Sharks narrowly beaten by Warwickshire in One Day Competition

Yesterday I was invited into the Sussex boardroom for a one day game against Warwickshire.

Top of the second division of the Championship and in the quarter finals of the T20, our resources are stretched by another competition and it showed.

After a platform of 54-0, our batting collapsed. This might be as James Coles in involved in the Hundred, Danny Hughes is at the Olympics and Jayden Sealeds playing in the Test series for the West Indies.

The Sharks total of 173 did not seem enough but in an exciting finish we made a fist of it as – nine wickets down – Warwickshire won by just one wicket.

I always find meeting the Chair of Sussex and a committees member of Warwickshire informative and instructive.

Essentially the ECB has a turnover of £330 million but their paymasters Sky control cricket.

Women ‘s cricket, though laudable, makes a loss of £15 million and the impoverished counties (those who have no Test ground) are reliant on the ECB sweetener.

The irony is that Test cricket is still the more popular and lucrative but, without the supply of county cricketers, England will not have a winning side.

Warwickshire’s Edgbaston is a Test ground – and also has conference facilities enabling them to hold meeting and weddings for over a thousand guests.

Sussex were the pioneers of the limited game – the first winners of the then Gillette Cup.  Ted Dexter, the then Sussex skipper, made few friends by setting a field around the boundary but the practice was successful.

The harsh reality for Sussex and the other counties who do not have Test grounds is that no one other than their supporters care.