A report in Sports Marketing Bulletin claims that while the ECB might be quick to herald the large crowds attending Twenty20 matches, that competition masks the underlying decline of people attending other forms of county cricket.

One of the criticisms leveled is that the myriad of competitions and their ever-changing formats have left people confused, a situation not helped by the creation of nicknames which then change, and sponsors who drift in and out of the game.

TV attendances are also flat, despite Sky Sports' massive investment in the game. In 2005, matches attracted an average audience of 156,000, compared with 133,000 so far this year, according to BARB. Those figures are for Bangladesh in 2005 and Sri Lanka this year and do not include the Ashes series.

The County Championship draws small crowds, but even the more glamorous one-day competitions only attract spectators in their latter stages. In 2005, for example, 25,000 fans filled Lord's for the C&G final, but that represented a third of the total attendance for the competition.