‘Less cricket, higher intensity’: Dawid Malan backs ECB’s cuts to county game

The England and Yorkshire batter Dawid Malan has given his unequivocal support to the England and Wales Cricket Board’s proposal to reduce the number of county championship matches.

“In county cricket you just go from one game to the next and it becomes like you’re going through the motions,” Malan said. “England have only been No 1 in the world rankings in Test cricket for a small period of time.” While England has produced “some world class players” in recent years, he added, “we can’t argue that the county system is working if we’ve only been No 1 in the world for such a short period.”

Malan believes that main problem is that the county setup means that players do not have enough time to practise. “If you’re a player trying to get better there is no time to work on your game,” he said. “I do think that less cricket [but] at a higher intensity, with the ability to actually train and prepare for those games, would be better.” He says it would lift the standard of cricket too, because “bowlers will be fitter, and they will be able to bowl quicker for longer periods of time, so it will be more challenging for the batters”.

The 35-year-old, who scored 36 from 35 balls for England in Wednesday’s fifth Twenty20 international defeat by Pakistan in Lahore, also argues that the reduced first-class schedule would make it more likely that young players are able to commit to all formats of the sport.

“Cricket is now a 12-months-a-year game,” he said. “It’s no longer a six-month game for the majority of players, especially once they make that step up to play for England, or if they’ve shown any promise in white-ball cricket.

“Look at the young players like [Surrey’s] Will Jacks, who has come in and done so well in the Hundred and