECB needs to give serious consideration to making it worthwhile for the majority of players to continue to play all formats, or else the standard of the red ball competition will inevitably suffer, and counties will continue to develop players who then move onto pastures both new and wealthier. The game needs to address the issue now, to stop the problem becoming acute.