The English 2024 cricket season may now be over, but I cannot help but feel that cricket lovers across our counties, will still be talking about how long our red ball game will continue to survive and remain to  be a major part of our summer sport writes Merv Colenutt.

Long gone are the days when county cricket and test match cricket was played between May and early September, with both major competitions for those dedicated cricket lovers to enjoy a summer of sport, in hoping to see their county side pick up a trophy as county champions or even become John Player champions in the old 40 over format, but very popular one day cup.

Of course the test match series were huge and even the county sides could attract the big world stars to join our county sides for a summer.

Somerset over those years did well to attract world cup stars such as Viv Richards, Joel Garner, Martin Crowe, Ricky Ponting, Justin Langer, great names, great cricketers, now you can get as many as three overseas players in a season to play for a month or two, how things have changed the great names in the main, are long gone, it’s all about the financial gains for an individual.

I was talking only last week to former Kent and England all rounder Richard Ellison, who like so many of us, has little or no time for the Hundred competition which takes pride of place throughout the month of August and he believes like so many of us, that having the T20 and Metro 50 over competition is totally ludicrous at the back end of September

The former England seamer added “whoever would imagine England playing Australia in five one dayers at the back end of September and the Metro Cup 50 over competition being settled the day after the original scheduled day and played in front of more people working at Trent Bridge, than actually supporting their county side in a game reduced to 20 overs”.

My biggest gripe however and it has been for the last 2 years, is in the fact that one day, cricket and the money creeping in more and more from investors from abroad, will eventually take away the legacy of our popular summer game and those investors will have greater control throughout our game in general, with red ball cricket fast becoming a thing of the past and where would that leave our test match cricket.

I was surprised to see that Hampshire had become the first county club to welcome foreign ownership, with the owners of Indian Premier League taking control of 53% stake, but no doubt that’s only the beginning and other struggling county sides will follow suit, it’s inevitable.

In recent weeks we have all heard that Middlesex have run into financial difficulties, so how long will it take before several of our other county sides might very well be looking to be bailed out by foreign investors, you would imagine several other county sides will be looking over their shoulders to see what is happening at Hampshire and then make a decision inside their own ranks.

Some counties will continue to thrive and survive, but for others, tough decisions are going to have to be made in the not too distant future, following the decision made by Hampshire.