Harsh light from down under

Pommies: England Cricket Through an Australian Lens by William Buckland
(Matador) £15

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack has been the guardian of the English game for 145 years, but it seems even that venerable tome can get too close to its subject to see the wood for the trees. "Startling" was how Scyld Berry, this year's editor, described the points raised by William Buckland, a 41-year-old management consultant and England fan, in his remarkable new book, Pommies. So startling, in fact, that he invited the author to join him in the pulpit by quoting him at length in this year's "Notes from the Editor".

The basic premise is this: English cricket is run by and for the exclusive gratification of the 18 first-class counties. They cream off the bulk of the game's profit in subsidies, and in turn force the game's elite players to risk injury and burnout by playing them almost non-stop. For their part, the counties provide neither international-standard cricketers to replace the exhausted stars, nor sufficient, affordable access for the next generation of players - leading to situations such as occurred in the 2005 Ashes, when 10,000 fans were locked out of Old Trafford on the final day of the third Test. There are no grounds in the country large enough to satisfy a support base that exists in spite of the status quo.

The book requires no over-egging on the part of the author to spell out a game in hazardous and desperate decline. For large tracts of his treatise Buckland does nothing more than join the dots from one tale of bankrupt decision-making to the next, but he does so with such clarity of thought and purpose that at times you'll find yourself grinding your teeth at the ineptitude of England's rulers.

Each point, and often several at once, has been raised on more than one occasion in the past - usually just after England's latest drubbing at the hands of the Australians. But rarely have all the gripes been stitched together so analytically to form such a bleak tapestry of dissatisfaction. Viewing the situation from the perspective of England's most regular conquerors, and taking as his starting point the schism of World Series Cricket in 1977, Buckland argues that England is long overdue a Packer-style revolution of its own. Not least, it would end once and for all the amateurish fallacy that success in sport is cyclical. As Packer so ruthlessly demonstrated more than 30 years ago, modern-day sport is a business, and successful businesses do not flirt with bankruptcy every four years.

If the book consisted only of the 52 pages that make up the first two chapters, it would still be worth its £15 cover price. Buckland's inspiration was a visit to the Melbourne Cricket Ground in December 2002, a towering, multi-sport structure that he places at the heart of everything that is good and functional about Australian cricket. The lessons he doles out about stadium economics, and the case he makes for the adoption of London's 2012 Olympic stadium as a new permanent home for English cricket are staggeringly persuasive and should be read by every chief executive in the land. Even now, it's not too late to drop a line to Lord Coe.

Berry alludes to the stadium plan in his Notes, but in fact he does not do justice to Buckland's cool, analytical thinking. After all, how often is it that a national government is willing to build you a new 60,000-seater venue free of charge? Only a fool or a sporting organisation with vested interests could turn down such an offer, which rather proves the author's point.

Buckland cites Arsenal as a prime example of a sporting body that got its priorities in order. All the hallowed memories in the world couldn't disguise the fact that their cramped old ground, Highbury, had ceased to be fit for purpose. So they dispensed with sentiment, built the grand new Emirates stadium, and laughed all the way to the bank. How many England fans would truly shed a tear if any (or all) of England's current inadequate venues, from The Oval through Headingley, and even all the way to Lord's itself, were sent the same way as Highbury? Not enough to justify not doing it, Buckland concludes. Tradition, he says, is just another word for self-interest.