Counties strangling the game (18 July 1999)

18 July 1999

Counties strangling the game

Scyld Berry

The England and Wales Cricket Board today stand accused of not working in the best interests of this country's cricket.

Even if they are judged by their own aspirations - by the programme of change which in 1997 they set out to achieve - the ECB have failed to deliver in key areas of the first-class game.

And without fundamental reform to the administrative structure of the ECB, it is highly unlikely the England team will ever rank regularly among the leading countries at Test and one-day cricket. Victory over New Zealand this summer should not be taken as evidence that the body politic of English cricket is sound and healthy.

Last week saw the final proof that the tail wags the dog and shackles it. When the ECB announced a full restoration of the Benson and Hedges Cup next year, there could no longer be any doubt about the primary force within English cricket and the Board itself: it is the counties, along with their insatiable desire for ever more one-day cricket, who prevail, regardless of the best interests of the England team or even at their expense.

The ECB have made their share of mistakes in their brief existence. A distinction must be drawn, though, between those resulting from the fundamental flaws in their constitution on the one hand, and those arising from human error, such as the following:

Only four out of eight major sponsors were found for the World Cup, a failure which has cost the best part of L8 million.

"The 1999 World Cup represents a great opportunity for the profile of cricket to be elevated with a legacy to secure the future health of the game at all levels," stated the ECB's own Cricket Report for 1998-99. This opportunity was not taken, witness the absence of cricket from sports news on innumerable occasions since the World Cup.

Four Tests against New Zealand after the World Cup was the worst possible follow-up "to secure the future health of the game". Any ECB schedule would have been better.

England do not have a coach for this summer's Tests. The ECB let David Lloyd go before a successor was secured, and were almost alone in believing Bob Woolmer would be seriously interested.

The proliferation of coaches and other specialists around the England team, which the chairmen of the first-class counties have criticised as "too many chiefs and too many Indians".

These mistakes can be set down to human error and in part condoned. What can no longer be tolerated are mistakes which arise from the ECB's constitution and will continue to arise until a thorough reform prevents the counties, as embodied in the First Class Forum, having the dominant voice.

According to the ECB's Proposed Articles of Association, "the administration, direction and management of the business and affairs of ECB shall be conducted by The Management board". But there are various, wide-ranging qualifications, which stipulate that the management board cannot do anything related to domestic first-class cricket "without the prior approval of a majority of the members of the FCF". The Management board, in other words, have to manage with one hand tied behind their back.

The composition of The Management board is also wrong. It has 14 members (whose experience of Test cricket is limited to the seven caps won by Brian Bolus), and consists of Lord MacLaurin as ECB chairman; Roger Knight as MCC's representative; the chairmen of four sub-committees (cricket, finance, marketing and the England team); four members elected by the FCF from their own kind; and, finally and most strangely, four members of the Recreational Forum, who run the amateur game.

"John Pickup, Bob Jackson, Peter Gooden and Frank Elliott are very good people," says one insider, "and they never vote or say a word when England matters are under discussion." But it is manifestly absurd that they should be present at all.

ECB's constitution was drawn up by a working party in 1996. Of the nine members (who played a total of six championship matches between them), eight were prominent county officials, and they were entirely open about their "intention of retaining the control and influence of First Class County Clubs and MCC".

Three years on, however, it is apparent "the control and influence" are excessive, and act more as a check than a balance. The chairmen of the first-class counties, who constitute the FCF, depend for their position on the votes of their county members.

Some may be able to make the interests of the England team their priority, but the system tempts them to do otherwise. Certainly in the latest instance, the full restoration of the Benson and Hedges Cup, the temptation to give their members some more early-season one-day cricket to watch for free, has proved overwhelming.

In 1997 the ECB published Raising the Standard, their blueprint for cricket's future. This document was not the expression of the counties but rather of the new energy of Lord MacLaurin in his first year in office, and of other new men at the centre like John Carr, the director of cricket operations: that is, of disinterested parties ready to balance the demands of county and country.

Raising the Standard presents, overall, a coherent vision of the way English cricket should develop, and its implementation within the amateur game is already considered to have had a beneficial effect. But its impact on first-class cricket has been strictly limited, virtually stymied, by the FCF.

The blueprint includes the following pledges, all of which have subsequently been either broken or unfulfilled:

"The B & H Cup will continue for one final season in 1998."

"A two-division 50-over National League to supersede the Sunday League and B & H Cup."

'A better balance between match-play, recuperation and preparation."

'The need for a successful and vibrant England team at the top of the ECB's agenda." Not to judge by England's World Cup performance and world ranking.

'The over-riding aim of first-class cricket . . . must be to achieve the highest possible playing standards."

"It is important that aspiring Test cricketers should be used to performing under pressure." But they are not given the opportunity to do so because England don't play 'A' Tests abroad any more. And they don't play any 'A' Tests at home because the counties won't release any more of their players in summer. So in winter England's aspiring cricketers go on meaningless 'A' tours to play weak opponents as host countries reciprocate in kind.

"It is also considered essential that they [England players] have a day off after a Test match." Yet Alex Tudor, the day after his match-winning 99 not out at Edgbaston, was bowling for Surrey at Derby. And the day after England's World Cup match against India every player required by his county was pressed into service except Alan Mullally. So much for the counties' belief in recuperation and performance-review.

It was not ever thus; and maybe the solution lies in the past, in the time before the ECB, and before the similar Test and County Cricket Board was founded in 1968. English cricket has always had some presiding figure, Lord Hawke or Harris, Sir Pelham Warner or Sir Gubby Allen, autocratic and unaccountable of course, prejudiced perhaps, but possessed at least of some experience of Test and county cricket; and of a coherent vision; and of a mind to defeat the greatest enemy, those Australian colonials. The working party which set up the ECB had no objective higher than the bland commitment "to improve playing standards at all levels".

An unpaid, part-time chairman of the organisation which runs English cricket may be an anachronism in the new millennium. South African cricket, run almost single-handedly by Ali Bacher, may be the model.

Or the way forward may lie in a small executive committee who can stike the right balance between county and country. But whoever the people running English cricket, they have to be unambiguous - and unshackled - in their goal of England winning the Ashes and the World Cup.

The ECB employed 135 staff at a cost of L5.2 million in the last financial year. Of this number, 56 worked in the secretariat at Lord's, six specifically on the World Cup; 40 were employed either as development officers or coaches; 17 were umpires (or to be precise 34 umpires on half-year contracts), and 22 were England players (44 players on half-year contracts).

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)