Spot the Difference

Context:  Lunchtime of the 4th and final day of the final round of matches in the County Championship Dicision 1

Warw 493, Hants 324 and 178/3 f.o.: Hants lead Warwickshire by 9 runs with 7 wickets remaining.

Somerset 380 and 205/8, Lancs 480: Somerset lead by 105 runs with wickets 2 remaining.

UPDATE at Tea:

Warw 493, Hants 324 and 262/5 f.o.: Hants lead Warwickshire by 9s runs with 5 wickets remaining.

Somerset 380 and 310, Lancs 480 and 32/0 : Lancashire require 179 with 10 wickets remaining.

Headingley and the Ashes or How 9 into 7 Won’t Go

This week the Yorkshire Chairman, Colin Graves, announced that the Club would not be bidding to host an Ashes Test in 2013 – this the ground on which Bradman scored 334 in 1930, Botham made 149* and Willis took 8 – 43 in 1981 and on which Waugh spanked 157* in 1993.

But in the market there is no room for sentiment or a place for history.

Yorkshire lost £1.8 last year, £1 million of that on the Australia/Pakistan Test which betrayed a lack of understanding of and deep disconnect with the Asian communities around them.

A projected loss this year of £300k is described as not a ‘massive loss’ but even this has meant seven redundancies and the post of Chief Executive left vacant.  A profit in 2012 is dependent on selling out for the first three days of the Test match.

“I’m not going to put the club at risk again bidding for an Ashes Test match,” says Graves, who knows that with nine clubs chasing seven Tests the arithmetic is against them.

Nor will their be an overseas player wearing the traditional Oxford and Cambridge Blue Black and Gold of the White Rose county, deciding instead to secure the all-season availability of Huddersfield born Ryan Sidebottom .

A new member of the ECB Board, Graves is urging the governing body to ask the big, searching questions about how to sustain cricket.

But for now one thing is certain, there will be no Ashes Test at Headingley for the foreseeable future.

Graves says that Yorkshire has protected its playing staff, but over the Pennines, the Lancashire website reveals  that  there may only be 17 contracted players on the books, provoking fears of relegation, but what an opportunity for young talent.

Again, there are as yet no overseas players unless you count Moore who was born in Jo’Burg and came to this country with his parents when 18.

So, in the Age of Austerity cricket is changing for good or ill -fewer full time professionals and fewer overseas players.  This could be a boon for the national side of the mid to late ‘Teens.  And of course it is the national team (and the grass roots of course) that keeps the whole edifice afloat.

“Dick, you’re not on the bus tonight.”

The question Third Man asks you is; would Albert Hornby and Dick Barlow open for Lancs in each of their sides in Season2010? 

Looking through his tears, would Francis Thompson first need to know which form of the game his ghosts were playing?  LVCC, CB40 or FPt20?

Third Man has learnt that Hornby was strong on the front-foot and played the off-drive superbly.   He was more than useful in the field and an inspirational captain. 

There is no doubt that Hornby would have been on the team sheets for the four day LV County Championship, the CB40 format and the FPt20 competition. 

However Barlow was an innovator of the defensive spirit.  He developed the forward defensive and is described as ‘dour and resolute’.  He’s on the team sheet for the LVCC matches, there can be no doubt about that, but would the Director of Cricket need him for CB40 or FPt20?   

This season a number of Counties have invested heavily in buying players just for T20, gambling to win entry into the Champions League.

Hornby and Barlow would open in just three County Championship matches at Old Trafford in the whole of June and July this year.  Could Barlow be ‘loaned’ to another county for that time?

Overseas players come and go depending on their availability and here too decisions on replacements will be influenced by the types of cricket played in the periods under consideration.   

The ECB’s initiatives to link funding to the number of young players fielded is very welcome and overdue, but, even with home grown talent, are we heading for contracts for specific tournaments? 

If a youthful Barlow isn’t needed for Lancashire’s CB40 and T20 sides wouldn’t he want to seek a contract in Derbyshire’s CB40 season?  That would be attractive for him in terms of career development, attractive to Derbyshire to have his fighting spirit, attractive to Lancashire to have him off the payroll for those matches.

Captain of his Side, Albert, has a difficult conversation.  “Dick, you’re not on the bus tonight.”