Test Match Special - Should the Championship become a franchise competition?

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

Former England captain Kevin Pietersen has caused a stir by suggesting the County Championship is replaced by a red ball franchise competition. Kevin Howells gets reaction from the ECB managing director of County Cricket Neil Snowball. They also discuss whether the T20 Blast is getting the attention it deserves with the emphasis on the Hundred and what lessons are being learnt following the Azeem Rafiq racism revelations.

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Sounds. You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. I'm Kevin Howells, and Welcome to a special TMS podcast. Now, the international men's summer begins on Thursday the 2nd of June with TMS on air from 1025 at Lords. Make sure you join us for that.

After the disappointments of the winter, there'll be plenty of attention on how England start with a new captain in Ben Stokes, new coaches in Brendan McCullum for tests, and Matthew Mott in Whiteball, along with a new managing director for men's cricket in Rob Key. There's also plenty of scrutiny on the domestic game as we search for answers as to how to improve the test.

team. It's a subject that brings a lot of different opinion and plenty of passion. Andrew Strauss, who's leading a high performance review of the English game, has spoken about the need for radical change. We've heard rumours about the reduction of championship games, whilst the former England captain Kevin Peterson caused a stir by advocating the idea of championship teams becoming franchises. Well, one of those wrestling with all these decisions is the ECB's managing director for county cricket, Neil Snowball. I spoke to during the last round of championship matches before it takes a break. We spoke about a range of subjects.

Is the T20 blast, which starts this week, getting the attention it deserves with so much attention on the 100? What lessons are being learned after the revelations from Azeem Rafik about racism in the game? And is there a growing rift between counties and the game's governing body? You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. Thank you for joining us. We do appreciate the fact you put yourself up here a bit.

I'm thinking back to a meeting back in, well, it was during the Bob Wallace Trophy final. And the meeting primarily, I think, was about structure for this season. And I know there was a feeling maybe conferences were preferred over divisions. It got off to a dreadful start. It didn't get much better. I heard that people got quite cross and angry. And I put it to you, the people, whether it be county chair, whether it be chief executives, whether it be county cricket supporters at the moment, for whatever reason,

right or wrong, feel quite angry towards the ECB at the moment. Would you agree that there is anchor out there at the moment towards the ECB? Well, first of all, good afternoon. It's always good to be with you, Kevin. It's always good to come on and talk about the important issues in the game. I mean, I think there's always tensions. I think in most sports, there's tensions between the national governing body and the various stakeholders.

And often that's down to money and other factors. And so, you know, I am aware there's a sense of frustration, anger, whatever you want to call it. But I also think that there's an awful lot of really good stuff going on. And I'm sure we'll come on and talk to that. But just going back to that period where you refer to at the back end of last year, That was quite a tense period. You know, we were still uncertain about how impactful COVID was going to be in 2022.

We didn't know. There was a lot of uncertainty. There was lots of discussions again about structures. There was still ongoing discussions about finances, even though all of the counties had come through COVID, a lot of them due to the support from the ECB. And going back to that conversation you and I had when we were talking about, a potential restructure of the game and of the competitions.

That always sparks a lot of passion and a lot of interest. And I'm sure we'll get into that in the next session. So, yeah, I think that there is, I also think we tie ourselves in knots unnecessarily because there is a lot of good stuff going on. And there's a lot of good relationships and good collaboration. but of course a lot of the media tend to focus on the negatives and I can understand that. Okay, we'll come back to some of those points. Why do we start with the good things?

What are the good things? Well, I think first of all, I mean, I'm really pleased with the way the county championship has started this year. I mean, there was a lot of discussion over the winter about the test performances and about the state of test cricket, in this country and obviously that linked back to championship cricket. And I think championship cricket in the counties are often unfairly blamed when things aren't going well, but they're seldom credited when things are going well.

But I think the way the county championship started has been terrific. Yes, we've been blessed with some good weather, but, you know, good pitches and very good pitches across the country, games going well into the fourth day, you know, good performance, from English qualified batters and bowlers, I think, you know, six rounds in, we're really, really pleased with the way it's gone. So I think, you know, from that point of view, I think it's a great way to have started. But also just looking at some of the other information that we've managed to gather up since 2019. We've been doing a lot of work to look up. Well, where was the game in 2019 pre-COVID? And I hesitate to use the word post-CO, because we're not

post-COVID. I know we're coming through it. Without government restrictions, that's where we are already. That's a fair way of putting it, because I know it still is affecting a lot of people's lives. But, you know, the reality is if we look at 2019 and

2019 and where we are now, we've you know, in 2021, 14 million people engaged with cricket. And that's whether they were playing, whether they were attending, whether they were watching. And that's an increase of 3 million from 2019. And that's phenomenal. If you think about everything that we've gone through with COVID,

and there's a whole range of reasons for that, but that's quite a phenomenal factor for us. And also in terms of the investment that we've been able to put into the game, recreational game, and into the professional game, that's been at a record level. And also in terms of the ongoing investment in facilities, whether that's, again, professional facilities, recreational facilities. So, you know, there's a lot of good things going on. But as I said, I think when we talk about the sort of politics, there's always going to be some challenges.

And again, I'm sure we'll come onto those. We may do. 14 million. Does that include people watching on streams? Have you included? Yes, so that's viewing, that's streaming. That's engaging through yourselves, Kevin, with the looking online and looking at the the scores and things like that it's uh it's right

right across the board but and also bearing in mind those attendances were limited in 2021 because uh obviously in the first bar and we were heavily restricted yeah in person obviously they uh they they came back later on yeah but is there an engagement between the hundred and county cricket because i'm starting to wonder i'm told or we were told there would be a migration from the the 100 to county cricket. First question is, can you prove to me there's been any migration yet? What migration in terms of what? You tell me. I mean, people turning up to watch county cricket, people being interested in county. I mean, I'm wondering how that migration has been viewed. Yeah. Well, I think, well, I think first of all, it's, it's early days,

Kevin. I mean, we've had one edition of the of the hundred last year, which was, uh, was, extremely successful. I mean, from a standing start, whether again you look at it in terms of the tendencies bearing in mind they were restricted. If you look at viewing, if you're looking at digital connection, particularly around the women and girls interaction and also the women's competitions. It was a tremendous success and I know that upsets some people because they didn't want it to be a success because there's a lot of people that aren't big fans of the 100, but it was a a tremendous success and what we're it's early days now in terms of that that term migration but with the insight that we've got in terms of people then coming to

watch blast buying tickets to watch blast we'll get a much better sense of that this year but the early signs are that people who attended the 100 are also attending the blast this year and and we'll most about how's that come about because I'm hearing that the blast tickets are not gone well lots of counties are that tickets are not going well this time. But you're saying that you've got some evidence somehow that people who went to the 100 last year are now going to go watch the past?

Yeah, so we know we have information on who bought 100 tickets and we've got information on who bought blast tickets. And so we can see if there's a correlation. There is some correlation. But also in terms of the blast tickets, I mean, what we've seen this year, Kevin, is we've seen a couple of factors that have combined together to slight,

work against us. So you and I at the end of last year talked a lot about fixtures and the fixture production and the fixture release. And for a number of reasons, we weren't able to confirm those fixtures until well into the new year. And also the blast is starting slightly earlier than it has previously, starting at the end of May. So in terms of the pace of sale, you'll hear the county saying that. In terms of the pace of sale, the number of tickets that we're selling each week is strong, but the number of actual trading days is reduced because the difference between the start of the competition and in terms of the fixture release. But the sales are going so far, we're tracking to get back to where we were somewhere near

2019. I mean, we've got some pretty ambitious targets for the blast this year, obviously being the 20th anniversary, and we're hoping that we can get somewhere near where we were, again, pre-COVID, which if we can get up to that level, will be a pretty incredible effort with two years of hiatus in between. Why is it advertised that cricket is for everyone, but only for the 100? It isn't just for the 100 cricket, it's for everyone. I might want to think that, but if I'm looking at straplines for any competitions,

I don't see it next to the, and we know that you've got a company that look after your social media platforms and everything. And I'm not talking TikTok, I'm not talking Snapchat, I'm talking something that some of us old fogies are even getting into and have done for a few years. That's Twitter. Why is it that I only ever see cricket for everyone, whether it be on anything advertising the 100? Why don't you push that message out for County Cricket as well? Well, I think, Kevin, you'll find that we do. So I mean, also let me just cover off on the Twitter. So we have a number of different Twitter handles because cricket is a game for everyone and there are lots of different types. I think that's

one of the wonderful things about cricket, so whether you've got the county championship, whether you've got the 50 over competition, whether you've got the blast, whether you've got the 100, whether you've got men's women's international, whether you've got the Charlotte Edwards Cup, whether you've got the Rachel Hayho. There is a form of cricket for everybody, which is wonderful and is one thing that other sports look at us with great envy in terms of how do they reinvent themselves, how do they have different versions, shorter versions, etc. So, and I think just to be clear, we have different Twitter handles for different competitions. So there is an overall ECB Twitter.

There's also, we are England, which is the sort of international supporters. There's then a separate one for the championship. There's a separate one for the blast, et cetera, et cetera. Now, I know you and I have spoken before about how the different formats are portrayed, but the ECB website and Twitter does cover all formats. and our strapline is cricket is a game for everyone. And I absolutely endorse the fact that cricket is for everyone. So in April, it's mainly people watching the county championship.

Now that we're into May, it's the county championship. And as of last week, it's the Charlotte Edwards Cup. And then we'll build through the season. So it's not exclusive. Cricket is a game for everyone. And I think there's a format to appeal every single taste and every single person in the country. Excuse me for being a bit simple on this.

do know that I'm, it's like a version of dad dancing, me talking about social media. But why wouldn't, why wouldn't on the 100 platform, they right now be reminding everyone of the blasts getting underway next week? Because it's all aimed at the same people, isn't it? Families, getting young people in, young people in to watch. Well, well, well, across the ECB, it will be, Kevin, against, across the overall. You've got a new audience who have come to the 100, you know, their own facts and figures and the stories we were reading about. You know, I've not been to cricket before. It's fantastic. Well, that's great. How about coming – how are they to find out that there's a competition, which actually is pretty similar.

It's a look at the player roster. It's very similar this year. And yeah, there's no encouragement to go to watching. There's other ways – look, I mean, there's other ways of doing it. I mean, in terms of Twitter, people going to the 100 have a full diet of information about the 100. People go into the LV County Championship. If we look at it the other way, Kevin, if people are going to get their really good information that we provide and you provide on the LV County Championship,

they don't want to be hearing all about the 100. We'd probably be getting... No, I'm talking about the blast. I'm talking about the blast of them. I understand we might be a few steps away from County 100, but I'm talking about the blast, which is very very similar. No, look, I don't buy that.

But what I would say, Kevin, is I was at Lords last week for the Middlesex game, which was supposedly a sleepy old county championship game at the home of cricket. And there were 2,000 children having an absolute whale at the time at that game. They were there. We had primary school children on the first day. There were secondary school children on the second day. They were in the ground watching. They were on the nursery ground playing.

In fact, it was so deafening and having such a great time. We could hardly hear ourselves think. And that's a county championship game, Kevin. And that's through the really good outreach work of Middlesex. That's getting out into schools. We keep being criticised for not getting cricket into schools. And there's a long way to go. But there is a lot of great work, whether it's through chance to shine,

whether it's through All-Stars, whether it's through Dynamo's. But that's also a way of getting them in. And they were sitting watching a county championship game and having a great time. Hopefully they'll come back to that. Hopefully it'll come to the blast. And I'm sure they'll also come and see London Spirit in the 100. But, you know, I think we've got to move away from being too siloed, and I think that's always been a problem. We want migration across the different formats.

We just want people to fall in love with cricket, to get a bad ball in the hand at a young age, fall in love with cricket and then follow it in whatever format. And we are starting to see that happening. But as a result of that format, you're also asking people to carry on giving hard-earned money to become members of county cricket clubs where, and I know what you'll say, we haven't reached any decisions yet. about how much cricket we're going to play. But you have said, for you and the organisation, it isn't about the reduction of teams, it's perhaps looking at playing fewer matches. So you've thrown that out there as the possibility.

How do you expect people to still give hard-earned money? And yeah, we are talking to people of a certain generation, certain age here, when there is the possibility, and it is a definite possibility, that you could be knocking another four matches of their county championship season. Why are they going to pay for 10 games? How?

Well, I think, well, I mean, first of all, we haven't said we're going to do that, Kevin. I mean, you're jumping to conclusions. There's plenty of speculation about what it is. But let me explain. I think, and I know this from my time at Warwickshire, I know when it came to a renewal time, people poured over the fixtures and looked at how many games that they were going to be able to attend, you know, home and away. And it's a really important, and particularly at the moment, you know,

with cost of living crisis and everything else, are going to think very carefully about that but I still think that overall now I still think overall that a county championship is extremely good value for money and we see that across the across the country in terms of the number of days of cricket people can access I think it's I think it is very good value now as you said if if things change and there is a change the amount of cricket or the volume of cricket then we'll have to work with the counties to look at that and they'll have to look at their their prices accordingly but I know that There's the challenge about the heart of the summer, but you look at April and May where we've had, you know, six or seven rounds of continual supply of really good quality cricket in April and May and people have been coming in. They've been watching that. They've been watching it out on the streams. And that's what we want to see. Now, obviously, I know, and I talk to a lot of clubs about this, there's a specific challenge around, say, the August month as to what's taking place in August if we've got Royal London Cup.

And of course, we've got the situation at the moment where some counties and some venues have got an oversupply and some have got an undersupply. So, you know, members who are seeing outground cricket in August or other forms of cricket in August are getting a very plentiful supply. Others are seeing less so. So look, that's something we need to look at. We need to work out with the counties. But I'm not deaf to that challenge. But I also think we need to continue to strive to make sure we've got the best schedule possible. and I'm sure we'll come on to it in terms of how that helps and supports the test arena as well.

It was quite overwhelming. I personally found it so, Asim Rafiq's testimony to the select committee. But I also found it overwhelming when I've been told that county cricket clubs came to the ECB for help on this issue over the previous 12, 18 months. I'm also told that Sport England may have been told that it's all county cricket's problem and not the ECB's problem. Have you any response to that? I mean, did you let county cricket get on with it too much

and not get involved enough and then came back a little bit too strong or what's your view on that? I mean, do you dispute anything I've just said there to start off with? Well, I think first of all, I would say that the game pose Azima a great deal of thanks and a great service for what he's done in terms of highlighting this and the bravery that he's shown and also the other people that have that have come forward and I think as you've seen and as the counties know because we're working very closely with the counties the response to that I think has been very strong and I know that there's a huge amount

of work being done across the country already. I think for some people not fast enough, but there is a lot of work being done and that's very much a joint effort and we need to see that to continue. So I think what I would say is we've, you know, we've listened, we've listened to that very powerful testimony

from Azim and from other people. We've united around, the games united around a 10 point set of actions that we need to do, which we're working through. and they will make, they will, and are already making a difference in terms of, you know, inclusivity. You know, if you think about some of the things that are already taking place, whether it's introducing the sort of whistleblowing lines, the combination of the work that we're doing now across dressing room culture, the work, a lot of the work that my team are leading on

in terms of creating welcoming environments in our venues, in terms of looking at crowd behavior. if you look at within the organisations, the governance that's been a huge topic of discussion around the governance within the counties and the makeup of that in terms of gender representation and in terms of ethnic diversity. And then also if you think, look at things like the makeup of our boards, the fair recruitment, there's a huge suite of things that are being doing. And I know for some people, they'll say, well, that's a short words. You know, that's, you know, when are we going to see the actions? Well, we're already seeing actions. And it is, is going to take time before we make it as inclusive a game as we wanted to be.

But in terms of going back to what you said in the early comments, we've never said to Sport England that it's anyone's fault. What we've done is we've taken it on the chin and said, this is not good enough. And the game's not been good enough clearly for a long time. And I think it's really important that people felt able, for whatever reason, they did feel able to come out and speak up, whereas previously they didn't. Some counties have been doing some good stuff for a long while.

I think particularly those that have been based in, again, going back to my time in Birmingham, there was a lot of really good initiatives that were taking place there. There have also been in London, if you look at the ACE program, the Ebony set up. So there have been some good pockets of activity, but it's not been enough. And I think what this, we've talked about this, been a seismic shock for the game and it has been. And as I said, we owe a debt of gratitude to Azim and others for that. But progress is being made and it'll continue. But we've got a long

way to go if we want it to be the inclusive game that it should be. Would you and should you have worked more closely with County Cricket before Azim Rathik appeared before that select committee over that previous 12 months? Well, we could go back however many years, you know, could say 30, 40 years in some ways. But over that period of time, that 12 months to 18 month period, could you have been more helpful to counties? Well, look, I mean, I think counties are very capable of rowing their own businesses. And they're often quick, quite rightly, to remind us that they are entities in their own right, that they're very capable of dealing with their own matters. And we're there to help and support them. And look, and again, there's been some, if you look at

the South Asian Action Plan, I mean, the South Asian Action Plan came out well before Azeem felt able to speak up. And that came out off the back of inspiring generations, which was the new strategy for the whole game. And so the counties to different levels, admittedly, were working on the South Asian Action Plan, particularly again those based in the cities. But also, if I think about what we're doing, and I know you were concerned about whether we're connected. I have a call with the chief executives every fortnight. We have a meeting with the chairs every month. EDI is an important part of every single one of those agendas. We've got an EDI group made up now of combination of chairs and CEOs who meet on a regular basis to talk

about the progress. We've got a new part of the website where we're collecting up all of the great activities that are happening across the country. So, you know, again, you could say, well, that's, again, it's meetings and words, but where's the action? Well, you know, the ACE program that Surrey and Ebony did such a great job to start off within Surrey is now in Birmingham and it's now in Bristol. And that's part funded by the ECB and the local counties. We've got the community talent champions in Lancashire, in Leicestershire and Yorkshire. We've got the, I don't know if you saw the EAD celebrations, but there were EAD celebrations, you know, at what? and at Gloucestershire. So, you know, these things are all happening and they're happening jointly,

but they're being driven quite rightly by the counties and supported by the ECB. And I think that's the way it should it should be. We know about the punishments for Essex already. That's been made public. Why are we still waiting on the Yorkshire situation? Why are we still waiting on some individuals as well who are being investigated and looked at? Why the wait? Well, I think it's, well, it's a, first of all, it's obviously a very detailed and very important area that needs to be sorted out, and we've got a separate regulatory team. Again, there's been much talk about the way the regulatory function operates, and we have a separate independent regulatory function, and they're pouring through all of the testimonies, and I know that they will want to get that concluded as quickly as possible. So they will continue to do their work. And when they're ready and when they've completed that,

they'll be able to announce any findings there, whether it relates to individuals or Yorkshire. But in the meantime, what we do is we continue to work very closely with Kamash Patel and the team up at Yorkshire. We're very pleased with the progress that they've made in terms of transforming that club. And they've got a real determination with a relatively small team up there to drive real lasting change and we're supporting them on that journey as well. So I hope and I think for everybody involved,

we all hope that that concludes as quickly as possible, but that's a matter for the regulatory arm and the cricket disciplinary committee. I look sometimes, I mean, you've come up with earlier in our chat, but you know, some really encouraging figures, 14 million and the like. And I look at the county cricket grounds and I look at the numbers. in. They're not huge numbers. I'm aware of conversations that take place between governing bodies and broadcasting organisations and what they're interested in. And I hear, and we read about the debate as to, you know, high performance review, how are we going to make England great again

at test cricket? And I think how much can you honestly care about the numbers of people who will, for one of a better term, kick off about fewer. games about county cricket being marginalised more and more, if in turn it creates a successful England test team, which is where attention is at the moment, but continuation of the one day team. How much can you really care about those numbers, which are comparatively small compared with the crowd you get for the 100, compared to what the broadcasters are after, where they're big broadcast revenues and the deals you strike? How can you convince me that you really care about those numbers? Because they're not massive numbers, are they? You can get by without those.

Well, I'm not sure you can actually, Kevin, because if you look at the structure that we've got, we've got 18 first-class counties with a very proud record for each and every one of them and a lot of history. And they have their members. And the majority of those are member-owned organisations. So, you know, the members elect the chair. the members elect members of their committee. So the members are really important right across the board. Now, in terms of the actual formats that we play, we know that if you look at the demographic, and some of them it's changing, but if you look at the demographic,

a lot of them, and I know this from my own time at Warwickshire, are absolutely passionate about championship cricket. That's probably for a lot of them, their number one priority. but they also love watching the Royal London Cup and the 50 Over Cup and they love the blast as well. But I mean, the other thing is, you know, you've used that to marginalise. You know, again, we've got 14 fantastic rounds of matches this year

in the county championship. We've already had six and I'm sure we'll come on and talk to them. And you probably watch more than anybody going around the country. That is a really high quality cricket that we're seeing being played. and it happens to be in April and it happens to be in May. But Andrew Strauss is calling for radical change. Chris Silber was calling it, as the previous coach was calling out, we can't just keep on making small change.

It needs to be shot in a shock treatment, really, for the game. I mean, Neil, this comes down to trust. When I pick up around the counties is from whether it be from directors of cricket or whether it be from chief executives or a couple of chair, I speak to, but there's mainly chief executives and directors of cricket. they, ECB, don't trust our competitions and they don't trust us as county teams. It's a matter of trust.

Do you really think that there aren't issues of trust that need to be looked at at the moment between you the governing body and county cricket? There'll always be issues of trust, Kevin. There are now and they have been in the past and there will be in the future. What I can say is that, if it's, In the conversations I've had with Rob Key, who obviously is now on board,

and actually going, you were saying earlier about what's good to look forward to, well, I mean, if you're looking at a relatively short period of time to have had Rob Key come on board and speak very passionately about the game and speak very passionately about County Cricket, which he knows a lot about through his time at Kent, the appointment of Ben Stokes, the appointment of Brendan McCullum, and the appointment of Matthew Mott. That's a Matthew Mott, that's a lot of things to have happened in a relatively short period of time. and some really exciting things to look forward to. Now, in my, he's been pretty busy, Rob,

but in the conversation I've had with him, all we've spoken about is county cricket and he's the relationship with the counties, is how often is he able to have calls with the DOCs? He's already connected with some of the head grounds managers because he feels that's a really important area. So, you know, we've not had a good run of late in terms of our,

test cricket and as we know it goes in peaks and troughs. So yes, we should we should look to evolve and yes, okay, we occasionally use terms like radical. But at the same time, what we want is I think what we all want are strong first class counties and we want a strong England team. And I'm focusing here because we've been talking about the men's county championship and men's test cricket, but equally through the regional hubs, the eight regional women's hubs and through the England women's team. We also want that to be strong as well. But in terms of the work that we're doing at the moment with Andrew on the high performance review,

it is looking at it through a slightly different lens. And I think that's refreshing. I mean, the last time you and I spoke, Kevin, it was just when we were speculating about what format that a restructure of county cricket might look like. And I said I was slightly cautious about going into another review with all of the restructure. the same challenges and all the same sort of parameters that we've had before and maybe we'll come out with something that looks very similar to what we've had before. But I think looking at it through a high performance review, I think it's been really refreshing. And again, as has been

well documented, you know, Andrew's leading that process. He's got, he's had some really good input from some experts around high performance just on its own, not thinking about how many games we play or when we play them, just looking at high performance principles in cricket, in other sports, in other forms of business, etc. And we will work through that. And then some of those principles will apply to the England team. Some of those will apply to the pathway. Some of those will apply to the whole professional game.

And some of those may put forward some ideas and some options as to how we can structure the season differently. And there are things that we'll work through in discussion with the counties. The counties are part of those discussions as we develop those options. and then as we know and is well documented is that if there are to be any changes that the counties will vote for those and as part of that

they'll want to understand the interests of their supporters and members Kevin Peterson I can't go through everything here but he's such a high profile name there's been such a high profile ding-dong this week on Twitter how would franchise cricket work in county cricket

is it something which has been seriously considered by the EC amongst all the possible changes, franchise cricket. I can honestly say that I've not spent a single minute talking about franchise cricket in red ball cricket. There's plenty going on at the moment, Kevin, and I'm pretty busy as are all of my colleagues across the counties in the ECB, but it's not a topic of conversation. What we're doing at the moment is focusing on getting an incredibly exciting season delivered. Obviously, we've got one competition underway in the men.

the men, we've got one competition away in the women, and we've got a lot more to do. So I can honestly say it's not a topic of conversation. It's not something that I'm investing any time in at the moment. What we are talking about is a number of factors within red ball cricket. There's three things already. One is pitches and playing surfaces, and with a number of colleagues we've put together what we sounds quite grand, but it's a playing surfaces strategy, which is basically how do we make sure that we provide the best possible surfaces for our players to play on.

And that's in terms of the human resource, in terms of the capital equipment, in terms of climate change and things like that. That's a really, really important project that we've committed to. The second area that we're talking to the PCA about and the counties is around how we encourage and reward young red ball cricketers. Because with the advent of lots of white ball competitions around the world, you know, a young player can make a pretty good liver.

from playing whiteball cricket and we need to make sure they can do the same through red ball cricket. And then the other element is how do we make the existing competitions as strong as we can? And again, the streaming is strong. We'd like more attendances. And as I said, we've got an exciting competition coming up in the 20th anniversary of the blast. So that's what we're focusing on rather than talking about franchise cricket, if I'm truly honest. Thank you for your time. I've had to really try and be reflective of people who are really worried out here, Neil. I don't know where I think you're speaking from, some cave in the middle of.

But out here in country cricket lands, people are dead scared. They're frightened. They're really frightened that their game is going to be abandoned and forgotten. For good reason, you know, for financial reasons, for the reasons of England being successful, I think trust is a really big word this year. Trust is a big. But I mean, I hear that, Kevin. But I mean, also, you know, England, the England men's teams, red ball and white ball cannot be successful without a strong network of counties and strong county competitions. It's impossible that the England women's team can't be strong without the network and the pathway that we've put in place, which starts with the county girls pathways and goes up through the regional hubs and up into. the England team. It's impossible for one to exist without the other. But what I would say, and again, we haven't had a chance to get gone under that. But again, you know, you're a real

advocate for County Cricket. And we thank you and all of your colleagues for that. And we know that there's a loyal following that listen to you and get their information from you as well. but also they've also seen a really positive start the county championship and I don't want to just skim over that Kevin because if you look at the season so far with all of the chatter over the winter about county championship cricket we've seen six really good rounds of cricket we've seen games going deep into day four

we've seen English qualified batters batting for a long time and scoring big hundreds we've seen bowlers having to work hard for their wickets, which is what people have said that they need to be able to do. If you're going to go down to Australia, you've got to work hard for your wickets. We've seen the average first inning score go up. We've seen some fantastic games of cricket

and we shouldn't skim over that because that's credit to the counties for a lot of hard work through the winter. It's also credit to all of the headgrounds managers and their staff who get a lot of criticism and we all owe them a debt of gratitude because as you know,

they're probably some of the hardest working people. across the game. So there's been some fantastic things in the first part and I'm looking forward to seeing how that builds through the season and obviously coming back and talking to you at some point to reflect on how the season's going. But there are a very hardworking,

loyal group of people within the ECB who love county cricket, who work incredibly hard and that's across all the competitions, men and women's, and they're not going to stop working hard to make sure that they're successful. Well, that was Neil Snowball, the ECB managing director for county cricket.

Plenty to take away from that, and we'll continue to discuss all those issues, I'm sure, during the summer. As we mentioned, the Vitality T20 blast begins this week with every ball of every game live on the BBC Sport website and app, plus regular coverage on five sports extra and BBC sounds. Look out for coverage. the women's domestic T20 competition in the Charlotte Edwards Cup and a reminder of the first men's test, England versus New Zealand, live 1025 Thursday the 2nd of June. We'll have a podcast on this stream every day of that test, of course, rounding up the action, plus check out new episodes of No Balls with Alex Hartley and Kate Cross and tail enders with Greg James, Felix White

and James Anderson. You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. That's a real cutthroat business And if it doesn't happen And it doesn't work the way you say As a manager as a coach You will be sacked And you say well if it does work Well basically you've got another weekend

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