Covid-19 outbreak zaps England’s red-ball ambitions back to square one
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The County Championship is not really the common Englishman’s cup of tea. Go around asking people in the towns and you would realize that on a Saturday afternoon, they would much rather watch a drab League 2 encounter between Swindon Town and Cheltenham.
And there are many reasons for the same. For starters, the fixtures are so crammed that within a blink of an eye, you find that half the season has been done and dusted with. Then comes the borderline-doltish scheduling from the board, where they sandwich Royal London Cup matches in between four-day fixtures. One day, you have Somerset winning an absolute thriller on a rank turner in Taunton versus Kent and two days later, you have the very same side getting battered on a lifeless wicket at Trent Bridge in their Burgundy-coloured jersey.
And, as if all this isn’t enough already, you have a total of eighteen teams split between divisions, and by the time you figure out who plays for who, the season is already over. Not the friendliest of competitions from a consumer’s perspective, is it? Nevertheless, the tournament carries a kooky charm with it and the absurdity of it is what makes it special; there are not many places on earth where you have 43-year-olds scoring double tons and taking five-wicket hauls, games getting finished under one-and-a-half-days and an entire month’s action being washed out by rain.
But as things stand, it looks highly likely that we won’t be witnessing any of that charm this season, with the ECB confirming that the pandemic has led to the suspension of the season at least until May 28. The board also let it slip that they would be prioritizing white-ball commitments, especially The Hundred and the Vitality Blast, in order to recuperate the money that they have lost so far.
There is, of course, a slight glimmer of hope that the ECB could still hold a curtailed red-ball season, but with 7 rounds of the competition scheduled to be played before May 28 and with the Vitality Blast (May) and The Hundred (July) separated hardly by a month, you would imagine that it would make all the sense for the board to pull the trigger on the County Championship. Now this would definitely irk the fans - and specifically, the purists - for everyone is already pissed about The Hundred and have voiced their displeasure over the format, but what the board perhaps don’t realize is that it also takes their rebuilding process of the Test team back to square one.
You cannot blame the board, for they have their hands tied to their backs due to the ongoing crisis, but it is a shame for the team indeed, as, in South Africa, it looked like England had finally sought solace in the form of traditional values. It looked like for the first time in many years, they had finally set up a base that they could use to propel and polish the team further, but the ongoing crisis - which in all likelihood looks like it will result in the cancellation of County Championships - is now threatening them to zap them back into the box of uncertainty that they found themselves stuck inside, for over four years.
The disruption to the red-ball season significantly hinders the team’s plans to make strides in the game’s longest format and despite the inaugural season of The Hundred drawing all attention, the 2020/21 County Season was envisioned to be a very important one for the English team. Cast your minds back to September 2019, in the immediate aftermath of the Ashes debacle. The lack of quality and direction in the county circuit was deemed to be the primary reason for England’s incompetence in the longer format and the local media absolutely tore into the ‘feeder system’ for being concerned more about finances rather than providing the best platform to prepare its cricketers for the ultimate test that is the international level.
From doing away with bowler-friendly pitches - which has ultimately hindered the quality of both batsmen and bowlers in the country - to the usage of Kookaburra balls, several changes were suggested and whilst the ECB refused to incorporate any of them, the forthcoming season did serve as a great chance to evaluate the country’s progress and whether they were headed in the right direction, heading into the future. But by the looks of things, that will have to wait.
Arguably, though, the one aspect the board would rue the most is the fact that this would turn out to be a missed opportunity to evaluate and see where the individuals actually stand, given the Sri Lanka tour was also subsequently postponed. This was a chance to test whether the individuals who showed promise with the bat in the South Africa series - be it Dom Sibley or Zak Crawley - were prepared to dig in, put in a shift and make a statement to the selectors that they are here to stay. Given what’s happened in the past with Gary Ballance, Sam Robson and Keaton Jennings, it was of the utmost importance that the players who’d broken through into the side did firmly stamp their authority in the domestic circuit with their performances. That, now, will also have to wait.
But that’s not all there is to it. Should normalcy resume towards the end of July, England could potentially find themselves entering into the series versus Pakistan not knowing who their Top three, specialist spinner, and wicket-keeper would be. Would it be fair on them to rely on Jack Leach, who has not played any competitive cricket since November 2019, or would they be brave enough to persist with Dom Bess who, despite being the side’s #1 in the Proteas series, is ironically Leach’s understudy in Somerset? Given there were so many complaints about Matt Parkinson’s inability to adjust to conditions and bowl quicker through the air, would this cancelled red-ball season mark the end of his Ashes hopes? What will they do with their top three, given that Rory Burns, their best opener in the last 18 months, would be slated to return - will they wield the axe on Denly, as he is the oldest and move Crawley to No3, will they take the easy route out and drop the youngster or will they drop a bombshell by making Burns warm the bench?
Then comes the wicket-keeper conundrum. Given there is no window to get runs under his belt, what do they do with Jonny Bairstow, who, according to the selectors, is not the first choice anymore! Does he magically get back in, or does Ben Foakes pip him as the next in line? Is Jos Buttler still the go-to man in the selectors’ mind - as they’d suggested prior to the Lankan series - or will they throw Foakes into the mix in order to prepare Buttler for the World T20? Does this also signal the mark of Moeen Ali’s Test career, given he was not handed a red-ball contract by the board and has also now lost the chance of staking a claim for selection? Are they still looking at Mark Wood as a viable long-term option with the red-ball, and, if not, who are the next crop of pacers in line to get into the team? So many questions for the management, all of which will now have to wait.
There have been many occasions where the English management have been naive and ignorant and dug their own grave, but in this case, you’ve got no option but to feel for them, for they’ve been done dirty by the pandemic that has completely tossed their plans into the trash can. The hopes of the fans witnessing rain-marred, low-scoring thrillers in the summers seem to be diminishing by the day, but only time will tell if this cancelled/curtailed red-ball season would dash England’s hopes of retaining the urn when they tour Down Under in 18 months time.
