The One Day 50 over Cup

contributor Jon Goodrick
 
As a country dweller in my mid 50s, I am clearly not the type of spectator that the ECB has in mind for The Hundred. And for that I am very grateful. Having watched cricket since my schooldays, I am, as you would imagine, firmly in the red ball camp. That said I fully appreciate that T20 really does have its place in encouraging kids and families to get involved in the game. I was even at the first Twenty20 finals day at Trent Bridge back in 2003, so I am certainly no luddite when it comes to cricket and progress.

However, there is no doubt that last summer I felt a bit cheated out of my summer of cricket with The Ashes squeezed into 6 weeks finishing at the end of July just so that the Hundred could start the following day and dominate the entire month of August. Sky even renamed their cricket channel, Sky Hundred for the duration of the tournament for goodness sake. Fast forward 12 months and it is quite literally a different ball game. I haven't attended any 50 over matches probably since before Covid for a variety of reasons, however the One Day Cup this season I feel is a revelation.

Firstly, the use of outgrounds by many counties is an absolute masterstroke, enabling many fans to visit new grounds and sampling the very different kind of atmosphere that goes with it. 
Looking round the other matches on youtube stream, there are outgrounds aplenty. In addition to York and Scarborough there are matches at Beckenham, Guildford, Kibworth, Radlett, Rugby School, South Northumberland, Welbeck, and probably a couple of others I have no doubt missed. The attendances also seem to be higher that they probably would be at the normal County home, certainly around 4000 at York and the place was packed to the rafters. Either way 4000 spectators at York looks much better than the same number at Headingley spread sparsely around a 18000-capacity stadium.

As I live just outside York, of course I just had to go and watch Yorkshire v Gloucestershire at York CC last Friday. Supposedly the One Day Cup is a 2nd XI tournament these days, and while its true many of the top players are away in the hundred, at York I was able to watch two very decent international players in Shan Masood and Cameron Smith. Two days later when Surrey played Notts at Guildford there were 4 former England internationals on show, not bad for a 2nd XI competition !
At the other end of the spectrum, future possible stars are on show, sometimes for the first time, and this year that included the talented offspring of former England captains Michael Atherton, Michael Vaughan, Andrew Flintoff and South Africa's Dale Benkenstein. I'm sure there maybe others I have missed, but it certainly adds an interesting sub plot to any match as crowds want to be among the first to see these next generation of possible internationals.

Back to York CC. It was a glorious day, and I arrived early taking my own rather comfy chair, a revelation in itself, and of course I could sit  wherever I wanted and right next to the boundary edge. A marked contrast to the previous sold out test match at Edgbaston I attended for the first 2 days, enjoyable though that was.

Gloucestershire batted first and got 251/9 - a steady 5 an over, with Ollie Price top scorer just falling 2 runs shy of a well deserved century. What I loved about the match most of all, is that it felt like proper cricket. Unlike T20, batsmen had time to get in and build an innings, and if a couple of wickets were lost, the new batsmen started all over again, no panic, no slogging, plenty of defensive shots and dot balls, just, well just cricket. To back that up, Gloucestershire managed 27 x 4s and 2 x6s in their innings, with Yorkshire scoring even fewer, just 13 x 4s and 5 x 6s. One reason for that I feel is that the boundary rope, certainly at York and Scarborough, was where it was supposed to be, not brought in 20 yards to make a slogfest easier and "more entertaining". This, along with the solid approach of both teams ensured that the successful shots that did make it to the boundaries, certainly in Yorkshire's case, were rare enough to be fully appreciated and savoured by the crowd. There was certainly no expectation of multiple boundaries in every over, along with any music and fireworks that usually accompany such things - none of that at York ! There were also 5 maiden overs across the 2 innings - unheard of in T20 - all in all it genuinely felt like proper cricket.

The match itself saw Yorkshire seemingly in control at the halfway stage only to fluff their lines. With the score on 137-2 at the halfway stage, Shan Masood was dismissed in the 27th over for 76 and wickets then continued to tumble at regular intervals with Yorkshire eventually all out for 215 in the 48th over, falling 36 runs short. Despite the result, I for one absolutely loved it, and the best thing ? There are still another few days to catch more of this wonderful competition. I hope that you do if you can, if not this summer then definitely next year !