Counties are growing anxious about the proposal to cut the county championship from 16 to 14 games next season amid concern that the ECB is rushing changes.
Worries come as the Professional Cricketers’ Association [PCA] revealed that seven out of eight players believe that reducing the amount of cricket overall will improve quality.
Tom Harrison, the ECB chief executive, said last week that the board prefers a shorter four-day competition to breathe space into the schedule and allow distinct blocks for red-ball and white-ball cricket. He said that county directors of cricket feel that the present fixture list is too demanding of tired players and that the implication of a reduction is “not significant”.
His announcement caused surprise in the shires, where chief executives felt that changes would not come into force until 2017. There are fears that a decision may be taken against their will by the ECB board, where members from the counties are in a minority.
A review group examining the structure - which includes a player, Michael Lumb (Nottinghamshire), a director of cricket, Mark Robinson (Sussex) and county and ECB officials - is due to meet next on Tuesday morning, but will have little opportunity to discuss plans before they are presented to county chief executives that afternoon and the chairmen the next morning.
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Mark Arthur, the Yorkshire chief executive, told The Yorkshire Post yesterday that he “understood from my colleagues around the country that there is no appetite to reduce or change the structure of championship cricket”.
Another chief executive, who asked not to be named, said: “It should not be a sticking-plaster solution. We should have a proper, well thought-out package. There is no rush to hack off a couple of games. It seems kneejerk. We should take our time and do something properly for 2017.”
The possibility of a new 20-over competition involving eight teams is on the back burner for the time being, with counties reporting big crowd increases for the NatWest T20 Blast this season, including a 51 per cent rise at Yorkshire, where regular Friday night matches have enjoyed strong spectator appeal. A significant downside has been the overlap between formats. Results of the annual PCA survey of players revealed that 91.6 per cent of the 240 players believe that the quality of cricket has gone down with the mixed schedule, while 87.3 per cent think that less cricket will improve the overall quality.
One player told the PCA that the calendar and logistics are the most demanding of his career. “Throughout June, we had 28 days of cricket out of 32 days with the rest as travel days. I felt like a zombie throughout,” he said.
Comments highlighted the lack of preparation time, leading to more injuries as well as a drop-off in performance, and the deterioration in the quality of pitches because groundsmen have less time between matches to prepare good surfaces.
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Another player described the schedule as “ridiculous” and added: “It is not only bad for the standard of games, but is actually unsafe for players and staff. The ECB/PCA have a duty of care to players to address it.”
A spokesman for the ECB said: “We are still in the middle of a consultation process with the counties. We have not made any final decisions.”
However many games there are in 2016, the nine-team structure of the two divisions will remain for at least one more season. A switch to an eight-team first division would deny promotion to the side finishing second in the second division, at present Surrey, and lead to the possibility of a legal challenge.
Players’ perspectives
Findings of the PCA survey based on responses of 240 present players
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● 98.3 per cent say that Test cricket is still the pinnacle of the game
● 87.3 per cent believe that reducing county cricket will improve quality
● 93.9 per cent think that the championship is a high-quality competition
● 91.9 per cent say that the quality went down when the championship and T20 schedules were mixed
● 81.3 per cent think that a Super League such as the Big Bash would be good for the game