County cricket will have to contract to survive says Yorkshire CCC captain

Yorkshire captain Steve Patterson believes it is inevitable that counties will operate on reduced squads in the coming years as the game continues to adapt to a new landscape in a post-coronavirus world.
New deal: Yorkshire's Steve Patterson leads his side out against Surrey at Scarborough. Picture: SWPixNew deal: Yorkshire's Steve Patterson leads his side out against Surrey at Scarborough. Picture: SWPix
New deal: Yorkshire's Steve Patterson leads his side out against Surrey at Scarborough. Picture: SWPix

The 37-year-old bowler was speaking to The Yorkshire Post after signing a new two-year deal with Yorkshire that ensures he will continue representing the county of his birth until the end of the 2022 season.

By that time, Patterson accepts that first-class county cricket will be played by far fewer professionals as the pinch of a summer initially decimated and then played without crowds, starts to bite.

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Already the England and Wales Cricket Board have revealed the pandemic has cost them £100m and will force them to make 62 redundancies.

Face time: Yorkshire's Steve Patterson wearing a face mask after returning to training.Face time: Yorkshire's Steve Patterson wearing a face mask after returning to training.
Face time: Yorkshire's Steve Patterson wearing a face mask after returning to training.

Yorkshire anticipate losses of six-figures – better than the millions they initially forecast thanks to the generosity of members donating their fees, but symptomatic of the widespread issues facing cricket.

Players were furloughed in the early part of lockdown and after playing for just two months of a truncated season, Patterson and his team-mates have gone back on to flexi-furlough.

Fears for the future have been allayed with news this week of Adil Rashid, Matthew Waite, Jack Shutt and now Patterson all signing new contracts.

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But it is when those contracts start to expire that Patterson believes the real picture of just how crippling the pandemic has been, will emerge.

“You’re always concerned, especially at a club like ours with one of the biggest squads in the country,” said Patterson.

“You never want to see anyone lose their jobs or see any club have to cut their wage bill.

“But I also believe there’ll always be a need for first-class cricket and competitive sides and a competitive squad. So we’ll always have a number of players, just maybe not the 26-man squad (including England and second-team players) that we have now.

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“If you said to me where do you think we’ll be in two years’ time, I’d imagine the squad will not be significantly smaller, but it will certainly be noticably smaller when certain contracts will have expired. I think we’ll know with more certainty where we stand then.

“It may not necessarily be next summer, but certainly in the mid-term future I believe we’ll have a smaller squad and I think the crucial thing is if that is the case you’ve got players good enough to play first-class cricket.”

One option that Patterson could see happening, is part-time contracts replacing year-long deals. “Normally, the Professional Cricketers Association are quite strong in saying you’ve got to give younger players a 12-month contract to allow them adequate time to prepare for the season,” he said.

“But they’ve backed down a bit this year to keep more people in a job and I think we’ll see a bit more of that going forward.

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“What you may also see is less second-team cricket, if clubs have got a budget to spend on cricket, then they’re going to put the vast majority of that into first-team cricket. Second-team cricket; playing here, there and everywhere and staying in expensive hotels, we might see less of that.”

Adaptability, believes Patterson, will be the key; the ability of the governing body and the counties to react swiftly and pro-actively to the evolving situation.

“What you’ve got to remember is sport is no different to any other industry; it’s got to make its own worth financially and it’s got to be able to pay the bills,” he said. “If the only way to do that is to make squads smaller then sadly that is just part of life, the same as any other industry.

“It’s important to be aware that all over the country, people are losing their jobs. We can’t expect to be immune from that. It’s important the game continues because it is valuable to the public, to people’s health and wellbeing.

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“The game has to be financially safe to do that and if one of the side-effects of that is we lose a few players then sadly that is just part of life.”

When it came to signing his own contract, coronavirus did not come into his thinking.

“My view on it is quite simple, nobody has got any control over it. We don’t know what’s going to happen, so all we can do in sport is prepare as normal as if we’re going to play a full season and then adapt when the time comes.”

Given all that, how much of a relief was it to get that deal over the line, one that will see the Beverley-born pace bowler complete 18 years of service for Yorkshire?

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“To extend my contract and almost guarantee that I will finish my career at Yorkshire, effectively making me a one-club player, is something I’m really proud of,” he said. “It’s a really exciting time for the club. I see my role a little bit differently, focusing more on helping and nurturing some of the young talent through so that when I do finish, I leave the club in a better place.”

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James Mitchinson

Editor