Yorkshire coach Andrew Gale blasts plan to take County Championship matches abroad

Leading commentators such as Michael Vaughan have advocated the move following England’s 4-0 Ashes defeat.

Gale believes it would be unfair on supporters who are already watching fewer County Championship matches as it is, with the competition having been cut last year from 16 games per county to 14.

“The idea of playing county cricket abroad has been floated around before, but I think that it would be a disservice to the Yorkshire members,” said Gale, the Yorkshire CCC first XI coach.

“They’d be disappointed to see one or two games less played at Headingley, Scarborough or wherever, and it’s not something that I’d be in favour of personally.

“I’m a big advocate of the County Championship, and I wanted to keep it at 16 games.

“I don’t think that (playing abroad) is the answer to England’s situation away from home.”

England have lost 23 Tests away from home since 2012 and won only seven.

During that time, they have won 23 Tests on home soil and lost 11, mirroring a trend which sees sides dominating in home conditions.

In an effort to bridge the gap between England’s home and away performance, Vaughan has suggested playing two-to-three county matches overseas in March, just before the start of the English season.

He argues that this would give players experience of using the foreign Kookaburra ball on flat pitches abroad, with many counties already going overseas on pre-season tours as a matter of course.

“The season is too congested to fit everything in starting in April,” said Vaughan. “The players and coaches need more time in between games to work on skill and rehab.”

It is certainly a difficult dilemma, not least because the schedule is indeed more congested than the M25 during rush hour.

As such, touring sides are increasingly deprived of practice matches to adjust to conditions as administrators seek to cram in as many Tests, one-day internationals and T20 internationals as possible.

Rather than play county games overseas to combat the problem, Gale would like to see more English players go abroad during the winter in an effort to gain more experience.

“The only way we can do it is by exposing our players more to these sorts of conditions,” he said.

“So that means getting our players overseas to play, even if it’s grade cricket, a training camp, tournaments, and so on.

“I’m certainly not against us being more proactive and exposing players to foreign conditions throughout the winter.