Protecting the Sheffield Shield

The review of the state of Australian cricket in the media has been a little over the top, but this amateur pundit thinks that it is starting to identify the causes of some of the problems that have resulted in our poor performance in recent times.

In Sunday's Herald-Sun, former South African opening batsman Barry Richards spoke of the need for Cricket Australia to retain the Sheffield Shield in its current form or strengthen it, and not to sacrifice it to the Gods of the shortest form of the game. He contends that the 10-match format must be retained despite pressure to find room for the proposed eight-franchise Twenty20 competition planned to start next summer.

Then today in The Australian, Ricky Ponting has spoken of the need of review of the lower levels of Australian cricket and how it affects the quality of the representative teams that have lost so many games in 2010.

Well, they're both right. It has been the strength and consistency of the Sheffield Shield first class cricket competition that has provided the cornerstone of quality on which the success of the test team has been built on for all those years. Ten matches, home and away against everyone, in all conditions in all states, four days of 100 overs each.

The only problem with this competition is it loses money, hand over fist. Twenty20 cricket, however, even at a non-international level, does make money and therefore Cricket Australia wants to expand it.

However, the Sheffield Shield must be defended. Try to get along to a day or two of it between now and the end of the season if you love cricket, because it clearly needs our support.

The solution is simple: play the Shield (and a truncated 45 over competition) between the middle of October and the end of January. This would also coincide with the international itinerary, to be played from November to the end of January.

The Shield would be played with two matches every three weeks, with one 45-over match during that time. The entire competition would take 15 weeks, players would regularly be playing quality, tough, first-class cricket and would benefit greatly. If you could organise it that the test players were available for the first couple of games, even better.

Then, in February, with all international cricketers available, play the Twenty20 Big Bash. All the attention would then go to this competition, and the schedule would be free (except if the Australians needed to tour New Zealand, South Africa or the West Indies). Then play the Shield final in the first or second week of March.

This would open up stadia like the MCG, the SCG and the Gabba for mid-March footy. And let's face it: Aussie Rules pays the bills at those three grounds; not cricket. The Adelaide Oval will soon be used for footy too, so all the more reason to get cricket season over and done with by the second weekend in March.

The 45/50 over form of the game is already suffering from Twenty20 cricket. The reason Twenty20 cricket was invented was because ODIs were becoming predictable and boring. But there is no reason to see Test Cricket suffer.

It is quite clear from the media reaction of the Ashes loss that Test Cricket is still the most important form of the game to Australians. Time to protect it by protecting the Sheffield Shield.