It has been reported that cricket matches will be banned from England’s county grounds and the County Championship will be replaced by a Football County Championship (FCC).
All county clubs currently involve warm-up routines which include a compulsory football game. This exercise will now be made into a new format involving 11-a-side matches played on the grounds, while in addition to these matches other 5 on 5 competitions will also be held with a single game lasting for not more than 5 minutes.
Famous English sports personalities Andy Flower and Paul Collingwood seem to be excited over this new format, agreeing that football is necessary and the players like it. Collingwood said, ‘I know you’d expect us to recommend banning football at cricket. In fact, we’ve been pushing for the reverse for some time. With Joe Denly’s latest injury, it proves how important football is to the players. We need to play it more not less’.
Andy Flower on the other hand said that, ‘Owais Shah has developed into a tough, ball winning midfielder and can’t be held back any longer. With the World Cup coming up next summer, we feel that this new move will give the boys the best chance of being noticed by Capello’