Print

[Cow_corner]

Does the test bidding process apply equally to all counties?

[Sam]

Just goes to show that the ECB really has absolutely no idea what it's doing. It's a complete debacle, and I think Durham CCC or their supporters should be suing the ECB for some form of dodgy practices.

Don't really see how you can sue someone over a deal you've agreed to.

[iand123]

Personally dont think this is right, surely this should have been said at the time of the bailout? I doubt Durham would have had much choice but to accept but this seems to have come about after the relegation was decided which doesnt give it the best impression in my eyes

[smilley792]

Don't most sports deduct points when a club goes into administration?

Is this not basically the same??

[SOULMAN1012]

Kent CCC must be reall happy with this, why couldn't Hampshire stay down, Durham get relegated due to financial issue and the  Kent and Essex the two best teams from Div 2 go up.
Why do a club that got relegated fair and square get to stay in Div 1 over a team who finished 2nd and in any other county season would have got promoted? And yes I am a Kent CCC fan but still I think Kent board should be fuming and rightly so

Good old ECB can always count on them and the FA to make a pigs ear out of running there respective sports

[ppccopener]

Kent CCC must be reall happy with this, why couldn't Hampshire stay down, Durham get relegated due to financial issue and the  Kent and Essex the two best teams from Div 2 go up.
Why do a club that got relegated fair and square get to stay in Div 1 over a team who finished 2nd and in any other county season would have got promoted? And yes I am a Kent CCC fan but still I think Kent board should be fuming and rightly so

Good old ECB can always count on them and the FA to make a pigs ear out of running there respective sports

Its not just a pigs ear of a decision, what it is is shameful.Whatever way you look at it it defies belief.
Im not going to comment anymore on this only to say by the time i wake up tommorow i hope the ECB has bern disbanded and replaced by a professional organisation who can run the great game we all love.

Carlos over and out! 

[Manormanic]

Wow.  This is beyond harsh.

We've covered that some - not all as some have suggested - of this was caused by the ECB and the conditions of Durham's admission into the First Class structure.  Even that which is technically Durham's fault - the overspend on players - was only ever the product of their outstanding record at producing talent.  Admittedly, some is nicked from across the border, but even as a proud Yorkshireman I'm sometimes jealous of their conversion rate of talent. 

This is a county that has produced, without importing from further than Bradford, a raft of international or promising county class talent in the last two decades: Collingwood, Harmison, Onions, Borthwick, Wood, Plunkett have played test cricket, Stoneman should have, Mustard was a great one day player, Muchall an underdeveloped talent and Rushworth is one of the best of those bowlers just not quick enough for international cricket.  Oh, and some ginger kid called Stokes who seems a bit useful. And this season they've played Richardson, Weighell, Pringle, McCarthy, Arshad and Burnham....

I can accept that relegation was probably fair, if not in the interests of English cricket (sorry Hampshire fans) but to decimate their chances for next season as well?  Wow.  This is not Strauss stitching the Championship up by fiddling player availabilities, this is a systematic destruction of one of the country's top two or three talent factories.

[MD2812]

If i'm right, they've also lost the right to host tests? So surely this is a downward spiral which hurts the ECB too?

[Sam]

Kent CCC must be reall happy with this, why couldn't Hampshire stay down, Durham get relegated due to financial issue and the  Kent and Essex the two best teams from Div 2 go up.
Why do a club that got relegated fair and square get to stay in Div 1 over a team who finished 2nd and in any other county season would have got promoted? And yes I am a Kent CCC fan but still I think Kent board should be fuming and rightly so

As a Hampshire fan I'm going to come in with my opposite end of the spectrum opinion  . I'd argue the case that if Hampshire had had the same financial benefits from the ECB as Durham had had this season (aka, if all our wages had been paid for us by the ECB and we'd had an extra couple of million pushed our way) then we'd most likely have found a way to perform better than we did.

I also think if you look at it as the same scenario as penalty points being deducted this season (which I know they weren't technically, but surely it's practically the same scenario?), Durham would've been pushed below Hampshire and therefore taken the relegation spot instead. If Hampshire had finished within 2 points of Lancashire at the end of the season and were therefore relegated on the basis of deducted points earlier in the season I doubt we'd have heard many people clamoring for Lancs to be relegated as well and another team sent up from division 2.

[Sam]

If i'm right, they've also lost the right to host tests? So surely this is a downward spiral which hurts the ECB too?

I may be wrong but I think hosting tests were one of the causes of their financial struggles?

[springbok45]

If this article has any truth to it, this whole thing gets murkier 

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/durham-fuming-after-ecb-relegate-them-after-telling-them-to-turn-down-4m-bid-a7343276.html

[Buzz]

You should read Dobell's article on cricinfo. He nails it.

[ppccopener]

Read it.he does.he's a very good journalist.

[jamielsn15]

Just on the Kent CCC having an issue, it was clear from the start that two teams would be relegated and one promoted.  And so it was ever thus...

[Seniorplayer]

I'll stand to be corrected but hadn't Durham already decided a while ago  not to bid for  test matches after 2016