Saturday, June 27, 2009

Reducing the county championship?

Next season will be even more congested than usual because of the Champion's League and thus the fixture planners at the ECB are looking at "radical" ways to relieve it. One suggestion is to reduce the county championship to 14 games down from 16 for one season only.

But how can they possibly do this and retain the fairness and relevance of the county championship? 16 games means each of the 9 counties in the 2 divisions plays the other 8 teams home and away. Reducing the games means that this is no longer possible. What then happens to the concept of every team in a division playing each other and the best team at the end of it winning? Also how will they decide what are the missing games? Could some counties end up "lucky" in that their missing games are against the best teams in the divisions (and of course vice versa?) It is lunacy, but what do you really expect from the ECB?

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