The cricket season has begun which is, as usual, a cause for celebration and an occasion to lament the guarantee that the first month of the new innings will be ruined by rain.
Commercial considerations – that is, the need to stuff the calendar with as many limited overs fixtures as possible during the prime summer months – demand the further marginalisation of the venerable County Championship. Nearly a quarter of the fixtures will be played by the end of May, with others just as liable to be afflicted by poor weather as the season staggers to a close at the end of September.
Times change, of course, and even traditionalists have to accept that. The bigger problem with the Championship is that performances for your county have ceased to have much relevance when it comes to selecting the England test team.
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