You may be right about the Twenty20 revolution; the game may enthuse and provide exhilaration for thew many but do young schoolboys and girls think that cricket is smashing the ball for six or four every other ball? If they try it, they will not survive very long; where are they to learn the proper game of cricket so that they can play theTwenty20 version competently?
- Arne Olsen, Rugby

MA: I don't know about you, but whenever I watch young boys and girls playing the game they very rarely look to play the forward defensive. Natural instincts at that age are always to hit the ball and usually somewhere in the region of cow corner.

Now I agree that, at some stage, a young cricketer has to learn a semblance of technique and playing straight is the essence of successful batting at an early age. More important than that, though, is to get enthused about cricket in the first place.

This is where Twenty20 has a unique role to play. I always envisaged it as a way of filling otherwise near-empty county grounds. I still believe that it has a more important role to play at a level down from international cricket. The bottom line is that most people cannot spend four days a week for six hours a day watching cricket; Twenty20, then, is simply cricket reflecting and reacting to the modern world.

Do you think that Twenty20 could encourage a more family-based crowd to come to International Cricket and improve the atmosphere?
- Philip Wragg, Hoylake

MA: Two different issues here: international matches are already well supported in England. Most Test matches are sold out for four days in advance. I think it is too expensive to watch international cricket in England and that is off-putting for many families. Instead of increasing the number of international grounds (Cardiff, Rosebowl etc), the ECB should be increasing capacity at grounds so that there would be more and cheaper tickets on offer to families and supporters in general.

Twenty20 has encouraged, I think, a more family-orientated gathering at county cricket. Market research prior to the advent of Twenty20 suggested that county cricket's profile - white, middle-aged, middle-class - was disastrous for the long-term growth of the sport. Hence the need for something more spectator-friendly.

There were disturbing signs last year, though, of a football-style thuggish element at some of these games. Chelmsford, especially, can be unpleasant on a Twenty20 evening. One of Giles Clarke's (the chairman of the ECB) big themes is that cricket should be affordable, the facilities should be welcoming and the atmosphere should be accommodating. He's spot on.

I was proud to have played under your leadership, and with Nasser, during the memorable 1989 B&H Cup run and don't forget my one-handed catch at mid-wicket when Harden tracked you in the QF. And there can't be too many gay accountants who dismissed you twice in a first class match. Very pleased that my lifelong paper of choice has chosen you as their new CCC - will you be less partisan about Lancs than CMJ with Sussex?
- Alan Hansford, West Sussex

MA: A blast from the past. You cropped up in conversation the other day actually, when the question was put to me about gay cricketers. I said you were the only one that I had come across in first-class cricket. I, too, have great memories of our B&H run in 1989. We were the first non-professional team ever to make the quarter-finals; we should have made the semis.

As for partisanship: well I wouldn't be human if I didn't want Lancashire to win things. But as for the writing/commentating, I genuinely enjoy the cricket I watch these days, without feeling the need to impart any kind of bias. Every journalist/commentator will have his own particular set of in-built opinions, but there is a time and a place for them to be expressed. Richie Benaud always told me to remember, whether writing or commentating, that you are making a guest appearance in somebody's daily life. Most people, I suspect, want to be informed and entertained without being harangued or hectored.

What is your view on the franchise idea in England? It seems to me that it would make sense to consolidate the best players into fewer teams, so that the standards are consistently high.
- Richard Elks, London

MA: It seems to me that whether it is county-based, city-based or franchise-based is a bit of a red herring. The key is the number of teams. I have always believed that 18 is too many. The argument goes that because we have three times the population of Australia we need three times as many teams. On that basis, India would need about 250 first-class sides. That our counties cannot fill their teams with a majority of Englishmen, suggests to me that we don't produce enough cricketers to justify 18 clubs. You want enough to provide cover in all the key positions in the international side but not so many as the standard becomes diluted. The rest of the world copes fine in competitions filled by six to eight teams.

Having said that, there are practical issues involved in reducing the number of first-class teams. The constitution of the ECB states that there shall be 18 first-class clubs and there is very little chance of that changing. So the question is whether, by moving towards a slightly different format for Twenty20, it will be seen as the first steps towards a slightly different structure. I think it will be seen that way, and that is why the smaller county clubs will fight tooth and nail to resist any move towards city/franchise/regional cricket. So Richard, the simple answer to your question is that yes fewer teams would help, but no, it won't happen.

I always remember watching you versus South Africa when Allan Donald and your good self had a bit of a barney. My question is, what kicked it off and what was the banter on the pitch like at the time - and what was going through your head?
- Robbie Dixon

MA: 'A good bit of barney' is a nice way of putting it. For some reason, Allan Donald got very upset when I punched a short delivery to the wicket-keeper, Mark Boucher, and was given not out. Trevor Bailey, commentating on the BBC at the time, said that he thought the ball came off my chest. It nearly broke my hand, and I was doing all I could not to shake it too obviously in front of the umpire. It provoked a fair bit of 'barney'. What did he say? Well, there was a fair bit of Afrikaans thrown in, which is not my strong suit, although it didn't sound like he was complimenting my technique.

What was going through my head? Well I could give you all the nonsense about how much it meant, playing for England and all, and how much the situation of the game meant, but in all honesty the only thing going through my head was too watch the ball as closely as I could, because it was coming down at a fair rate of knots, usually towards my throat.

Donald was one of the greatest competitors that I played against. He was also, off the field, a champion bloke. At the end of that match, we had a beer together and he asked me to autograph the offending glove. There was a little red mark where the ball had hit it, so I wrote my autograph all over it. Thankfully, he got the joke.

Is it possible that the Indian Premier League, and the proliferation of similar tournaments around the world, might unintentionally benefit the English county game? If entrepreneurs are prepared to pay large sums for overseas cricketers, then isn't it likely that fewer of these players will be willing to appear in county cricket for substantially poorer rewards? And if that's true, then does that not open the way for counties to rely once again on nurturing home-grown talent?
- Phil Swift

MA: Obviously, things are happening so quickly right now that nobody really knows what is going to happen. My guess is that the structure of county cricket is going to change fundamentally from 2010 onwards. There will be an English Premier League Twenty20, financed partly by private equity from the likes of Allen Stanford. There will be less, if any, 40-over matches and there will be fewer County Championship games - maybe around ten with a grand final at the end of the season at Lord's.

The mid-summer Twenty20 will be a tournament that will encourage a lot of overseas players, the best hopefully, and some overseas clubs/franchises as well. The County Championship will become more of a home-grown competition. But, as I mentioned in reply to an earlier question, there doesn't seem to be enough young English cricketers to fill 18 county sides, so there will still be a place for Kolpak players. I agree with your fundamental point though: for a hundred years or more anybody wanting to earn a crust in the northern hemisphere summer came to England; that premise will be challenged as these entrepreneurs come into the game.

Which innings against South Africa gave you more personal satisfaction - the 185 not out or the unbeaten 98 - and why?
- Winston Chow, Tempe, Arizona

MA: The obvious answer is the 98 not out because we won the Test match and, subsequently, the series. That wouldn't be completely true, though. Every player who plays at the highest level for a period hopes to leave a defining moment, a defining memory. The great players, of course, leave many to choose from. I wasn't in that category, but I'd like to think that Johannesburg was such a moment because it seemed to sum up whatever strengths as a player/person I had: an amount of stubbornness, toughness and courage at a difficult time for the national side.

Do you think that cricket suffers as it is viewed as quite an elitist sport, very closely associated with public schools and old universities? Surely state schools must be encouraged and subsidised if necessary to play more as I have no doubt that there is talent out there but not the opportunity. I do feel that until cricket is seen as more than Eton, Harrow Oxford and Cambridge we will find it hard to compete.
- Paul Bandeen

MA: There is no doubt that you are correct in the principle that English cricket will only achieve its full potential when it manages to tap into and exploit every section of society. The image of cricket as elitist, if that is still the case, is probably unfair. For example, many England players including Andrew Flintoff, Stephen Harmison and Matthew Hoggard were from state schools. But they came from state schools that did not play cricket, and they mainly learnt the game at their clubs.

So the Chance to Shine initiative, which aims to resuscitate cricket in state schools, is a fantastic thing. The aim is to link state schools with existing 'focus clubs' bringing a self-sustaining legacy of competitive cricket in those schools. The brains behind the idea were Mark Nicholas and Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, and it is the most fantastic scheme run by the Cricket Foundation. You can learn more about it at www.chancetoshine.org.

There are other schemes which try to tap into the enormous potential out there. NPower's Urban Cricket for example, attempts to find talent in the inner cities. I'm sure you are right, that there any amount of talented cricketers from the state sector, from the Asian community and other ethnic minorities. English cricket can only benefit from tapping into that potential.

In my opinion the English domestic game is being run for the best interests of the 18 county chairmen and not English cricket. I would like to know what the 'Atherton' blueprint would be to improve our domestic game?
- David Harrington, Melbourne

MA: You are speaking my language. To be fair, the County Championship is much improved, I think, since I played. It offers competitive cricket and often a stimulating finish to the season as it did last year with Sussex pipping Lancashire on the line. But the fixture list is a joke. It's a mishmash of competitions, with no real order or balance and one that is very difficult for any spectator to follow.

At heart, the essential problem is too much cricket, leading to a diluting of standards, an inability to practise and prepare properly, and an over-crowded schedule. The reason? 18 clubs, which is about ten too many. But, given the constitutional constraints upon the ECB, I don't think we will move away from that any time soon.

So, with two divisions of nine, clubs must play each other once in the County Championship, with a play off at the end of the season between the top two clubs. Like many others, I can't quite see the point of the 40-over competition, so that would go. A knockout 50-over competition would book-end the season and a Twenty20 English Premier League in high summer would give counties their chance to make money and get people through the gates. A balance, then, of a smaller, more compact Championship as a feeder to the Test team; a 50 over competition to give our players a chance to play that form of the game, and Twenty20 to drive the finances and popularise the game.

Do you think that its right that contracted England players no longer play a decent amount of games for their counties? I think that this has contributed to the increasing number of Kolpak players, as counties know they can sign an international quality player (eg Jacques Rudolph, Lance Klusner, etc) who will be available to play all season, unlike England internationals.
- Hedley Pringle

MA: Central contracts have been one of the main reasons behind the general improvement of the England Test team in the last seven years. They have given the team a more cohesive feel; allowed the coach control over how much his players play and how they prepare; brought greater stability to selection, and allowed our fast bowlers to rest from the grind of county cricket.

As with everything, though, a balance is essential. It may be that Duncan Fletcher went too far, with the likes of James Anderson, for example, in protecting them from county cricket. Young cricketers need to play, both to learn their games and to toughen up their bodies. Carrying drinks is no way to improve.

But given the amount of international cricket played these days, there is no way that England players can play most of the county programme. Look at the amount they played last year: a full summer of international cricket in the summer of 2007; Champions Trophy in the autumn; then the Ashes; then the World Cup, which ended as our season in 2008 began. The likes of Kevin Pietersen needed a break after all that (Mind you, with the IPL millions out there, I think we have heard the last of players complaining about tiredness and the need for time off).

When England's selectors pick their squad next week, no county is likely to provide more than two players at most. It's a pretty lame excuse to blame the absence of England players on the increasing number of Kolpaks. The bottom line is that we have too many first-class teams, and not enough good young cricketers to fill them.