RECOGNISING that English cricket is ``no longer a force in the world'', Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, introduced radical changes to the structure of professional cricket at Lord's yesterday.
They include a three-group county championship with play-offs for final placings, starting next year, and, from 1999, a 25-match 50-overs national league plus a knockout cup involving all 38 counties.
Together with the recent shake-up of the game's administration and changes also proposed yesterday for the recreational game, they amount to the most far-reaching reforms in domestic cricket this century.
The aim, said Lord MacLaurin, was to create ``a virtuous circle of success'' starting with maximum participation in schools and leading seamlessly to financially viable county cricket, a successful Test side and reinvestment.
It is expected that the proposals will be ratified by the First-Class Forum, the voice mainly of the 18 first-class counties, on Sept 15 after yesterday's presentation by Lord MacLaurin and Tim Lamb, the board's chief executive, was enthusiastically received.
Reforming the four-day county championship into three equal groups of six counties each, with televised play-offs in September, was preferred to a two-division competition.
From 1998 there will be 14 first-class matches per county, a decrease of 12 days on the current programme. The national league, which will replace the Benson and Hedges Cup and the Sunday league from 1999, will be played in midweek and some Sundays. It will increase the minimum of one-day matches from 19 to 27.
It is this questionable balance between 56 first-class and a maximum of 30 one-day matches for successful counties each season which shows the deal to be as much about making money for cricket as raising the standard of the England team.
The NatWest trophy will be ``cricket's FA Cup'' from 1999, with 60 teams competing, including all 38 counties from England and Wales, plus Scotland, Ireland, Holland and Denmark. The 18 first-class counties will enter two teams each.
The second XI championship will be replaced by a divisional ``County Board'' tournament in which first-class and minor counties will compete under Australian grade cricket rules: two-day single innings matches with provision for outright two-innings victories.
The hardest part of the board's job will be to disentangle long-established leagues, especially in the North of England, but parochialism is to be sacrificed if the seamless transition of talented players from the school playground to the Test arena is to be achieved.