Date-stamped : 12 Dec93 - 09:48 The Guardian DATE: 27 May 1993 Jury still out as shock of the new sinks in MATTHEW ENGEL With the season a month old Matthew Engel assesses the impact of the changes which have been ushered in by the Murray report THE brave new world of English county cricket is now a month old. The format set out in the Murray report, which was supposed to invigorate the game, is still not proven as either a success or a failure. However, a number of trends are beginning to emerge . . . Four-day cricket EVEN Peter Edwards, the Essex secretary and the three-day game's staunchest defender, says his county's four-day match again- stYorkshire (which they lost) was a really good game. And already the championship table looks far neater: so far 18 matches out of 27 have produced a definite result, which would have been unthinkable in an averagely wet May in the past. As a competi- tion, it has improved considerably. But four-day cricket is very little more than pre-war three-day cricket played at the modern players' sluggish tempo. Even the matches that look good from a distance can often be exceedingly tedious from close quarters. My impression is that most people who pay to watch the county game remain unconvinced. The players, whose workload and travelling have been cut down considerably, love it. Some of the individual counties remain more sceptical. Many of them are finding that their income from corporate sponsorship has dropped alarmingly (Derbyshire are the first county in many years to flash real financial danger signals). No one is yet sure whether that is the new set-up, which has abolished the best business-entertainment days in the early part of the week, or the recession. The line from Test and County Cricket Board officials is that this is irrelevant. Enough money comes in from Tests to keep county cricket going. But many counties do not wish to be treat- ed as dependants in this fashion, and their votes will decide the fate of the new system, at the end of the three-year trial if not before. If their income continues to fall, four-day cricket could yet be ditched. The success or failure of the big festivals, such as Bath and Cheltenham, will be important. In the meantime Lord's could arrange the fixture list more in- telligently. A third of the counties have no championship cricket this weekend, a bank holiday with no competing Test match. As soon as the Old Trafford Test begins, all the counties have a game. This is neither sane nor fair. The Sunday League ONE spectator reputedly drove to Headingley the other Sunday, took one look at the players prancing about in various shades of blue and green, shouted & Law League, to give it its full and un- lovely title, has made next to no impact so far. The problem is that the TCCB tried to reconcile two possibly ir- reconcilable objectives. On the one hand, it introduced coloured clothes, white balls and black sightscreens to try to make the game more attractive to people who do not actually like cricket very much. On the other, it extended the game from 40 overs a side to 50, and abolished the restrictions on run-ups, to make it more of a proper match and less of a slog. The players loathe the whole thing. Most could not care less what they wear but they reckon they will be knackered on Monday mornings. It seems certain that, by midsummer, counties not chal- lenging for the Sunday title will rest their top players to keep them fresh for the final day of championship games on Monday. The B&H Cup THE abolition of zonal games meant two counties, Kent and Gloucestershire, were knocked out before the end of April. Both are very sore. Other counties agree that something must be done: either by reverting to the old method or at least pushing the games further back in the season. Computerised scoring NOT a product of the Murray report, more a product of TCCB offi- cials' determination to push through their own ideas regardless. It is no longer possible to ask a county scorer how he is, be- cause he will tell you, at length, or perhaps involve you in a discussion about whether it takes nine computer moves to record a stumping off a wide, or 13. Many scorers are now doing two jobs, fighting the technology by day and writing up the scorebook at night. Teething troubles? Perhaps. But the whole conception was flawed. The TCCB believed that this method would get scores through to newspapers faster and encourage evening papers to devote more space to cricket. Many, if not most, ''evening'' papers now have final deadlines too early to get in any live cricket at all. Conclusion THIS is cricket. There does not have to be a conclusion. Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)