Allott observed that the Sussex season was over and that the next seven weeks of cricket would be mindless and therefore mediocre. Barclay was appalled at the idea and said that the next seven weeks should be full of hope and would help to fulfil many of the objectives that had motivated Sussex at the start of the season. Allott insisted that the intensity of competition, and the aim to win, would be diluted. Barclay suggested that winning was a goal and that the route to it was equally important.

In April, I spoke to six county captains about their aspirations for the season. Four of them said their best chance of winning a prize was in one-day cricket. Yes, four captains effectively admitted they could not win the County Championship.

I would have thought this monstrous had I not felt the same myself at the beginning of the two previous seasons. As it was, I thought it sad, and wrong, and reflected badly on the structure of the domestic game. How could we possibly compete with the best in the world if more than 20 per cent of captains think their teams are unable to win the competition that prepares players for the ultimate stage. And these leaders are positive men; try talking to some players in the dressing rooms.

In May, I presented a document called ``Strategy for Cricket'' to a search committee from the Test and County Cricket Board who were appointed to choose candidates for the post of chief executive.

I had numerous conversations, mostly clandestine, with leading figures within the game. Some were bright and honest, and keen for new faces and an altered system, some were dull and clearly had no interest in change, and a few were underhand. While the England team flounders in the bottom half of the world ratings and players take the rap, men in power point their collars to the sky and whisper in riddles. The self-interest of each county dominates the running of English cricket, which clings hopelessly to the idea that what has gone before is fine and will be fine again. It will not.

We are on the brink of the 21st century and our society changes by the day, moving with the minds of young people who are its future. So it should be with cricket, but cricket will not let it be and is losing ground in the affections of a new age because of such intransigence. The discussion between Barclay and Allott developed into the argument about a two-divisional championship, dipped in and out of the question of whether there is too much one-day cricket and referred to the development of England players and who should employ them.

Both men, so far apart in the philosophy of their cricket education but remarkably similar in the uncompromising way they played the professional game, agreed that the England team needed to be at the top of a pyramid whose foundations are built around a committed and unselfish domestic structure.

In short, the counties needed to be brave enough to appoint a chief executive, chairman of the board and a management committee to run the game along the lines of a public company, granting a mandate to do as they see fit for the future of the first-class game and not being handcuffed to the past by 18 separately interested groups. It should not be long now before the new English cricket board are formed.

Already, a good man is in place as chief executive - there may be more of the innovator in Tim Lamb than has previously met the eye - and if he is given a progressive chairman - Sir Ian McLaurin's name has been mentioned - coupled with the unilateral support denied his frustrated predecessor, he may be able to chip away at the ingrained, vested interests of his employers.