Lamb reacts to Hussain's comments

Tim Lamb, the former chief executive of the England & Wales Cricket Board, has reacted to critical comments made by Nasser Hussain in his autobiography, Playing With Fire.

In a serialisation of his book in the Daily Mail, Hussain condemned Malcolm Speed, the ICC's chief executive, and Lamb's handling of the decision not to travel to Zimbabwe during the World Cup in South Africa last year. He claimed that "emotional blackmail" had been used to try to get the players to change their minds about the trip, and that Lamb, whom "a number of our players and officials disliked", "broke down and cried in front of me".

But Lamb denied that Hussain's version of events was true, telling BBC Radio Five Live: "Even allowing for the fact this is a serialisation of a book, I did find his account of what happened somewhat selective, definitely incomplete and factually inaccurate. To be honest, I was surprised of his lack of awareness of the wider issues and it seemed like a somewhat tacky exercise in personal justification.

"I just find it rather sad," he added, "that the rewards and recognitions given to England cricketers have increased astronomically over the last seven years, and someone who was happy enough to come along and receive a special award from the ECB a couple of weeks ago in recognition of his services to the game should feel compelled to slag off the very people who have helped in some way to get him to where he is today. I think our relationship will be strained by this, as you would expect it to be."