That's pretty arse on Yardy getting relegated in his last game. It does now also leave Div 1 as 8 of the 9 test grounds + zomerzet.
Definitely getting to the stage where it's hard to see some the 'smaller' counties ever getting back to Division 1.
Teams like Leicestershire and Derbyshire seem to have no chance of getting back to Div 1. They don't have the finances to compete or keep their best players from leaving. Even teams like Essex and Kent who have won the Championship a reasonable amount of times seem unlikely to become a stable Div 1 team. The best they could really hope for is to become a yo-yo team like Worcestershire. In saying that I actually think Kent might be a decent bet for promotion in 2016.
Similar to football, the financial gap between the top (or test ground) counties and the more rural counties has widened. Players want to play in Div 1 and test themselves at that higher level. I always thought during the 1st 5-10 years of the 2 tier system the quality between Div 1 and Div 2 was marginal. Over the last 5 years there's been a definite widening of the gap.
If I was England I'd be wary of picking any player for the Test team based on performances in Division 2. Bar a couple of teams the quality is quite poor in general. That's why it'll be interesting to see how the likes of Tom Curran does in Division 1. You've also got to think the likes of Mark Footitt must be thinking of leaving Derbyshire to help his England chances. Even players like Billings, Bell-drummond, Wesley, Jordan, Northeast and Coles must be contemplating making that step up to team playing consistently in Division 1 to help any potential England ambitions they have.
