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With the regular clatter of a London letterbox come large envelopes stuffed with papers and PR about cricket. Some are self-inflicted the MCC's weighty minutes among them; some are educational - the England and Wales Cricket Board's plans for the development game and a recent one about combating racism in club cricket; others simply have to be suffered - the NatWest Trophy previews, the GCU National League fact files, the PricewaterhouseCoopers rankings; and soon, one imagines, bumf from the PPP Healthcare County Championship.

We live in a sponsorship-driven sporting world and because of it, the game is well publicised and just about everyone is better off.

These days, the ECB have a director of corporate affairs and his drip-feed of information to the media is interesting enough to excuse their self-congratulation and occasional self-defence, and sensible in their effort to communicate the board's initiatives to the media.

On Thursday morning, though, it happened. Postman Pat delivered a board bombshell. This was the clatter that took the biscuit.

On paper headed B & H Super Cup - that's the semi-final in which Yorkshire beat Warwickshire on Saturday and less than half a crowd turned up - the opening paragraphs read: ``The England & Wales Cricket Board announced today that they have revised the format for the Benson & Hedges Super Cup from the year 2000. . . the competition will in future involve all 18 first-class counties playing in group matches followed by knock-out rounds and a showpiece final at Lord's.''

Now, if you had just dropped in from Mars, you could be forgiven for thinking, nice idea, new comp, get more of the country involved. If, however, you had been in touch for the last 27 years, you would know that the ``revised format'' is exactly the format to which we all bade farewell a year ago near as damn it to the day. What landed on the doorstep on Thursday was a release re-releasing the B & H Cup as we know it.

For all the rhetoric riding upon the winds of change and the forthright 'no change is no option' quotes, we're back where we started. A basic principle of Raising The Standard - the document produced by the ECB which took many months of detailed research into account, a document produced to invigorate and catalyse sharper, more modern planning for English cricket - which was to streamline the domestic game, has been compromised.

Page four of Raising The Standard is subtitled 'executive summary of key proposals'. Two points related to the first-class game and, therefore, the production line of Test-match cricketers: ``Reduce the number of first-class matches to create better balance between match play, recuperation and preparation'' (well, we have one less match than before Raising The Standard hit the shelves) and ``introduce in 1999 a two-division, 50-over National League with promotion and relegation to supersede the Sunday League and the Benson & Hedges Cup.'' To ``supersede'' it promises not to breathe all over it.

So now the English first-class season is made up of this: seven Test matches and 10 one-day internationals; a two-divisional championship of 16 games per county; a two-divisional National League of 16 games per county; more matches than before in the NatWest Trophy; and the B & H Cup, with zonal matches in April. It's all there. The best cricketers in the land deemed mediocre before the changes are to be ground into the dust. What a cock-up.

There are a few things to add here. The name Benson & Hedges will be dragged through the mud but it should not be. Tobacco sponsorship is close to taboo and so, understandably, they'll take what they can get. The top brass at B & H are not sure the ECB have got this U-turn right, incidentally, but they contracted to sponsor the 50-over competition for two years so whatever you hear from The Management, take it with a pinch of salt. In an ideal world, Benson & Hedges would have sponsored the triangular series of 10 one-day internationals which begins next summer but for reasons beyond their control, they could not.

The name ECB will be - is being - dragged through the mud, too. But the blame does not necessarily lie at the feet of the administrators for it is the First Class Forum, i.e., the counties, who make up the board's executive and who, in turn, make these decisions. Raising The Standard was published by the administrators, who sought individual opinion from the counties, the media, the coaches, the players and many others. It was torn apart by the counties, whose collective self-interest has never been better illustrated than by the decision to resurrect the 50-over cup.

To finish, here's another quote from the press release delivered by Postman Pat on Thursday. Tim Lamb, chief executive of the ECB, said: ``Many of the counties feel that the zonal stages of the B & H competition add real value for county members and a clear majority were in favour of expansion beyond its present form.'' In all probability, this is not what he really thinks. The sting is that Lamb is employed by the counties. So here, he is speaking on their behalf.

This is all such a shame. There are a number of fresher, more fascinating ideas in the pipeline. An even shorter version of the game played during summer evenings was one which the public could watch after school and after work. Now, presumably, evening cricket is on the back burner. Or is it? Can the overkill go on?