England's country cricket which was repository of the international talent not long time ago is indeed at the crossroads these days. The pen pushers associated with the county cricket have regaled the audience for eons with their unique style of reporting, but they are also feeling the heat as the national press of England is concentrating its resources into the World Twenty20 and the Ashes. The looming menace of Indian Premier League further exacerbates the situation.

In such a scenario, the county cricket's credibility has never been more tenuous. The county cricket is also becoming a victim of the changing situation of the times, and it has been hit hard by the phenomenon of cost cutting and the advent of the cyber space which ahs redefined the contours of reporting about any event from around the world. The leisure of reporting that was laced with anecdotes is now replaced by the zeal to be first with the breaking news and in such a scenario has caused the demise of several local papers, all the national broadsheets, a smattering of tabloids, an agency man (always a man) and radio journalists.

One thing that has become casualty owing to this development is the regional cricket writers, who have always acted as the umbilical cord to their local communities, as anecdotal as could be possible with suitably varied results.

Such is the specter of cost cutting looming over the heads of the newspapers and the tabloid that even The Telegraph, which was traditionally county cricket's paper of record, has been forced to move almost all coverage in-house in a bid to save costs, thus severing ties with a small army of dedicated, knowledgeable and now disenchanted freelance writers.

But all is not lost as yet; the local journalist is keeping himself afloat and has taken to blogging with panache. They have become bloggers, and have got at times hits of more than 15000 unique users in a month, which is the elixir for these committed practitioners of the game to prod on in their endeavor.

The virtual audience has in fact diminished the contradiction that was brandied as a fact for demise of the local reporting that is the comparison between the real and the virtual audience. The web reporting provides the fan the opportunity to follow the passion from any part of the world, making the world really flat.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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