Rob Key: We can't have people not playing first-class cricket in August

GEORGE DOBELL: Key believes it would have helped the Test side to have some first-class cricket going into the series against South Africa and that it makes little sense to have no such cricket during the peak weeks of summer

Rob Key has thrown his support behind the idea of playing first-class cricket during the window created for The Hundred.

Key, the managing director of England men's cricket, believes it would have helped the Test side to have some first-class cricket going into the series against South Africa and that it makes little sense to have no such cricket during the peak weeks of summer.

And with Key, like Andrew Strauss, adamant that the Hundred is a non-negotiable part of the schedule, it leaves the game needing to decide which cricket would best run alongside that competition.

"We can't have people not playing first-class cricket in that August window," Key told Sky Sports. "I saw a tweet saying Middlesex have had eight days of cricket or something over a huge amount of time: that just can't be right.

"In this series it would have been better if we'd had been able to give our Test cricketers some red-ball cricket going into that.

"I don't want players not to be playing any first-class cricket throughout that period. It just doesn't work if they're just playing eight days of cricket in that time. I think we'll end up with a better structure than what we've got this year."

It may be worth noting that Key uses the term 'first-class cricket' rather than 'Championship cricket'. Under proposals made by Durham chief executive Tim Bostock, who is also a strong contender for the role of ECB chief executive, there may be some consideration given to playing a regionalised first-class competition during the Hundred window.

There would be some irony to such a scenario. Both Key and Strauss have expressed the view that too much cricket is played. To add another competition would seem an odd way of countering that.

Either way, Key says The Hundred is going nowhere and there is no discussion on the number of first-class counties.

^{Rob Key has called for first-class cricket to be played in August (Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images)}

"The general consensus, quite strongly, is we play far too much cricket," Key said. "But if you're a red-ball only player, say someone like Dom Sibley, who doesn't necessarily play in The Hundred, then you play not a lot of cricket but in this gap and there's no time to practice or prepare. It's travel-play-travel-play. In an ideal world you want your players to be able to practice, to be able to prepare, play and recover, and still have a really good competition.

"You've got to deal with what you can; you're not going to end up getting rid of the Blast or any counties. The Hundred is an integral part of the broadcast deal for one thing and it's going to do so much for our game. I know it's a very divisive thing but The Hundred is going to be something that secures the future of our game.

"From a high-performance point of view, it's the best standard of white-ball cricket that we've got. It's the best players playing against the best. You want to be able to have the best players and teams going at it over and over again.

While Strauss conceded there would be not cut in the number of domestic first-class games in the 2023 season, there could still be change.

Early indications from the first meetings in Manchester on Friday, suggest there could well be some consensus over playing first-class – and quite possibly Championship – cricket in August as well as starting the Vitality T20 Blast a couple of weeks later than was the case this season. The Royal London Cup, the domestic 50-over competition, is also likely to be played much earlier in the season.

Meanwhile, Key suggested he would appoint a head selector at the end of the season and defended the continued selection of both England's Test openers despite their modest run of form.

"We just want to make sure we're going to give people opportunity," he said. "If there's ever a time when we have new opening batters or new players, they will know they will get the same amount of opportunity as these guys have done because we have spent 10 years since Strauss and Cook, trying to find an opening partnership and it is the toughest part of batting at the moment. We've gone backwards and forwards with all these different people, we're going to give them a proper go."

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