Inconsistency has plagued Yorkshire’s quest to achieve a three-peat of championship crowns in 2016, as they continue to cling on to their position in the middle of the division one table by the skin of their teeth. 

They say a strong Yorkshire makes for a strong England. While many whisper sceptically behind their hands, condemning any such theory, the burden of the old cliché – dated as it might be - weighs heavy on the shoulders of the playing group this season.        

We’ve been reminded during this unsunny summer that sheer weight of expectations is a significant encumbrance not to be brushed aside. Before a ball had been bowled in anger during April, we were told in no uncertain terms that there was no stopping the might of Yorkshire, who were bound for yet another year of unbridled successes.   
  
Au contraire. How four months, a coin toss and a few unanticipated departures can unhinge a perfectly architected yellow brick road. It now appears Yorkshire’s deep-seated winning culture has inexplicably gone to the dogs - or at the very least - hit a significant bump in a long and winding road.

Yorkshire are not directionless, but they are at this stage in a marathon season rooted to the spot on the Championship table with a formidable run home – one that includes a visit to Lord’s and Old Trafford. With Root, Balance, Bairstow and Rashid all away on England duty until at least the final round, it is left to a patchwork side to pick up the slack that flagged somewhere around mid-May. 

Had it not been for some pesky South-East weather intervening on a strong Yorkshire performance against Surrey at the Oval, they might well have been able to add a win to their season tally of 116, potentially positioning them inside the top 4. But there’s no point dwelling at this point on what could have been. 

All is far from lost for Yorkshire though. While they face a torrid time dealing with injury that constantly attempts to access permanent residency in the Yorkshire ranks, the likes of Leaning, Hodd and Rhodes will be asked to step up to the plate and toe the line through August and September for the defending champions.

The new toss regulations appear to have taken their toll on Yorkshire’s bowling, while their batting, led by messiah’s Lyth and Lees, consistently fluctuates between two extremes - breathtakingly brilliant and unequivocally vulnerable. A proclivity to inspire and frustrate fans in the same session is an inconsistency that must be addressed. Too often have Bresnan and Plunkett been called on to do the heavy lifting down the bottom of the order. 

Their bowling performances have laid the foundations for their successes in years gone by, but the scrapping of the coin toss this season has seen Yorkshire struggle to win outright. This issue is not isolated, it is very much a competition wide epidemic brought about by flat, lifeless wickets prepared in the knowledge that the opposition side mustn’t profit from their decision on the first morning. So much so that the toss has turned into a game of Russian roulette for the foolhardy.  
Yorkshire’s bowlers have toiled for days on end at stages this season, powerless to arrest fluent strokeplay, as batsmen fill their boots and plunder runs to all parts of the ground with ease. Their only reprieve from a 150-over graft, a sporting declaration from the opposition captain.   
It should come as no surprise then to find that Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale was among the first to speak his mind on the new toss regulations upon their unveiling in November last year. His statement was brief but insightful: “[no mandatory toss is] Absolute madness”.
Surrey captain Gareth Batty shared a similar sentiment towards the ensuing anarchy of the new toss regulations that saw his team chase leather in the field for 210-overs this week. He too was blunt in his appraisal of the current state of pitches around the country, labelling them - rather crudely I might add - as being “very flat” in nature. This statement may have been somewhat tongue in cheek, though, given that Batty was fresh from a trailblazing game that included an unbeaten hundred and eight wickets.        

But I shan’t harp on about these toss regulations any longer.         
Yorkshire’s Blast form is bordering on farcical, though, their mad cap style has struggled to bear fruit since even the early days of the Twenty-Twenty Cup. The absence of their England players during the period when the Sri Lankan ODI series was taking place hasn’t helped their cause either. 

Any hope of a journey to Edgbaston for finals day now appears bleak, with just a handful of fixtures – and therefore opportunities - remaining in the 2016 edition. But optimism and desire so often prevail in this whimsical game we call cricket. To sneak into the top four and progress beyond the North group stage they must win their final two games, and while they’re at it, muster a genie from a bottle to grant an indelible wish. Very rarely do six wins qualify a side for the quarter-finals. 

Yorkshire’s Blast campaign for 2016 has all but met its maker. 
Their Royal London One-Day Cup season started in the worst possible fashion, with a big loss to Worcestershire in a television game at Leeds. Since that dreary summer’s day, where their one-day season looked destined to follow suit, Yorkshire’s fortunes have experienced a dramatic revival. Back to back wins have them perched inside the top three and within striking distance of the unbeaten Derbyshire. 

A last start rout of rivals Lancashire whose batting innings ended inside 18-overs - only Martin Guptill surpassed single figures - will give them the momentum they require to begin the march towards Lord’s. The RLODC is the one competition they look primed to win, but with the halfway point of the season having only just been reached, a large majority of the plot still remains. I’d be jumping the gun making any bold predictions at this point in the journey. 

Written by Jordan Crick (@Cricky_1997)

When England crashed out of the 2015 World Cup on a loathsome autumn’s evening in Adelaide, they were the architects of their own failures, the victims of their own inadequacies. The ECB’s penchant for nonsensical One-Day Domestic paradigms left England’s squad exposed, underprepared even, on an unforgiving world stage. While Eoin Morgan scratched his head in tandem with all and sundry – bemused by yet another middling English batting performance – the dearth of quality on the domestic circuit seemingly spelt trouble for England as a One-Day powerhouse going forward.

Their batsman looked frail, disconcerted by the tempo at which to bat in a one-day game. Old pros were made to look amateurish in a tournament where run scoring seemed overtly facile. England’s bowling cartel lacked creativity on flat wickets that demanded cricket entrepreneurism, bravado and a hint of intuition. Prognosis: England went to Australia ill-equipped through the systematic failings of its own board.  

The calamitous 2015 CWC campaign was met with perpetual acrimony for some months following - and understandably so. Former England captain Sir Ian Botham labelled England’s performance ‘embarrassing’. The game against New Zealand at the cake tin – where England mustered just 123 with the bat before having it tracked down inside thirteen overs – was seen by Botham as the worst performance in his forty-years of watching England in one-day cricket. Perhaps the most pertinent and cogent of his statements, though, was that England were failing to play the game ‘the modern way’. 

The ECB went hurriedly in search of a fix to remedy England’s woes in the immediate aftermath of the World Cup, sacking Peter Mores and anointing favourite son Andrew Strauss as head of cricket in May of 2015. England’s one-day side was subsequently remodelled and pimped-out to ensure its first home series post-World Cup against New Zealand would not end in similar fashion to their infamous ‘windy-city’ pool A encounter. 

The ECB’s changes were preemptive and told of a ‘buck stops with us’ approach to One-Day cricket going forward. Ultimately, they prevented a preened, unsullied board from incurring any collateral damage that would have left them red-faced going into a home Ashes summer, which was a more pertinent agenda at the time. At this stage, they were yet to get to the crux of why England’s fifty-over form was teetering on the edge of mediocrity.       

In a beautiful irony, the World Cup provided English cricket with a crossroads that triggered a mutual awakening of the ECB and its players from a three-year hangover known as the Yorkshire Bank 40, or indeed any other forty-over incarnation of England’s domestic game. 

English cricket was systematically failing to exercise the underpinnings of one-day international cricket in its domestic competition on multiple fronts in the lead-up to the World Cup. Its players were unconscious to the requisites and intricacies across all disciplines of the fifty-over format for a multitude of reasons, which have been duly answered by the ECB over the past year in the Royal London One-Day Cup. 

Batsmen have learnt to negotiate the three power plays of a fifty-over game with greater efficiency, maximising run-scoring through the middle-overs to engineer a total. Pacing an innings is key in the one-day game. If we look at one of the inherent downfalls of England’s batsmen in the 2015 World Cup, it was the loss of wickets inside the first twenty to thirty overs of the game. In fact, twenty-four wickets, or 54% of all wickets lost, fell inside the first thirty overs of England’s six innings. Against the full member sides, the statistics are more harrowing; two-thirds of England’s wickets were lost inside the first thirty overs.  

This is because a forty-over game has no period of slow-down or consolidation for batsmen. It’s the intermediary between a twenty-twenty game and a fifty-over game whereby batsmen feel compelled to continue scoring freely without the fear of losing their wicket. The last ten overs of a fifty-over game are crucial in mounting a total in excess of three hundred – which is mandatory in an age of big bats and twenty-twenty innovation. It’s necessary then that there are wickets in hand during the last ten overs of the innings. Ideally, of these wickets, one should be a set batsman. Before 2014, the death overs of a one-day game ceased to exist. Just one fifty-over tournament was played in 2014 in the lead-up to the World Cup, on forty occasions was a batting side bowled out before their allotment of fifty-overs. 

Bowlers have found solace through instituting slower balls and yorkers in the death overs of a fifty-over game, while swing bowlers have come into their own during the first power play of the innings. I look at Essex opening pair David Masters and Matt Quinn as the new age archetype of a fifty-over bowler despite their age. Consistent and economical while possessing the ability to swing the ball both ways. Their deliveries seldom err from a full/ good length, giving the ball every opportunity to swing. 

Masters has the best economy of the RLODC thus far (3.47) in 2016 (for bowlers who have bowled more than thirty overs), while Quinn is third in the wicket taking ranks with nine wickets in four games. 

The first ten overs of a fifty-over innings have become as economically orientated as they are dependent on wicket taking. That’s why Quinn and Masters’ combined twenty-overs play such a pivotal role in the outcome of an opposition total.  

Admittedly, many of England’s players can hardly use the domestic competition as an excuse for their World Cup failings given their limited opportunities while performing their England duties, but perhaps scheduling compounds the issue. England played a total of twelve ODI games in the four months prior to the World Cup of 2015. If they are to challenge in the 2019 edition, the focus must be on preparedness, giving players as much exposure to fifty-over, white ball cricket as possible.  

Written by Jordan Crick (@Cricky_1997)

The red and gold pastels of an unprepossessing RCB away strip are seen wandering the verdant alleyways of Bangalore as the sun descends on yet another scorching summers evening. The orangey-pink hues of a dirt stain sustained in a last gasp dive for the crease on ninety-nine contrasts the golden lion of the RCB crest. All the while, Kohli raises his bat for the third time in as many games. The BCCI basks in all its glory, roping in excess of 1,194 crores from the IPL cash cow that has transfixed a nation.

KP, mic’d up, fresh from a stint in the Caribbean Premier League, becomes a clairvoyant to an enraptured national audience of 1.3 million by predicting the line and length of a Gurinder Sandhu delivery, before promptly depositing it into the densely populated mid-wicket stands of Australia’s coliseum, the MCG.

The naysayers of the T20 format have long scoffed at its ability to flaunt itself around the international market with unwavering success. The palpable atmosphere emanating from the hoarse diaphragms of forty-thousand frenzied Indian cricket diehards inside the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium on IPL finals day is exclusive of franchise fandom, and representative of t20’s success. A county side is seldom exposed to such ebullient support that its excellent standard deserves.

While the twenty-twenty cricket product appears to have reached the summit, capturing the hearts and minds of those most malleable – chiefly children and adolescents - England’s premier T20 competition continues to meander along with subdued significance, yet to tap into the successes of franchise cricket. But is this the route the T20 ‘blast’ should follow?

Does the current format require a total revamp? Does the rich history of English cricket embed fans with a refined palate that rejects T20 cricket? How can viewer apathy be improved?

These are the questions that must be asked by the powers that be on the English Cricket Board. The ‘blast’ must cease resting on its laurels if it is to awaken from a slumber that has seen it slip five-years behind a thriving pack. T20 is the profit centre for cricketing boards worldwide, yet the current tournament has well and truly missed the boat of financial nirvana. As it stands, the ‘blast’ lies on shaky foundations, whose rotting is the result of something far from the perceived fan reproof.

Perhaps the ECB are not buoyed by the same imperatives as the BCCI, namely revenue. For this, it should be admired. Money hungry boards are the foibles of cricket’s enduring character. Though, a competition based on privatised franchises – serving the county game its own commercial value - is like dangling a carrot in front of a board who is owed a combined £7.8 million from the counties, which is exactly the case.

Therein lies the confliction; county prestige and the greater good of the game vs. commercial appeal, garnered from a city-centric based competition.

For all intensive purposes, the pros of a franchise-based competition offers a cornucopia of benefits for the county game. But English cricket is a special case. It places more value, more merit in domestic cricket than any of its cross-country colleagues. Straying from its roots – which predate the 18th century – would prompt a crisis of significance for the domestic competition as the counties stare down the malignant glare of the new kids on the block. A misalignment of expectations between the three formats will leave the summer of cricket with emphasis on its shortest form. An oversight of such proportions would see one-day and championship cricket gasping for air in an environment bereft of oxygen. Australia’s witnessed it, so has India and New Zealand. The last recorded attendance of the Sheffield Shield in the 2011/12 summer saw a total of 4,809 people through the gates. More concerning was the One Day Domestic competition’s figure of 4,033 (total) in 2015/16. Dwindling attendance happens to align itself with the beginning of the Big Bash. Coincidence? Perhaps. It’s an issue that continues to confound the most ignorant eye.

Yet maybe this trend is indicative of cricket’s 21st-century forecast – a world dominated by the shortest form – and hence, should be unduly embraced.

The championship’s viewership figure in the summer of 2015, 513,000, attests the need for the ECB to conform to its current T20 format - with the implication of vast remodelling to raise attendance – so not to distract heavily from the championship. A city-based competition would momentarily amuse, before shuddering down to earth with a resounding clatter.

Perhaps most importantly, though, it must avoid the well-trodden path that has seen Australia’s Shield competition wistfully slip down the drain of inferiority through taking a reluctant backseat to the Big Bash. It’s not out of line to state that England’s domestic competition can achieve a kind of attendance parity across all formats if it resists its city-based entity.

So where does that leave us? Last year's T20 Blast finals day produced the worst viewing audience since the competitions inception in 2003. Just 388,000 people parked themselves in front of the TV to watch the tournaments flagship event. Clearly that’s a message that the ethos of the blast is failing to sink in. So how does a jetlagged competition improve without stepping into the T20 twilight zone that is franchise cricket?

The short answer – high profile international players. Fans crave the battles of T20 that have them leaving the stadium with bated breath. Their appetite should be fed with an influx of international talent, serving two obligatory purposes: A.) Enhancing the blasts international and local appeal and B.) exposing England’s future stars to superlative cricketing craftsmen, thus enhancing their skills.

Take the game between Sussex and Somerset last week for example. On a ground that embodies the culture of county cricket, Hove, the indisputable hitting talents of Chris Gayle were tasked with taking down the searing pace of the now T20 specialist, and England hopeful, Tymal Mills. 90mph against a man, proclaimed ‘world boss’, whose sole purpose it seems is to send bowlers back to the team hotel with nightmares. An X-Factor that’s seen him amass some 2335 runs as a freelance T20 cricketer.

These battles rouse the fan base. Though, eighteen counties playing in one competition spreads the spattering of international cricketers particularly thin, meaning some counties are bereft of an import causing a gap between the standards of the sides.

Though it’s far from the only global T20 competition guilty of this, length is an inherent downfall of the ‘blast’. A tournament played over three months quickly becomes fatigued, failing to peak the zeal of the fan throughout the competitions entirety, consequently depriving the points table of meaning and significance until the finals roll around. The Blast morphs into the first day of a championship match than into the one-day cup before a rampant, English Test side subsequently diverts the interests of the cricketing fraternity. This issue has been duly addressed by the ECB, with the 2017 edition of the Blast played over two months during the school holidays. Even then, the typically hyped clashes must take precedence to clone overseas franchise success without losing sight of their heritage; the battle of the roses at an overpopulated, rambunctious Old Trafford or Middlesex-Surrey at Lord’s. The Big Bash has recently found success from its contrived intra-city franchise rivalry, aptly named the ‘Melbourne derby’. 80,000 fans saw an encounter between the two sides at the MCG just last year.

Franchise cricket doesn’t fit the bill as far as county cricket is concerned. The blast will develop through improved scheduling, exposure and international player endorsement.

Views by Jordan Crick (@cricky_1997)