by Matthew Cooper
Saturday, October 20, 2001

Imagine this: a team scores 200 in its first innings, concedes 500 for 3 declared in reply and thereby picks up two bonus points. Is that English domestic cricket's idea of competition? Or should we wake up to the fact that it is charity -- just another example of county cricket fostering mediocrity, more interested in throwing crumbs of comfort to the average than striving for excellence.

At present the bonus-point system is a joke, rewarding incompetence and therefore failing in its aim of rewarding the superior team in games ruined by the weather.

If we assume (albeit controversially) that the bonus-point system, like the County Championship itself, should be educating future Test cricketers, then it becomes yet more defective. When will three first-innings wickets ever win a Test match? Never, that's when.

So what are the alternatives? Elsewhere, points are awarded for a first-innings lead, but, while this is more in keeping with the general aims of the game, it remains too simplistic. What would be better -- and what would genuinely promote high-quality cricket and high-quality cricketers -- is a system that rewards teams who either possess a winning advantage or have made themselves extremely difficult to beat.

Let us assume the captaincy of a county XI. Our first-innings intentions are simple -- to score at least 350 runs, to take all of the opposition wickets and to gain a first-innings lead. Only bad teams would expect anything less. So why not offer one bonus point for each of these targets achieved? No messing around with amounts of runs scored and wickets taken, just simple -- and genuine -- matchwinning targets.

And what do we expect from our cricketers? Bowlers who take five wickets and batsmen who score centuries. In other words, matchwinners. Simple then -- we'll award a point for each individual five-for and each individual hundred.

What's more -- and this is paramount -- individual points will be applied to the entire match, a procedure which will have a markedly beneficial effect on second-innings performances. That way, even a team faced with having to bat out two days for a draw would have an incentive not to collapse (ie a point for every century scored). You might argue that the inherent increase of pressure on individual performance is unfair. I'd counter that pressure is precisely what our domestic cricket needs.

There are problems with this scheme. I wonder, for instance, what would happen if Bowler A had four wickets and Bowler B had five with the last man at the crease? Would the bowling team play silly beggars in search of an extra point? But can anything be worse than to reward bad batting and rotten bowling?

My alternative is elitist. But it is unrepentantly so for the simple reason that as long as domestic mediocrity is rewarded we cannot reasonably expect England to thrive.

Matthew Cooper is a freelance writer from Shropshire. Every four years he sells his car, gives up work and empties his savings account to follow England on an Ashes tour. He is currently wondering whether he can allow himself the luxury of another effort next winter. The optimist in him remembers 1986-87, the pessimist recalls Alan Mullally in 1998-99.

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