There are plenty of obstacles ahead but counties are optimistic about a return to action this summer
When Vikram Solanki takes his first training session as the head coach of Surrey on Monday morning, he will be giving his players red balls to use. This was not an entirely straightforward decision since Solanki and all the other coaches around the country do not know how the county
Cricket schedule is going to look from August. “We’re hoping to know soon enough,” he says, “but at the start we decided we should go back to basics with a red ball.”
There are no guarantees about this summer’s domestic cricket but most agree with Solanki when he says: “I would love there to be four-day cricket alongside an element of T20 cricket. I know there is a lot of work going on about that.” Richard Gould, the chief executive of Surrey, Tim Bostock of Durham, Rob Andrew of Sussex, and Lisa Pursehouse of Nottinghamshire have been charged with exploring every possibility. “That’s what the members would like and we will make every effort to play red-ball as well as white-ball cricket. Ideally, the games would have first-class status and they would be competitive.”