Championship concern over draft schedule

HUW TURBERVILL: The draft schedule for the 2020 season sees the County Championship shunted to the margins of the summer more than ever before

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The draft schedule for the 2020 season sees the County Championship shunted to the margins of the summer more than ever before. The schedule – sent to county chiefs and seen by The Cricketer – was drawn up by Alan Fordham, the ECB’s head of cricket operations.

Tasked with incorporating four domestic competitions, there is widespread sympathy for him. There is some disagreement about why it has been laid out as it has though. There seemed to be a clue when the ECB delegation were questioned by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. “Next year, from 2020 onwards, the schedule has been put together by the stakeholders, the counties,” ECB chairman Colin Graves said. “They got together between them; we didn’t impose anything on them.”

The inference was that it looks as if the counties chose to have their Blast matches, not Championship, in mid-summer. And if that was the case, one could understand why: T20 makes big money, the four-day game does not. But a county chief told The Cricketer that this was not the case. Fordham presented the draft schedule to the counties, and they accepted the reality of the situation: there is just too much to fit in. Counties are actually annoyed that the Blast is not in a self-contained window – there are long gaps between the qualifiers, the quarter-finals and the final. The ECB have promised to try to address this in 2021.

The schedule sees three Championship matches in April and four in May. The Blast holds sway. A Championship match then pops up in mid-June, before there is more Blast. There are then two four-day windows. The Hundred is poised to start on July 17, with the ‘development’ 50-over tournament commencing a day later. 

The Blast quarters are from August 18-21, then it is two Championship windows (August 23, 29). Blast finals day is on on September 5, followed by two Championship windows (September 8, 14). The 50-over final is set to be on September 5, and the season ends with the Championship on September 21 and 27... later than ever before.

The two three-Test series are against West Indies (June 4–29) and Pakistan (July 30–August 24). There is not much four-day cricket ahead of that latter series, raising concerns that players will not have a chance to prove form and fitness. 

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