At least from the narrow perspective of the England team, competitive 50-over cricket is the ideal preparation for the opening international encounters and this year's games have given the selectors plenty of up-to-date evidence on which to choose a team for the Texaco Trophy this weekend. If Mike Atherton had scored Darren Maddy's runs, for example, Atherton, not Maddy, would be chosen; but it will be vice versa.
To have the zonal games packed, but not overpacked, into a fortnight, with championship matches either side, has given a more sensible balance to the difficult first month of the season, when majority public attention is fixed on the climax of the various football codes. With the exception of games involving Scotland, Ireland and the Minor Counties, it has been tough stuff, everyone knowing that defeat in more than one game almost certainly meant no place in the quarter-finals.
That sort of cricket should breed England cricketers who excel rather than wilt when the pressure mounts. Given the amount of one-day international cricket, a 50-over tournament has to be a relevant part of the wider scheme and the plan is that the new 50-over National League - the English Cricket Board hope to name a sponsor soon - will fill the void with the right sort of cricket.
The need is for balance. Over a full summer, one a week of these muscle and mind stretching games is quite sufficient. Reputation is not a shield against punishment and there is no hiding place when a bowler has an indifferent day, witness Angus Fraser's none for 60 in 10 overs on Saturday. The urge for quick runs can loosen inhibitions: look at Robert Croft's opening contributions for Glamorgan. But in encouraging liberated batting, these games also quickly foster risky shots which can undo a player when field placings are different.
WHEREVER one travels, buildings seem to be going up on first-class cricket grounds. The game has much for which to thank the National Lottery, and John Major, the cricket-loving Prime Minister who pushed it through. The huge new construction on the Radcliffe Road at Trent Bridge, rapidly nearing completion, is the most obvious example. Dwarfing the other stands, it will be, when Sir Gary Sobers opens it on July 22, much more than a stand holding 4,500 spectators. Two cricket halls, a medical centre, accommodation for 48 cricketers, a video room, a gym, a squash club, a lecture theatre and extensive provision for the media are among the facilities.
Down the road at Northampton, development is altogether more modest but no less brave. Their lottery grant was merely £1 million compared with Nottinghamshire's £4.65 million. Their project is a splendid six-lane cricket centre where the football ground once stood. Here, as in Nottingham, the youth of the area, and cricket with it, will benefit immensely, but the scale of the respective projects underlines the different perspectives of counties with Test grounds and the rest. Balance is required also in the current review of how the ECB's profits are distributed between them.
Voluntary intiatives sometimes succeed where public money is not available. At Matthew Fleming's former prep school, St Aubyns at Rottingdean, for example. They are offering a scholarship to any potentially outstanding young cricketer aged between eight and 10, inviting applications to Sussex for a trial at Hove in mid-June. The successful child is also guaranteed substantial assistance with fees at Brighton College for the later phase of his (or her) education.
All these schemes are part of the national revival required. The loss of sports fields has been a terrible waste but for any youngster with an eye who gets the chance to play the greatest of team games the facilities are far better than they used to be.
At Trent Bridge they have recently also bought rights to the old Boots ground nearby and to make this a genuine regional centre of excellence it will soon have 24 net pitches and three cricket squares. But the extent of the need has been uncovered by the researcher Peter Wynne-Thomas, who has found only 170 cricket grounds in Nottinghamshire in current use. Just after the war there were almost 400.
This is mainly a reflection of social changes: cars in most families; wives no longer prepared to let husbands play every week; weekend shopping; television sport etc. But is a graphic demonstration of what has happened in one and probably in every county.
IT IS an apt time for professional cricketers to be discussing their future, as some 250 of them will at their association's special meeting at Edgbaston today. A testing of players' opinion on whether the County Championship should go to two divisions will form the centrepiece of the day.
No doubt a substantial majority will fail to appreciate how temporary the commercial advantages would be, or how likely it would be that two divisions would marginalise many talented young players, eventually put some clubs out of business, and exacerbate the tensions between clubs and country which deter national success in football and rugby. By contrast, the advantages of two divisions for successful clubs are obvious.
Players will be addressed today by Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, and they will hear why their representatives are pressing the ECB for a change in registration rules to allow freedom of contract after the age of 26; better health insurance; and a greater share of television rights. Tim Lamb and Cliff Barker will be representing the board.
TIME has run out for the outstanding county batsman of the last decade. Graeme Hick needed to score four more hundreds by May 16 to become the youngest batsman to score 100 first-class hundreds. Worcestershire play Oxford University today but even a century in each innings would leave him on 98 with no further match to reach the landmark ahead of Wally Hammond's 31 years, 359 days.