WHAT IN THE NAME OF Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan* are we going to do about cricket?

This should have been a great week for the grand old game. The squad of stout yeomen charged with the task of keeping rapacious Aussie mitts off the Ashes was named and the county championship was coming to a climactic boil. But, except for a brief flurry of inside-page headlines about Andrew Flintoff being given the England captaincy, the whole thing passed off virtually without comment. And despite plentiful, clamorous and youthful crowds for the Twenty20 version of the game (cricket for the Grand Theft Auto generation), the championship continues to be played out in front of tiny assemblies comprising the old, the snoozy and the all-day boozy. And, traditionally, a dog.

It wasn’t always thus. When scanning the horizon for cricket’s golden age, people tend to peer back to the compulsory whiskers days of W. G. Grace and to jerky black and white films of helmetless toffs executing perfect square drives in front of tumultuous postwar throngs. But as late as 20 years ago, cricket still made the back pages, healthy (though not huge) crowds watched the three-day game and people like me knew the batting order of most counties. Not now. The game is dying on its flannelled arse for one reason; it, like every other sport in this country, has been overrun by football. And therein lies its hope of salvation. Like an expert in martial arts using the weight and speed of an opponent to his advantage, cricket has to accept the dominance of football, then use that hegemony to its own benefit . . .

Many cricket lovers read The Times. Some may even have strayed into the pages of The Game by accident. I must now warn such folk to sit down and open a window; what I am about to propose, in all seriousness, will not go down well with traditionalists. But I, too, love the summer game and want to see it survive and thrive. So here goes . . . cricket should hand itself over to football.

Here’s the plan. Each of the traditional counties should become part of the nearest big football club. They should take the club’s name. They should play in their strip. They should do everything in their power to become as closely associated with that club as possible. Now I know that there are going to be horrible issues, but surely the combined might of the Boundary Commission, top TV marketing men and a bit of common sense and flexibility will see the process through.

The easy ones first. Leicestershire County Cricket Club will become Leicester City Cricket Club and will play in royal blue shirts and white trousers. Essex CCC will become (apologies to fans of Southend United and Colchester United) West Ham United CC and sport flannels in the famous claret and blue. Nottinghamshire CCC will probably eschew the attractions of Notts County and Mansfield Town and become Nottingham Forest CC. Surrey, the richest and most disliked county, will become, appropriately enough, Chelsea CC.

After that things get more tricky. Lancashire CCC will have to choose between Liverpool, Everton, the Manchester giants, Bolton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers and others. Middlesex will be torn between wearing the red of Arsenal or the white of Tottenham Hotspur. Warwickshire (the cricketing county, rather than the newer municipal unit) covers a plethora of historic football clubs, none of them too glamorous; you’d have to leave the members to choose between Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Coventry City, West Bromwich Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers and the like. And then there are counties, like Somerset and Gloucestershire, who have no big football clubs in their bailiwick; they can always take on the mantle of sides that don’t make the original cut. If the Yorkshire CCC members choose to become Leeds United CC, Somerset may opt to latch on to the support of Sheffield Wednesday or Middlesbrough.

Like I said, it won’t be plain sailing but in the end I expect the commercial self-interest of the counties to prevail and the emergence of a championship of, say, 20 teams (Hertfordshire, or rather, Watford CCC, could be promoted from the minor ranks, as could Norfolk/Norwich City to make up the numbers), roughly covering the present Barclays Premiership. The benefits would be instantaneous. Cricket would tap into the support and riches of its winter benefactor. Kids could continue meaningfully to wear their replica shirts in June, July and August; the wonders of Velcro would allow them to change the name on the back from Rooney to Flintoff or from Owen to Harmison. The summer months would be full of cricket fixtures — crackling with ancient, and still relevant, rivalries — that might actually catch the attention of the media and the public; Chelsea v Manchester United at the Oval, Arsenal v West Ham at Lord’s, Newcastle v Leeds at the Riverside.

I know it’s tough and cricket people the length and breadth of this green and pleasant are now grasping for the smelling salts and dialling their local A&E. But I tell them this: there is only one alternative to The Kelly Plan. And that is to do nothing and simply wait for Oldy, Snoozy, Boozy (and The Dog) to die. And with them the game of cricket as we know it.

* Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan (born 1945) was an India off spinner who, in the 1970s, along with Bedi, Prasanna and Chandrasekhar formed the finest spin attack seen in Test cricket.

PLAYING INTO THE CHANNELS

AS YOU CANNOT HAVE HELPED BUT notice, I have the singular honour of hosting The Game’s regular new Monday podcast (they could not, I suspect, afford Baker). It will bring you coverage of football at home and abroad that will be both deadly serious and, hopefully, appropriately irreverent. I will be joined by the great and the good of the game, as well as the occasional ne’er-do-well that deserves their three minutes in the spotlight. There will also be funny sound effects.

In total it will be the broadcasting sensation of the season and I am hugely excited by the whole thing.