Forty-over cricket was the future once. Yet less than half a century since the formation of the popular and iconic John Player Sunday League, the 40-over game, re-branded and re-structured to within an inch of its life, is on its last legs.
Logic suggests that this is an inevitable evolutionary development but the message is clear. The Sunday League was the Twenty20 of its day: designed to bring back the crowds who had deserted county cricket in the 1960s.
Since Twenty20 cricket was launched in 2003 to sceptical media reaction, it has grown in popularity, status and size. This year's tournament contained 90 group matches before the knock-out stages, that's five games both home and away for each county.
I dare say that the overall crowd figures are probably up but there have certainly been some visible empty seats which is a concern. We may inevitably be witnessing Twenty20 overkill or simply that the fan base is being spread too thinly across the increased volume of matches.
The counties may be counting the cash and doing handstands. But to a TV audience, whatever the sport, the sight of empty seats devalues the event. West Indies' Test series against Australia, which contained some thrilling passages of play even if the overall contest was one-sided, was watched by one man and his conch shell. You get more spectators at Derby for pre-season nets.
Watching the series on TV was a depressing experience. Not because the cricket was dull, though the neutral yearns for a serious upturn in West Indian fortunes, but because there was no one there. It seemed like a meaningless event yet had there been noisy, partisan crowds it would have felt significant and the buzz would have transferred to the watching TV audience.
At Lord's recently for the Middlesex v Essex Twenty20 match, the ground was not full. There were still 15,000 people there which is not to be sniffed at. Remember this is county cricket we're talking about here.
But the initial couple of Twenty20 games at Lord's were sell-outs and my own impression, even allowing for changeable weather, was that the novelty might be wearing off.
Certainly the atmosphere around where I was sitting was still very much 'boys' night out' rather than any sense of loyalty to one team or other. I'm sure that is, to an extent, a 'London thing' and elsewhere in the country club loyalties are a lot stronger even among the new Twenty20 converts.
At the Rose Bowl this week, where Hampshire were disposing of Surrey with clinical efficiency, there was a healthy but certainly not sell-out crowd which, for a TV viewer, tarnished a good occasion ever so slightly.
I'm sure the counties would still say that crowds (and their financial revenue) are very healthy but the punters should ideally be left wanting more. If someone goes to a sell-out Twenty20 game and enjoys the experience they will make a mental note to get in early for tickets next time. If the ground is not full, the incentive is not there and conceivably they might bypass the next event, out of forgetfulness or apathy rather than conscious aversion.
Sell-out crowds makes the whole competition look top-class. Demand should always slightly out-strip supply. Please, ECB, don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
John Stern is editor of The Wisden Cricketer, the world's best-selling monthly cricket magazine. www.thewisdencricketer.comWhat do you think? Post your comments below. READ MORE Football headlinesMore BladesMore OwlsMore SpireitesMore RoversMore RedsMore MillersMore Ice HockeyMore rugby leagueMore rugby unionMore boxingSports columnistsAll sport categoriesThe full article contains 632 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
