In praise of… the cricket season
English cricket's health and popularity hinge on many things. Test match success of the sort enjoyed against Australia this year is at the heart of it. More coverage of big games on terrestrial television would help too. A fine summer and match-fit top players are undoubtedly important. But it would make a huge difference if some order could be restored to the sprawl and incoherence of the cricket season itself. This season started nearly six months ago, on April 9, and it will finish tomorrow when, on grounds from Taunton to Headingley, the final one-day matches are completed. In between, as well as one-day internationals, Tests and the ICC World Twenty20 involving England (who are now playing in Johannesburg), we have had the Friends Provident Trophy, the Twenty20 Cup and the NatWest Pro40. The LV county championship, which began in mid-April, finally staggers over the finishing line today. All in all, it is a ridiculous schedule, with too many competitions, little sense of climax and not enough competitive cricket. Some fine cricket has been played in these dying days of the 2009 season, but if September had been as wet as much of the rest of the summer, this season would have deserved to die with the dampest of whimpers. Until recently the cricket season started in May and was over by the first weekend in September, four months instead of the current six. Cricket must reinstate that sort of coherence in its schedule if it is to stay as close to the national heartbeat as it claims to want to be.