DDD SYSTEMS & Dr. Dan Diaper. Don’t Change the County Cricket Championship Structure – discussion document.
Don’t Change the County Cricket Championship
Structure.
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Don’t Change the County Cricket Championship Structure.
Background
Sunday afternoon, 7th.
June, 2015, Durham v. Somerset, Day 1 at the Emirates International Cricket
Ground and local BBC radio commentary again returns to the vexed issue of the
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) wishing to change the structure of the
County Championship.
There had already
been weeks of discussion on reported ECB proposals to reduce the number of
Championship matches in a season. No
commentators or those of the public who email and tweet seem to support any
such change. To the Championship
changers’ advantage, confusion is caused by confounding changes to the
Championship with what could be done with the time released, to allow more
white ball, particularly Twenty20, cricket to be played, perhaps by
geographical “franchises” rather than by County Cricket Clubs.
If people wish to
resist changes to the current Championship structure, then they need a clarity
of purpose which will not confuse this with other ECB proposed changes. For effective resistance the message needs to
be simple, which means it should be singular, so whatever else the ECB changes:
Don’t
change the current County Championship structure.
The Current County Championship Structure.
The structure of the County Championship
refers only to how it is organised and not to how matches are played, such as
the rules, number of overs, bonus points, etc. The current Championship structure has been
around for quite some time and 2015 is the second year of a supposed three
years of stability from significant changes of any sort (N.B. some changes have
already been made, for example, to the intention to start all County
Championship matches on a Sunday).
The current structure
involves 18 teams in two divisions of 9 teams who each play the other teams in
their division at home and away. Thus
each team will play 16 matches in a season and there will be a total of 72
matches a season in each division.
If one wants to
defend change, then it is this basic structure that preservation arguments
should address. Keep:
· 18 teams in 2
divisions of 9 teams who play home and away within their division.
Let the ECB change
other things, that still leaves them plenty of options, but ask them not to change
the basic structure specified above.
Influencing the ECB
Could public pressure influence the ECB? With history on the side of the cynic, the
obvious answers are “No.” and “Not at all!”
On the other hand, just because something looks difficult shouldn’t stop
one have a really good go at it.
In reply to a ‘Dr.
Dan <>’ email, the commentators (Anthony Gibson and Martin Emmerson) at
the Durham v. Somerset match suggested using Twitter or Facebook (although ‘Dr.
Dan Diaper’ is not allowed a Facebook
account – see his Social Media). Concerning Twitter, the commentators suggested
that a hash tag was needed and cheekily “#ignoreus” was proposed, which works
better on radio as “ignore us” than when written.
There are problems,
however, with using Twitter as a change agent.
Twitter is ephemeral, usually a temporary storm in a teacup, if not
merely froth on a cappuccino. Re-tweets,
favourites and the like may reflect social opinion, but they don’t have the
authority of some form of petition which is signed by real, individual people.
A proposal to
consider is an Open Letter to the ECB,
which can be endorsed by many people. To
maximise support, its message should be simple and singular, i.e. please
don’t change the current County Championship structure of 18 teams in two
divisions who, each season, in their division, play all the other teams both at
home and away.
The ECB may well
ignore a well supported open letter with such a message, but they, and
everyone, would know exactly what they have rejected if they do change the
basic Championship structure.
Why Preserve?
The ECB is not a
democratic body in that it is not required to take account of public opinion,
unlike the Counties, who are responsible to their members (the travails of
Yorkshire CCC have been widely and thoroughly documented, with respect to Geoff
Boycott’s captaincy, for example). Nor
can the public ‘vote with their feet’ and boycott the ECB Championship product
because the ECB is a sole supplier.
Realistically, no one is going to say, “I won’t follow Championship
cricket at all any more because the ECB has reduced the number of matches each
team plays from sixteen to ten.”
Therefore, to
influence the ECB, what is need is not merely a plea to preserve the current
Championship structure, but clearly presented, well reasoned arguments to
support this position. This is where it
gets complicated.
The most common sort
of comments to support the preservation position are along the lines of, “It’s
fine at the moment.” and, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” These are not convincing arguments. Easy replies are, “It may be fine, but could
be better.” and “Waiting for big things to break is too late to save them.” It may not quite come to collective character
assassination, but those arguing against change can easily be portrayed as
stuck-in-the-mud, old fuddy-duddies who are frighten of the modern world, and
so on. To counter such, it will be
necessary to be seen to accept, even encourage, some changes, while resisting
others.
What is needed is a
list of the advantages that would be lost if the current Championship structure
is changed. An example of this was
provided my Martin Emmerson of BBC Radio Newcastle on that June Sunday, that playing
each other team in their division, both at home and away, provided balanced,
equal opportunities within a season for each team to establish, fairly, its
final position in the league. This
desirable property would be lost if teams played some teams once and some
twice. Any counter argument that such
asymmetries would balance out over seasons is unsound given that teams are
promoted and demoted each season so complete balance of opportunities, for all
teams, is logically impossible (unless promotion/demotion only occurred over a
two year cycle – surely even the ECB wouldn’t propose this?).
What are the other
advantages? Like many simple looking
questions, serious answers to it tend to be complicated. This is so, not because the game of cricket
is complicated, although it is, but because the “Cricket System” is very large,
composed of many things of many different types, and they interact, so changing
one thing causes ripples of consequences to other things within the
Criket_System. The ECB have committees
and access to many cricket experts, from the self proclaimed to
ex-players. Unfortunately, being a
highly skilled cricket player is unlikely to be the best training for acquiring
expertise at successful large general systems engineering.
If “we” wish to
influence the ECB about not changing the current County Championship structure,
then it is necessary to present to them rational arguments for such (limited)
preservation. So, one thing needed is to
identify the advantages of the current system.
Answers on an e-postcard, please.
Strategy and Tactics
Dr. Dan <> has
started the ball rolling and in the initial start-up period he is more than
willing to coordinate the production and then endorsement of an open letter to
the ECB.
· The first step must be publicity
…
to make as many supporters as possible aware of the proposed plea to preserve
the current County Championship structure.
Get them to discuss it. Twitter
might be particularly suitable for making people aware, but other means might
be better for substantial proposals and discussions.
If people email Dr.
Diaper ddiaper@ntlworld.com , then he will
reply, collate, forward and put on his website www.dddsystems.co.uk people’s suggestions. Tweets to @DrDanDiaper (https://twitter.com/DrDanDiaper) will be followed,
retweeted, etc.
Two initial tasks
are:
(1) Identifying the advantages to the current
Championship structure that would be lost if its basic structure is changed;
(2) Produce a draft of an open letter to the ECB.
The hope should be
that, rapidly, it will be too much work for one retired X-Professor and that
others, hopefully in close coordination, will take over some or all of the
initial work.
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