SIR – If David Cameron and George Osborne were in charge of Worcester cricket it would be no surprise that the latest victim of budget cuts at New Road would be the only remaining pedigree player on the staff, Vikram Solanki .

After all they don’t believe in growth, they don’t believe in anything except bleeding the nation dry to balance the books, heedless of long-term social damage.

But for a club with the noble cricketing tradition of Worcester, this latest idiocy is staggering.

As things stand the club is already unable to field six batsmen of County Championship standard as repeated batting collapses this season have shown.

Without Solanki, the leading run-scorer last season and loyal to the club for 20 years, the club would be struggling to field five adequate batsmen, and one of these would have to be an overseas player.

Yet it is the bowling which really needs bolstering by an overseas player, with only veteran Alan Richardson up to the mark, and with no specialist spinner at all this season.

Cutting away the only talent they have will prove fatal to the club, already heading for relegation. In the last five years or so – with the exception of Richardson – the club has been content to sign mediocre players in the interests of economy.

What is needed is not the false economy of pruning quality players, but an injection of talent to spur growth, to stimulate performance and attract the paying public, in the interests of Worcestershire CCC, not Worcestershire plc.

The New Road management claimed that membership was up this season, but how many new members were attracted not for cricketing reasons but for economic ones, New Road membership and parking for a year being cheaper for many city workers than parking in Worcester itself?

Perhaps the plan is eventually to concrete over the playing area and make one large car park.

LIONEL FITZGERALD (County member) Aberystwyth