Durham signs Dave Warner for T20

OP Tipping wrote:"Where's the money coming from for the regional competition?"


Where's the money coming from to prop up the counties all these years?

ECB, sponsorship deals, the pockets of Chairmen and investors who invest their own money because they have a weird love of cricket, gate receipts (for some), bank loans, membership fees.

I suppose the money already there can be juggled around but it'll cause squealing. Who's going to run the regions needs to thought about too. Do they have separate administration or a central one?

Merlin, he was selected for the Australian T20 and ODI sides without ever having played a first class match.

Indeed he still hasn't played a first class match and he now has IPL and English T20 contracts.

As detailed in my sig, he made a rapid 50 on debut versus RSA in the T20, ultimately 89 off 43 balls, and for a couple of days everyone was talking about him, even saying he should be rushed into the side before the Ashes ... and he still hasn't played a first class match.

"Who's going to run the regions needs to thought about too. Do they have separate administration or a central one?"


For mine, the whole point of it would be to give England's best players some higher level match experience and to aid national selection, so it would make sense for it to be administered solely by the ECB.

£50K each from the ECB as starters (from the Stanford fund) .. membership, sponsorship and gate money.

At Middlesex we pay £140 annual membership - and at the last count I believe there were something like 8,000 paid up members .... that's just over £ 1 mill give or take - but Mddsx is acknowledged to be (along with the big two ooop Norf and the four home counties, a "rich" club".) Other counties are more dependent on ECB funds and sponsorship.

There is now also encouragement for companies to sponsor individual players - ie., in lieu of salary - but not so sure how that will dovetail into the administration of the clubs.

T20 gate money helps considerably.

OP Tipping wrote:Merlin, he was selected for the Australian T20 and ODI sides without ever having played a first class match.

Indeed he still hasn't played a first class match and he now has IPL and English T20 contracts.

As detailed in my sig, he made a rapid 50 on debut versus RSA in the T20, ultimately 89 off 43 balls, and for a couple of days everyone was talking about him, even saying he should be rushed into the side before the Ashes ... and he still hasn't played a first class match.

Just goes to show how a player can catapult himself into the "big time" on the back of one or two sparkling T20 performances! Graham Napier, an Essex chav, (and his IPL contract) comes to mind!

OP Tipping wrote:"is Durham a grade/league cricket team?"

It's one of the Major Counties.

One would hope that's not an eyes_only type of brain snap.

Didn't we used to have test trials?

It wouldn't really matter if these regional games didn't make any money at all or even if they're not televised or 'supported' by fans of counties.

It would be a higher standard of cricket from which to judge players.