Brian Halford: Squeezing the life out of the County Championship
When Charles Lister Higginbotham was fetched from his cell in Birmingham prison in 1889, he was asked if he had anything to say.
“They ain’t gave me nothink to eat,” replied the condemned man. In his last hour of life, his only complaint was that he would go to the gallows on an empty stomach.
For Higginbotham, poor wretch, 121 years on, read the county championship which, in all probability, next week begins its final journey.
The championship season will start on April 9 when Warwickshire face Yorkshire at Edgbaston. The Bears’ chances of winning the title for the seventh time are remote. Without Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott for much of the season, upper mid-table appears a realistic objective.
Perhaps a bowling attack led by wrist-spinner Imran Tahir might force enough wins for a surprise tilt at the title.
Let’s hope so, because it’s probably the last chance.
In 2011, the “championship” may well consist of three “conferences” (Don’t you love that word? So much more gravitas than “groups”) of six. More and more counties, seduced by the short-term till-clinging of Twenty20, are warming to the idea of making that format central to the county game.
Emphasis has been shifting for some time and will continue to do so this summer when Warwickshire play 16 T20 games as the heart of the season, mid-to-late June, is handed over to that competition.
The championship? Well, a quarter of the Bears’ programme will be played by May 7, shunted into spring before the weather warms up. Their four-day season reaches halfway after the home game with Somerset on June 7, after which Edgbaston’s next championship fixture will be on July 20.
After June 7, there will be 12 days of championship cricket in Birmingham.
The message to punters from both the England and Wales Cricket Board and counties is clear. Come to championship matches if you like. If you don’t like, who cares?
That apathy from the top explains why, each year, a decreasing number of diehards bother.
It’s the Higginbotham syndrome. He’s condemned anyway, so why feed him?
Ambivalent to the championship, the ECB has neglected it for years. Making the itinerary a shambles. Often denuding it of England players. Starving it of publicity. Allowing umpires to write off countless hours of play due to “dangerous” conditions (damp grass).
And sitting idly by while counties allow match after match to meander to excruciatingly dull draws.
About that latter point, Warwickshire supporters know plenty. In 2008, seven of eight championship games at Edgbaston were drawn, several petering out in desperate fashion.
