Money could be better spent at the grassroots

2:58pm Friday 13th June 2008

I'VE got no real problem with England agreeing to play five winner-takes-all £10million Twenty20 matches in the Caribbean.

Most sports are revolving round money these days and it's a shame, but players are going to go where the money is, that's human nature.

It's taking away the emphasis from the longer game to try and make it more exciting, but I'm not a great fan of Twenty20. But people are ploughing a lot of money into it and in the long run if it increases the number of fans it can only be good for the game.

But those sums of money aren't being ploughed into grassroots cricket and it would probably be better spent for the future rather than go to individual players. They say the money is going back to grassroots cricket but there's only a bit coming through.

You can already see that the razzamatazz of the short game is having an impact on the longer game. Wes Durston is not getting a look in in the three or four day games for Somerset but they have told him he's got to be ready for the Twenty20 competition.

I've said all along and I firmly believe that the best players have got to be able to adapt to all sorts of cricket, especially in the England set-up.

Newcomers are a welcome addition

THERE are selection problems for Wiltshire because of work commitments and there's not a lot we can do.

It doesn't help that we have a number of teachers and guys at university and it's all been concentrated in the first couple of games of the season.

It was an absolute nightmare trying to get a side together for the game against Cheshire. We've had conversations with Wiltshire's head of performance Alan Crouch and we were looking at a number of young players.

But even then there were exams, one was on holiday and another was out through injury.

In the end we had to pool a side from mostly outside the county which wasn't something we wanted to do, but we wanted a side that could compete. We couldn't go out with aside that would roll over. The guys performed very well and we were neck-and-neck with Cheshire until the last session. We've got to come out of that with great pride. We've been talking to those players who came in and have asked if they are available. It would mean more players to pool from and competition for places.

Hospitality was second to none

THE hospitality we received at Trowbridge over the three days against Cheshire was absolutely tremendous.

It's the county ground of Wiltshire and the members put a lot of time and effort in there. It's a credit to the club to turn it round after a few years back when they were in the doldrums. They have done a lot of work and it's back to how it used to be when we used to go there in the Alliance League.

I've said it's a low and slow wicket at Trowbridge and that's no disrespect to Trowbridge, that's just the way wickets are around here. But at the weekend there were 1,200 runs scored and even the umpire said it was the best wicket he had seen this season.