04-10-2019, 00:01
My thoughts, in no particular order:
1. Both the shirts and the names are shockingly bad. The Birmingham one looks like the bastard child of every shit early 1990s football shirt, with a popcorn logo plastered on its face. I tend to dislike American-style team names at the best of times, but at least in the T20 Blast there are some names that genuinely relate to the history or locality of the county (Yorkshire Vikings, Notts Outlaws, Birmingham Bears, Northants Steelbacks, Kent Spitfires). I mean, what does a Phoenix have to do with Brum? Why does Northern Superchargers sound like a company manufacturing smartphone accessories? Why "Southern Brave", when "Braves" or "Bravery" would be more grammatically correct? Where is this mysterious town of Oval, and why does it have a cricket team bearing its name when any A-Level Marketing student could tell you that "London" or "South London" would be way more likely to attract support?
2. There's a dead old Simpsons episode where Homer's long-lost brother, the head of a car company, gets Homer to design a new model that contains all the things the average man wants in a vehicle. Inevitably, the whole thing ends up being an expensive wreck, because all the things Homer wants in a car add up to an ugly, badly-thought-out mess. Can't help but feel that the ECB really missed the moral of that story when they decided to completely reinvent the game of cricket to please people who've never watched cricket, and who may not even watch it when it's been overhauled to suit their every fleeting whim. And as for those who potentially might convert to the gospel… if there's one thing that this summer conclusively proved, it's that newcomers will take an active interest as long as they're given some exposure to the drama of the game *in any format*. It doesn't matter if it's a T20 international or a village three-dayer: just stick it front and centre on the BBC and you won't need ten-ball overs!
3. There are, grudgingly, some things that I think have been done right with this comp. I think the draft is a good idea, and attracts publicity. I think preserving the T20 Blast and using it as a proving ground for young players to try and earn a place on the bigger stage, is a smart move. As a supporter of a smaller county I flinch at the city-based franchise concept, but I also recognise that over the decades, black and Asian people and young city-dwellers haven't engaged with county cricket in the numbers that might have been hoped for, and this is an effort to put that right without eliminating the county game. Also, though there have been some big names in the T20 Blast through the years, as a competition it's long since been eclipsed by the IPL and Big Bash, and it's never truly had the best of the best scrambling over each other to earn a contract; I think they tend to view it as practice for the bigger comps. A new competition was the best way to have the Steve Smiths of the world banging on the door of English cricket, demanding to be let in. But for the love of God, why not just make it a T20 league? Why try and fix things that were never broken?
1. Both the shirts and the names are shockingly bad. The Birmingham one looks like the bastard child of every shit early 1990s football shirt, with a popcorn logo plastered on its face. I tend to dislike American-style team names at the best of times, but at least in the T20 Blast there are some names that genuinely relate to the history or locality of the county (Yorkshire Vikings, Notts Outlaws, Birmingham Bears, Northants Steelbacks, Kent Spitfires). I mean, what does a Phoenix have to do with Brum? Why does Northern Superchargers sound like a company manufacturing smartphone accessories? Why "Southern Brave", when "Braves" or "Bravery" would be more grammatically correct? Where is this mysterious town of Oval, and why does it have a cricket team bearing its name when any A-Level Marketing student could tell you that "London" or "South London" would be way more likely to attract support?
2. There's a dead old Simpsons episode where Homer's long-lost brother, the head of a car company, gets Homer to design a new model that contains all the things the average man wants in a vehicle. Inevitably, the whole thing ends up being an expensive wreck, because all the things Homer wants in a car add up to an ugly, badly-thought-out mess. Can't help but feel that the ECB really missed the moral of that story when they decided to completely reinvent the game of cricket to please people who've never watched cricket, and who may not even watch it when it's been overhauled to suit their every fleeting whim. And as for those who potentially might convert to the gospel… if there's one thing that this summer conclusively proved, it's that newcomers will take an active interest as long as they're given some exposure to the drama of the game *in any format*. It doesn't matter if it's a T20 international or a village three-dayer: just stick it front and centre on the BBC and you won't need ten-ball overs!
3. There are, grudgingly, some things that I think have been done right with this comp. I think the draft is a good idea, and attracts publicity. I think preserving the T20 Blast and using it as a proving ground for young players to try and earn a place on the bigger stage, is a smart move. As a supporter of a smaller county I flinch at the city-based franchise concept, but I also recognise that over the decades, black and Asian people and young city-dwellers haven't engaged with county cricket in the numbers that might have been hoped for, and this is an effort to put that right without eliminating the county game. Also, though there have been some big names in the T20 Blast through the years, as a competition it's long since been eclipsed by the IPL and Big Bash, and it's never truly had the best of the best scrambling over each other to earn a contract; I think they tend to view it as practice for the bigger comps. A new competition was the best way to have the Steve Smiths of the world banging on the door of English cricket, demanding to be let in. But for the love of God, why not just make it a T20 league? Why try and fix things that were never broken?