The green, green grass of Hove
Cricket’s core fan base turns out in the April sunshine
The ice cream van was doing a steady trade, even at £4 for a Magnum. Made the twenty quid ticket feel especially good value. Around 2,500 people basked in the April sunshine, the breeze from the Hove seafront just enough to give a freshness to the atmosphere. At the tea interval, hundreds gathered around the square to ponder the mysteries of an early season strip that claimed fourteen wickets in the day’s final two sessions. A young girl cartwheeled in the outfield. This was the County Ground on the first home day of cricket for Sussex in 2025.
The young gymnast aside, the crowd in the half-full venue was largely from a demographic alien to the ECB’s business strategy for The Hundred. This was a spectator base taken for granted in the governing body’s search for a new audience. By coming in such numbers on the South coast and across the land (5,639 at The Oval that same day), cricket’s core followers inadvertently give licence to be overlooked in the ECB’s scramble for a share of the dollars and rupees flowing into franchise tournaments worldwide.
If The Hundred featured at all in the Hove boundary-edge chatter, it was to bemoan the prominence it has been given in the prime summer month of August, forcing a calendar hiatus in the scheduling of both the County Championship and T20 Blast. Weather and events on the field permitting, in April Hove hosts eight days of men’s first class cricket. August, by contrast, will bring just four days of One-Day Cup action. This, remember, is now a competition devalued by the absence of swathes of players contracted to The Hundred.
One welcome innovation in county cricket in recent years has been the free live streaming of matches. A boon no doubt to cricket gambling junkies in far off lands, but also to the deep well of people who consider themselves followers of cricket in England, even if they may rarely or never pay to go through a turnstile. The Times reported that more than 10,000 watched Warwickshire squeeze to a one wicket victory against Durham on Monday.
County cricket is truly a niche pursuit with a very broad spread of casual followers. This cohort is a soft target for the sale of tickets to watch England internationals each summer. It might also care on occasion to tune into watch The Hundred on the box. How, though, is it to be nurtured and replenished with young adherents to county cricket?
The ECB believe its new(ish) competition is an answer - or at least the central part of one - but the first class counties would be foolish to sit back and expect this to provide them with a lasting solution. The proceeds from the auction of the eight franchises in The Hundred should keep the eighteen counties financially afloat for the next few years, but it is the quality and marketing of their own product that will determine whether they sink of swim in the long term.
With Test series against India at home this summer and the Ashes in Australia next winter, there may be a spike in interest in cricket for the ECB to exploit. However, the two England men’s white ball teams are in a trough and in need of an overhaul, rival nations have begun to rumble the Bazball approach to red ball cricket, and England’s women were humiliated by Australia in their own Ashes.
Unless results for England teams are strong over the coming year, the ECB’s marketing department will be asking just what the product is that they are being tasked with selling. Big event glitz, a nostalgia fest that’s part of the social season, or the thrill of genuine sporting jeopardy? Rest assured, the stiff opposition in the cricketing contests that matter will ask searching questions of their own on the pitch.
As players churn through the England teams, the first class counties will rightly bellow their repeated reminder that they provide the pathway to international honours for young cricketers. Central contracts and franchise engagements may be on offer at ever younger ages, but county cricket - red and white ball - remains pretty much the sole route towards the top of the game.
It is easy, given this structure for the sport, to understand why so many of the counties and their members are aggrieved at the disjointed calendar effectively imposed on them by the ECB.
A couple of years ago a review of the first class game, led by Andrew Strauss, was blocked by counties alarmed at a proposed reduction in both their red and white ball cricket. Now, the ECB is trying again, this time through Rob Andrew, most recently CEO at Sussex and back in the day rugby fly-half for England.
Andrew has a reputation for conservatism as a sports administrator. He is preaching a more collaborative approach this time round too. The counties will likely see both as signs that their product won’t be further diluted in his review. But can it actually be strengthened?
Only if there are eight days of meaningful, monetisable cricket at every first class ground, every August from 2026 onwards will Rob Andrew’s review be judged a success.
Don’t be dazzled by the hype around The Hundred, this review is where the future of cricket in England will be determined. Listen out, though, for the voices of those who have ploughed half a billion pounds into the franchise auction. What weight will Rob Andrew and the ECB give them in this critical debate? I fear far too much.
Meantime, rain and wind are forecast for round three of the County Championship. It is April in England, after all.
98 Not Out
If you fancy more cricket chat, I’ve been talking to Daren Mootoo on his 98 Not Out podcast. You can listen on all major platforms, including here on Spotify
Nowhere to hide
“I genuinely said that with no inkling that Cardiff were going to go into administration. I was on the Cardiff board at the time, but I was blissfully unaware of such developments being considered, and when the news broke on Tuesday [8 April] I was as shocked as anyone.” Sam Warburton in The Times three days later
Sam Warburton left the Cardiff Rugby board a fortnight before the club went into administration. Athletes bring huge value to sports boards, but often arrive without deep financial experience. All directors, though, have individual and collective responsibility for an organisation’s health. The onus is on those at the table with the financial expertise to ensure that others who bring different skills are never left blissfully unaware.
You can read Warburton’s column on Cardiff’s woes here
State of Grace
Back to East Sussex now. Peter James’s series of Roy Grace detective novels set around Brighton is excellent. The Grace TV series it has spawned is terrible. Its producers have now fallen foul of Brighton and Hove Albion fans by renaming the club Brighton Royals and filming a bomb plot storyline at AFC Wimbledon’s Plough Lane rather than Brighton’s AMEX Stadium. Presumably the filming fee proposed by the Premier League club was too steep for ITV, or it didn’t want a matchday explosive to feature on national television, even a fictional one.
I’m grateful, as a Palace fan, to a piece in The Argus for giving me a snigger at Brighton’s expense. Read it here
Ted Lasso and Dear England aside, do the creative industries ever do football’s inherent drama justice?
Game on!
Now this is one creative collaboration that is worth celebrating: the DS Eagles, with a supporting cast of Crystal Palace women’s and men’s first teamers, covering Glad All Over to raise awareness of the club’s Game On route-to-employment programme. Dean Henderson, it seems, may have a future in soaps, but as a singer Chris Richards is a magnificent central defender.
Now, click on the YouTube link above, forward it on, and let’s see if the DS Eagles can go viral (and not for the first time!).
County cricket is like the church of England and Tory Party. Reports of its death are a perennial. But it never quite happens. The fact is people tend to get older and develop perspective, even wisdom, that long form cricket plays to. And despite fears to the contrary, an ageing population seems given. So longer form cricket should be targeting a growing market. My biggest concern is getting people into the funnel. It starts with playing. At primary school. Local clubs have replaced cricket in secondary schools for 93% of the population. ECB and Chance to Shine MUST connect the two. Then comes watching. It probably needs more FTA but, to be honest, your average Gen Z is more likely to inadvertently find themselves watching live action on You Tube than Sky or BBC. Which is why the county livestreaming is so important and not just in massaging your test match ticket buyers. It needs some investment though not a paywall. Just patching in local BBC radio commentary to wonky camera pictures is not enough. Every county should take a look at how Somerset do it. It's a naughty pleasure.