Why Two Divisions Have Been Toxic For England

It has taken a while but the directors of cricket around the first-class counties have begun to realise just how flawed the two-divisional Championship is, especially with regard to producing England cricketers.

- Derek Pringle

This sudden realisation, which has gathered momentum recently due to Yorkshire’s proposals for a conference system, like those in America’s NFL, has been obvious to anyone watching talent drain away from counties like Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Northamptonshire these past 18 years.

But is a three-conference system, something first proposed by Lord MacLaurin in 1997, and then again by Giles Clarke in 2008, really the answer?

Yorkshire’s proposed Championship will comprise three conferences of six who play each other once home and away, resulting in an initial stage of 10 matches. But while that seems straightforward, the latter stage, of five matches, seems more complicated with the formulation of another three conferences to produce the champions.

I’ve yet to work through the detail but one of the weaknesses of the American conferences is that it is possible for the eventual winner to have won fewer games than their rivals, which cannot be right. For many county clubs, though, anything is better than two divisions.

For them, two divisions have proved toxic, pushing some to the brink of bankruptcy trying to compete with the wealthier Test-ground counties like Surrey and Lancashire.

The stigma of being in the second division has, since 2000 when the format was introduced, forced many counties into short-term expediencies, mostly in the shape of overseas players they could not afford. It is just not good for the game given counties remain the prime nursery for future England stars.