Fire up the mowers and download the weather apps, the County Championship returns on Thursday and we are about to discover whether the world’s oldest and most storied first-class competition will adopt Bazball.
Over the winter, the 18 first-class counties pushed back on a proposed long-term cut to 10 matches and have remained at 14, but this is not to say things stay the same. For a start, the number of points for a draw has been dropped from eight down to five in a bid to encourage a touch more adventure.
And in January at a meeting of county head coaches, Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum outlined the broader principles of England’s new-found attacking brio in Test cricket in the hope it will filter down into the domestic game. The question now is how this manifests itself.
Peter Moores seemed a pretty good person to ask. Three times a title winner – this summer is the 20th anniversary of his first at Sussex – the former England coach’s Nottinghamshire team are back in Division One proper after finding themselves on the wrong side of the pandemic reset. Notts finished third overall in 2021 – the summer of conferences – but had to battle back to the top flight when 2022 started from 2019’s final positions.
According to the statistician James McCaghrey, they have scored at 3.51 an over across the past two seasons – second by a whisker to Glamorgan (3.57) – with 3.28 the overall run-rate for the County Championship since 2017. Will England, going at 4.7 in Test cricket over the past 12 months and chalking up 10 wins from 12, see other county teams up the ante? “I think you will find that, individually, players will try their own version of it,” Moores said.
“When you first come into the game, through the pathway, England is the dream and you’ll do anything to get into that team. So young guys will definitely have looked at how England have been playing.
“The key message is that if you can play with freedom when the pressure is on then you’re a very dangerous player. It will release some players in county cricket, it may also confuse some others – those that aren’t good enough yet to do it. You hope they can ride through that.
“Team-wise I’m not sure if teams will plan to play differently or not yet. At county level, you obviously have a greater range of surfaces. But if it makes our game more about looking for a result, being positive in your approach and taking wickets, that can only be a good thing.”
With players such as Ben Duckett and Joe Clarke, Nottinghamshire already had dashers in their ranks. The former appears set to open in the Ashes provided his bright return over the winter – 508 runs at 57 and a strike rate of 95 – is followed by some solid early-season form.
But it is the recent reinvention of a player such as Haseeb Hameed that Moores sees as more informative regarding England’s overall messaging, with the previously obdurate opener not just amassing 1,235 runs in the Division Two promotion charge last year, but expanding his game.
For the Lions against the England attack in Abu Dhabi last November, Hameed made a 172-ball 145 and his overall strike rate during the second string’s red-ball winter was 75, more than double his previous pace in Tests.
Moores said: “Haseeb has played some beautiful cricket over the past 12 months and he’s quite an attacking player now compared to before when he was a little bit safe, surviving in the channel and looking to not get out. The mindset of looking to score and being freer is definitely the way to go. But you can’t suddenly change unless you have a good game in the first place.”
On the cut in points for a draw, Moores insists his teams have always played to win but said: “The way I look at it, county cricket hasn’t changed – England have. So you have to think county cricket was doing something right before. Two World Cups and this run of Test wins – it is clearly producing international players. Seeing Harry Brook and Ben Duckett come in and do well ... county cricket should be getting a pat on the back. It takes enough knocks.”
There are many variables as regards the speed of scoring this season. Dukes are optimistic that last year’s problems with the leather on their grade-one ball are now resolved, offering more encouragement to the bowlers. That said, part of the message from England was to prepare flatter surfaces where possible; certainly that is their hope for the Ashes.
As ever, the beauty comes in finding out. But the recent sight of Surrey’s Rory Burns falling first ball in his final pre-season innings – the opener attempting an almighty yahoo and caught mid-off – suggests things may well be different.
