London, July 06: Somerset captain Justin Langer has protested against the ECB’s proposed decision to cut the number of County Championship matches to accommodate the Champions League which will take place in September 2010.
The ECB is facing a serious backlash from professional players over radical plans to reform domestic cricket and Langer has defended the current four-day format, saying it is “perfect”.
“I think they should stay with the 16 per county,” he told the Bristol Evening Post. “The two divisions [with promotion and relegation] is excellent because there are no dead-rubber games. You have to play home and away in my opinion because that is the best way to play it and two divisions is excellent because every game has something on it.
“You want to be in the first division because that is where the best cricket, the esteem and the prize money is. If our blokes can perform at this level they will be close to being ready for international cricket. The way the four-day cricket is set up at the moment is perfect.”
A proposal by Alan Fordham, the ECB’s head of cricket operations, includes several schemes such as reducing the number of Championship games from 16 to 12, and possibly splitting the tournament into three divisions. At the heart of the idea is the realisation that squeezing in two Twenty20 competitions from 2010 will mean an increasingly punishing schedule for county players.
Langer gave the example of Somerset’s record chase of 476 against Yorkshire at Taunton last week – a “miracle” – as he worried about the standard of pitches in England. “We can be sure that not many teams will ever declare here again,” he said. “I would never point the finger at Phil [Frost, Somerset’s groundsman] but it is still a concern to me that we play on these wickets and someone like Durham [who lead Division One)] play on obviously very sporty wickets and they have got four victories.
“We have got to work really hard for our victories. Yorkshire was a bit of a miracle – it was the second highest chase ever – and we don’t want to be relying on miracles to win the Championship. You just can’t bowl teams out in the second innings here and that is a bit of a worry for me.”
A final decision is expected at the full ECB board meeting on July 29.
—–Agencies