MacLaurin favours elite to protect England pacemen (25 July 1999)

25 July 1999

MacLaurin favours elite to protect England pacemen

Scyld Berry

Lord MacLaurin, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, believes that the core of England's team, not the full squad, should be centrally contracted to the board in a move designed to stop England's fast bowlers breaking down so often.

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph following Alex Tudor's withdrawal without any warning from the second Test, MacLaurin called for "a shift from squad to core England players to be contracted to the board" - a significant change of official policy.

The ECB's original proposal, formulated in the Trangmar Report, was to contract 15 or 16 England Test players on the lines of Australia and South Africa, in order to limit the amount of domestic cricket they have to play.

The report, a copy of which has been obtained by The Telegraph, argued that a squad of 15 or 16 was preferable to a core of six or seven players because "it enables the development of a true team ethic and a spirit of belonging which, by virtue of preparing together, can be translated into a unity of purpose, understanding and success on the field".

"By contrast," the report warned, "the core concept could encourage the creation of an elite within the team because the non-contracted players would be on a different engagement arrangement . . . to the detriment of team cohesion." But while losing one fast bowler in Darren Gough could simply be explained as misfortune, losing a second in Tudor probably for the rest of this series has highlighted a fault in the system which the board's chairman is keen to rectify in spite of this warning.

It is also understood that financial considerations have had a part in this policy change. Contracting a squad of 15 or so cricketers to the board each summer has been estimated at a sum approaching L1 million a year, although the money would largely be spent in compensating the counties who produce the players rather than in extra payment to the players themselves.

The lesser cost of contracting core players, however, could come within the board's budget if the chairman has his way. "I think it's unacceptable for England to be ranked sixth or seventh in the world," said MacLaurin. "Everything has to be directed towards making Team England the best."

The chairman's argument for treating fast bowlers as a special case, by making them the majority of the core players, is a powerful one as their career expectancy is shorter than others. If Gough, Tudor and their like are to bowl flat-out for England, they have to be given every support, including financial, and not tempted to cut their pace to cope with a large workload of domestic cricket. The fast bowlers of other countries do not suffer such an imposition, unless they join the county circuit, which they only do when their bodies have matured.

The introduction of promotion and relegation in championship cricket can only add to the physical pressures on strike bowlers. Although a stress fracture of the knee would jeopardise Tudor's longer-term future, Surrey will be severely tempted to use him to secure their first championship since 1971, just as Yorkshire will call on Gough as much as they can to win their first since 1968.

Fellow players recognise and sympathise with the extra demands on fast bowlers. But any implementation of central contracts for England's leading fast bowlers - along with another two or three senior players - would have to guard against professional jealousy and team disunity as the report warns.

Lord MacLaurin also backed the call for a reform of the ECB's constitution made by The Sunday Telegraph last week. "I am in favour of constitutional reform myself, and now the board are in the process of looking at the way the game should be administered.

"A lot of views have to be listened to but in the end we have to come up with a better management structure and I believe the counties are becoming more and more willing to create a management board which manages.

"So far this season Tim Lamb [the ECB chief executive] and I have talked to 12 of the 18 first-class counties and none of them has said no so far. Personally I'd like to run the board as you'd set up a PLC, with a board of any number up to 16, with some paid executives and some non-executives, who would be empowered to take decisions for the good of the game."

The one potential drawback is that the working party under David Morgan of Glamorgan, who are currently reviewing the whole structure of the ECB, is composed mainly of the same county-based officials who drew up its constitution in the first place.

Such a working party will surely be able to persuade the First Class Forum to adopt the proposals that they eventually make. The question remains whether those proposals will be radical enough to allow the management board to manage in the interests of both the national team and the domestic game without the constant threat of veto by the FCF which now exists.

Lord MacLaurin has 18 months of his chairmanship of ECB still to run, and he is "optimistic" about building a consensus and forcing through reform in the time left to him. "It was depicted as a fight with the county chairmen when we produced Raising The Standard but we are now working together closer than ever before."

There remains, however, the possibility that the counties, and the members of the Morgan working party, will stretch their collective front leg far down the pitch, and try to pad away or otherwise block out any real reform until this chairman's term has passed.

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