Don't kill England's future - protect our county game

DAWID MALAN has called for a preservation order to be placed on county cricket a crown jewel of English summers that's increasingly marginalised by short-form cash cows.

- BY MIKE WALTERS

Stakes in the eight franchises of The Hundred - a format played by no other nation - were sold for £520million earlier this year, affording the 18 first-class counties unprecedented financial security.

But wealth alone will not feed the conveyor belt to the Test arena from the four-day game watched by the 1st Battalion Thermos and Anoraks, when the County Championship begins on Friday.

And Malan (right), the only England man apart from Jos Buttler to score a century at Test, Twenty20 and One-Day International level, warned: “County cricket is your breeding ground - it's where your players come from and it needs to be protected.”

Appointed this week as Yorkshire's T20 Blast captain, Malan underlined the importance of county tributaries feeding the delta of Bazball in a defining Ashes year.