Start times
For some years the ECB has done its best to deter spectators from attending domestic one-day games by scheduling them all over the week, thereby making it as difficult as possible for people to keep track of when teams are playing. This year they came up with another twist by also making it unclear what time of day group matches in the Friends Provident Trophy would start.
For FPT group games, many pre-season publications were forced to put "10.45am or 12noon". Very helpful to spectators.
For the record, Warwickshire's game against Scotland on Sunday will start at noon. Then their game at Canterbury a week on Sunday will start at 10.45am, which is a bit tough on the Bears who won't get to Canterbury until late the previous night if their championship match with Yorkshire goes all the way.
Then Middlesex at Edgbaston on May 12 will be a noon start, the games in Taunton and Edinburgh on May 14 and 16 will be 10.45am and the one at Lord's on May 18 will be noon.
All the Bears' home group games start at noon - except for the last one against Kent on May 20 which will be 10.45am because every game that day must start at 10.45am in case Sky want to televise it.
The involvement of the broadcaster is the reason for this mess. The incentive for counties to start games at 10.45am is to lure Sky which insist their games start then.
Selling out to Sky was a black, black day for English cricket.
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Brian Halford - Brian Halford’s look at Edgbaston.
Given that Sky gives coverage of county cricket that terrestrial would merely scoff at, maybe the disorganisation of the start times could be put properly at the ECB's and counties' doorsteps? It surely can't be that hard for them to choose between one or the other and publicise the fact as soon as the fixture list came out.
Any chance of the Lions game returnees playing against Scotland?
Hi Emma. Bell and Trott will play for the Bears today.
Agreed about the nonsense of confusing start times. However, you should be careful, Brian, about having a pop at Sky. I gently poked them in an article on the BBC website a few seasons ago, and received two unsolicited lengthy e-mails from somebody in Sky's marketing department admonishing me in no uncertain terms for, to summarise, not being deferential enough to The Organisation That Saved Cricket (and loads of other sports too, by the way). I haven't broadcast what exactly was written in his e-mails, since he helpfully put "NOT FOR BROADCAST" at the top of them. Probably I couldn't afford the rights to pass on his words to a grateful nation. So beware the backlash.
Mind you, on this occasion I happen to think Sky are right. 10.45 is a far more sensible time to start. And you can't deny Emma's point that nobody else is broadcasting county cricket on TV (although there is an increasing amount of internet coverage on the BBC, I am obliged to point out). Better to have Sky's coverage than none at all, although I cancelled my subscription a long time ago because it was too expensive, with the result that my sports-mad eldest son is now developing an interest in a wide range of other sports rather than the one I would really like to force him to watch non-stop, sorry, I mean encourage him to develop a healthy (and not obsessive like his dad) interest in....
Hi Mike.
Your experience with the SKY propagandists says it all.
Yes, their cricket coverage is good but it is only available to a tiny percentage of the population. And while, yes, that is better than live cricket being available to no-one, surely it need not have been one scenario or the other. The terrestrial channels have their limitations in terms of finance and screen-time but surely it was not beyond the wit of man to keep some live cricket on free telly.
Look what has happened to football in the 17 years since it sold out. It is now SKY's plaything. I fear cricket is heading down the same grubby highway.
The ECB was too weak to resist the dosh from an organisation whose power comes from being the biggest, the wealthiest and, above all, the loudest (three traits which, together, make a pretty unedifying whole, in my opinion).
Crass short-termism from the ECB. I really hope your lads grow up to love cricket and play it. Many thousands of their contemporaries will never see or hear of it.
Rarely do I cite letters to the Daily Telegraph as a case of putting a thing in a nutshell but a chap from Bedfordshire wrote last week: “Cricket clubs round where I live have been struggling to find players over the past few years. The lack of exposure on terrestrial television has taken cricket right off the radar for most sporting youngsters”.
Mind you, another letter in the same edition of the Telegraph began: “Since retirement I have taken to recording the number of large potholes in my part of south Hertfordshire...”