Former England batter Mark Butcher has criticised the County Championship’s bonus point system after it was tweaked ahead of the 2023 season.
This year, teams need to score an extra fifty runs to secure batting bonus points. Whereas in 2022 200 first innings runs were required to register one batting bonus point, in 2023 a team needs to score 250 to get their first batting bonus point. 300, 350, 400 and 450 are the totals needed within 110 overs to secure two, three, four and five batting bonus points respectively. The other change to the points system for the 2023 season was reducing the number of points on offer for a draw to five down from eight.
Speaking on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast Butcher said that he has never been in favour of bonus points in the County Championship.
“The bonus point system should disappear,” said Butcher. “I don’t understand why we have one. If the intention is to play cricket for results, which is not to say you play on pitches where a results happens in two days, that’s where people who are officially tasked with making sure that pitches are proper come in, why bother making it five batting bonus points for 450? You might only need 380 to win the game. I’ve always, always thought that having bonus points is just the worst thing that you can possibly do in cricket because what they are is that they are a game within a game.
“You can write off the bowling points because virtually everybody gets them. They work themselves out as pretty much being equal over the course of a summer. And then batting points are unnecessary because you should only need to score the amount of runs that you need to win the game.
“You shouldn’t be out there searching for an extra fifty [runs] so you get an extra point. It’s nonsense, it’s always been nonsense, it’s still nonsense. The fact now that you’ve reduced the number of points for a draw in order to encourage teams to go for more wins kind of tells you that it’s nonsense.
When asked whether the bonus point system disincentives the production of underprepared pitches, Butcher argued that it hadn’t deterred counties from preparing substandard pitches in the past.
“It hasn’t worked,” Butcher added. “We’ve always had bonus points and it’s never made the slightest bit of difference. The only incentive you need is that there are penalties for pitches that are underprepared.”
