Its been coming for some time, but now its real. In a drastic move today, following test hopeful Joe Denly's knee injury caused while playing football, cricket has bowed to the inevitable. But the move will suprise many.
Next season, it's the cricket matches that will be banned from the nation's County grounds.
In place of cricket, the County Championship will be reconfigured as a Football County Championship (FCC) where the current warm up routines, used by all the teams which include a mandatory game of football, will be expanded into a new format where 11-a-side games will be played on the outfields of our famous grounds.
The FCC will be supplemented by a Five5 competition where the counties will play a 5-a-side 'quick footie' tournament with matches lasting 5 minutes each.
This new structure is designed to reflect our cricket professionals' commitment to football.
Andy Flower and Paul Collingwood are upbeat about the new development. After being handed their scripts, both agreed that more football is what the players really want. 'I know you'd expect us to recommend banning football at cricket,' he said. 'In fact, we've been pushing for the reverse for some time,' said Collingwood, who denied that switching sports was his only way of remaining an England international. 'With Joe Denly's latest injury, it proves how important football is to the players. We need to play it more, not less,' he assured us.
Flower agreed. '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.'
Both coach and captain denied that players were feeling tempted by the new Brazilian Football League (the BFL) where ex-cricketers' football skills, honed for years in warm-up routines prior to playing cricket, will finally receive the recognition that they deserve with lucrative contracts including clauses allowing them to have a much greater say than ever before in the content of their teas.
The players' union, the PCA, has confirmed that the new arrangements will be better for the players' health and fitness. A spokesman confirmed the much-held belief that Freddie Flintoff would have been much fitter had he never played any cricket at all. 'Lets get that ball rolling,' he enthused.
It was confirmed that all the County grounds will be redeveloped as football stadia, starting with Lords and the other Test Match grounds. The FCC and the Five5 tournament will be played on outfields until then.
Further breaking cricket/football news has revealed that Darren Gough will be making a comeback (for Barnsley) and Shaun Udal will play one more season (for Basingstoke Town) before finally retiring at the age of 76.
