Yorkshire CCC’s promotion in the gloom of autumn shows the state cricket is in - Yorkshire Post Letters

Surely there can be no better indication of the vast gulf between football and county cricket in England than the lacklustre end to what has ultimately been a relatively successful season for Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

Instead of pitch invasions, fireworks and rousing speeches to celebrate promotion, Yorkshire’s return to cricket’s topflight was viewed by less than 300 fans, with the majority of these taking refuge in the warmth of the long room at Headingley.

As the impending arrival of autumn was felt by all in attendance on Sunday, it was difficult not to see the final day of the county championship as microcosm of the club as a whole and even the state of England’s national game, as Headingley lay commercially dormant and attended by only the most committed and ardent Yorkshire members.

Whilst the identity-less Hundred continues to claim the prime fixture slot of midsummer, the culmination of our beloved cricket season is pushed to the early autumn along with the limp and underwhelming culmination of our domestic one-day competitions at a time when many have switched their attention to the football season several weeks ago.

Over 135,000 fans watched their football teams at home fixtures across the county at the weekend whilst a handful of cold and increasingly disillusioned county cricket fans saw Yorkshire gain promotion to the promised land through the autumnal haze in Leeds.

It’s surely time for the ECB to properly promote and support all formats of the county game before it is too late.