{"id":267685,"date":"2025-07-16T22:14:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T22:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/267685\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T22:14:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T22:14:10","slug":"durham-offer-support-to-county-cricket-shake-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/267685\/","title":{"rendered":"Durham offer support to county cricket shake-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Durham chairman Phil Collins <a href=\"https:\/\/www.durhamcricket.co.uk\/news-and-media\/durham-cricket-membership-statement-domestic-structure\/\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said in a statement on the club website, external<\/a>: &#8220;We support the 18-county model but, believe the current 10\/8 division structure lacks meaningful fixtures as the season progresses. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The current structure produces a plethora of games in both divisions that do not have any meaning; teams involved in mid table games in the last third of the season onwards do not have any jeopardy\u2026 the teams involved cannot get into a title or promotion race and are safe from relegation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We don&#8217;t believe this produces the intensity of cricket that our great game needs and is something that both players and fans constantly comment on to us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The proposal also suggests the T20 Blast should be reduced in size and comprise three groups of six teams each, with the entire competition played before The Hundred begins.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The county said the plans have been drawn up following a Professional Cricketers&#8217; Association survey, which found that 83% of players think the current schedule &#8220;harms physical wellbeing&#8221;, 72% saying it &#8220;hinders high performance&#8221;, and over two-thirds claiming mental health is affected by the intensity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The statement added that other counties have proposed alternative structures, including an 8\/10 and a 10\/8 division split.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Collins said the idea will be discussed at a members forum on 30 July. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;These proposals aim to reduce workload, enhance performance, and offer more compelling cricket. We believe they represent the best way forward,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The ECB has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Durham chairman Phil Collins said in a statement on the club website, external: &#8220;We support the 18-county model&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-267685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114865220141530322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}