Champions Trophy a victim of cricket player power
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
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In the Times, Mike Atherton writes that the postponement of the Champions Trophy illustrates one immutable fact: that cricket is squarely in the era of player power.
No, the players' minds were closed. They didn't want to go to Pakistan and no amount of persuasion on behalf of the hosts - and no amount of armour-plated security - was going to change that.
That players have a strong voice and are no longer subservient to self-serving committee men is entirely a good thing. For too long, players filled vast stadiums, played for a pittance and then went and ran pubs or spent their remaining days flicking through scrapbooks. Now they are forcing the administrators' hands, not just picking and choosing their options, but agitating so that matches are arranged for their financial benefit only. Why else would the ECB hire out the national team to a Texan billionaire if not to appease players unable to share riches on offer elsewhere?
Atherton also expresses his views on the Trescothick-Murray mint affair.
Cricket may have its Laws, but things are rarely that simple, laws being open to an interpretation that will vary according to your standpoint. It is inevitable that players, administrators, umpires and spectators will view their application differently. On the field it is convention - that which is regarded as acceptable - that is as important as the law. Trescothick was doing something that may have contravened the letter of the law, but he was doing something that was part of the game he knew.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo