Vote on future domestic schedule delayed, current structure to provide basis for 2023 season

GEORGE DOBELL AT THE KIA OVAL: It had originally been suggested the county chairs would hold a vote on September 20 but Richard Thompson, the new chair of the ECB, believes that timeframe is insufficient and wants further consultation

The vote into the future domestic schedule has been delayed to allow further time for consultation.

It had originally been suggested the county chairs would hold a vote on September 20 in the hope of agreeing on proposals resulting from the high performance review run by Andrew Strauss.

But Richard Thompson, the new chair of the ECB, has now announced that timeframe is insufficient to allow adequate discussion or retain integrity in the current season's competitions. As a result, the schedule for the 2022 season, which almost everyone accepts is poor, will provide the basis for the 2023 season.

"The vote is delayed, we need more consultation," Thompson said. "I made it very clear to Andrew Strauss and the high performance review that we are very excited about the outcome of this but we want to reach the right decision. Let's talk to stakeholders, get everybody on side and carry on that consultation.

"Sporting integrity plays a part here, too. If you are a county or a player, you want to know, going into a season, if I finish there, I'll be in that division, and if I finish there, I'll be in that one. It's tough on players to not know what they are playing for.

^{Richard Thompson (left) [Alex Davidson/Getty Images]}

"There is no date for the vote. We'll have a vote when we are ready. The 2023 season plays out as the 2022 season.

"A date for the vote was never set in stone. A lot of people got very excited around the country about a proposal that had not even landed. I hadn't even seen the proposal."

While Thompson accepted that the "old ECB" might have worked in such a way to limit consultation and force the chairs into a vote – as was the case with the introduction of the Hundred – he insisted the new ECB was "a lot more transparent." He also accepted that coming up with an acceptable schedule was "the worst game of Jenga ever."

"That’s the old ECB," he said. "That's not the way things work anymore. We are a lot more transparent. Actually a lot more information has been put in the public domain than ever before. More than you can almost cope with, but I'd rather it be put out there and have a healthy debate.

"It's like the worst game of Jenga ever.  But I do not want to diminish the red-ball competition. For me, it's the gold standard. It's where you make history, where you define your career. But you need to ensure you are not fixated on [the] volume [of red-ball cricket]."

Thompson hopes that, for the 2024 season, the ECB will have devised a schedule that allows "all four competitions" to thrive, but insists this review – "the mother of all reviews" as he refers to it – will be the last for the foreseeable future.

"I'll make one commitment: there's no more domestic reviews. There's no governance reviews. As a game we do too much of that. So I think now's your chance. This can be the mother of all reviews and if we get it right - and some of the outcomes might be radical – there has to be a schedule and a rhythm to the season that I have not experienced in 12 years [involved as an administrator with the sport]."