The Sports Editor
Daily Telegraph

Dear Sir,

Did the Australians field their Test Team at Taunton and if not, why not? So it is okay for Australia and England, via Central Contracts, to rest key players ahead of Test Matches but not okay for counties to rest key players ahead of vital promotion/relegation battles.

Leading Telegraph cricket writers, past and present, have continually denigrated the county championship game and all forms of one-day cricket as unimportant and then wonder why the game of cricket tends to struggle on all fronts.

Column inches and controversy are far more important to their own pocket and egos than the wider picture, it seems. For the record then, 15,000 people watched the Somerset Tourist match grossing £100,000 which considerably helps the Club to finance all of its youth development projects for which local sponsors are hard to attract because of the negative leadership provided by our esteemed cricket writers.

Mark Nicholas was good at leadership on the pitch; we now need him off the pitch.

Yours sincerely,

P W Anderson
Chief Executive Somerset County Cricket Club

© SOMERSET