It does suggest that, if this ever comes to fruition, the much vaunted, endlessly hyped but seriously lacking in imagery and actual information, ground redevelopment at Chelmsford will be rather downscaled from the original. Hardly any surprise, of course knowing the modus operandi of the Club involved!
ECCC's motivation to increase the capacity of the County Ground is solely to cater to T20 - so, if this competition is relocated to a secondary venue, then what use is an 8,000/ 7,500 (pluck a figure out of thin air and hope no-one questions it!) size cricket ground to the Club?
For any viable scheme to use The Olympic Stadium for cricket it would require the current, bona-fide T20 competition to be staged. Any created tournament, such as the one Essex tried to flog to death a few years ago, until every last drop of interest was lost from any other County, may attract a curiosity value attendance for its initial staging....But that value is rather finite - who on earth would be interested in it subsequently?
The other interested parties Middx; they will always have scheduling issues with Lords and do take their T20 fixtures out and about by necessity if nothing else.
Kent; Likely to feel the relative distance from London to Canterbury on a Friday commute home puts them at a potential disadvantage to Essex with Chelmsford.
To me this is more muddled thinking and contradictory announcements from senior management at the Club, more interested in putting their name in the headlines, but with the all too typical lack of any real substance. It would be somewhat refreshing if they came clean with what their new/old plans are for the County Ground.
