Thoughts on Malcolm Speed

I read the other day that ICC CEO Malcolm Speed was vigorously defending his new Future Tours Program against criticism. Like many parents, he’s been most protective of his offspring. He made his remarks in context of recent Australian complaints of exhaustion at the end of their recent heavy schedule.

Since the Australian cricketers are labouring under tours scheduled under the old five-year cycle of the Future Tours Program, (FTP) rather then the new one, Mr Speed completely missed the point; rather, the Australian player complaints merely underlined the unsuitability of the old FTP. There were many critics of the old FTP, for many reasons. I was one of them and I outlined them in this blog back in January.

There still are many reasons to criticise the FTP, even in its new and improved form. It is important at this stage to recall the problem for which the FTP was created. It was that the ‘senior’ Test nations, by which we perhaps mean in this context, the more commercially lucrative, were not playing the less commercially lucrative nations enough. In particular the introduction of Bangladesh to the playing schedule had complicated things, as there was a widespread view that Bangladesh were not strong enough to justify full Test status.

This was a legitimate problem, and one that the FTP is designed to solve. However, the problem is that it is over prescriptive. Malcolm Speed himself describes the work that went into it:

It was no simple task to put it together as it involved two years of analysis and ten different drafts but at the end of the process we believe this new FTP will play a crucial role in management of player workloads.

Two years of analysis? Ten different drafts? All that was required was the ICC should lay down a guideline that all nations play against each other home and away every six years as a minimum. and let the respective boards get on with organising it. Instead we have this urge to micro-manage everything. I suppose when you earn half a million dollars a year you get a strong urge to do something to justify it.

Speaking of crass matters of money, in the same article, Speed took a swipe at the financial arrangements of cricketers, suggesting that they were quite well paid enough to be undertaking the touring arrangements that they are under. This was a most disappointing remark from Speed, and in my view displayed exactly why he’s unfit for the job. If you are to undertake a range of physically very arduous tasks, you will be quite tired at the end of them regardless of the sums you are paid. It may have been a hangover from Speed’s days as the CEO of the Australian Cricket Board, as it then was.

It is true that there are some rich cricketers going around these days. Shane Warne earns a pretty penny, Adam Gilchrist even more. Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid are no doubt swimming in it. And after his Ashes heroics, I don’t think Andrew Flintoff would be short of a penny either. But they are very much the cream of the crop. The likes of Daniel Vettori and Mkaya Ntini would no doubt be comfortable but hardly dining off gold plate every night, and there would be plenty of players like Kyle Mills and Mohammad Ashrafal, whose earnings from the game are no doubt very modest indeed compared to the princely sums earned by the superstars. Or, indeed by Malcolm Speed. It was a crass, low blow from the ICC chief executive.

At the root of the matter is the managerial ethos; an elite trained in the mysteries of the corporate universe should run the game. I agree that there is a place for the MBA brigade in the administration of the game. Malcolm Speed has in many ways done a lot for cricket that does not get due recognition. However, the place for the MBA brigade must always be a subordinate place to real cricket people and personalities. Speed is nominally responsible to the ICC Presidency, but that office is a rotating one, and not one to exercise real leadership from. The ICC CEO, though, is eternal, evolving into a Sir Humphrey Appleby of cricket, and not for the benefit of the game. So instead of mystifying verbal formulations, we get monstrosities such as the Future Tours Programs and two-Test mach series. What is required is that the MBA brigade be subordinate to a strong ICC President with deep roots in the game. Then the value of his corporate skills can be used for good, not for chaos.

This managerial ethos is not confined to ICC World HQ, by the way. Scyld Berry highlights an example of how it has an impact on English domestic game as well. It all makes one pine for the days when those autocratic patricians of MCC ran the game. They were an exclusive and arrogant lot, but at least they knew a leg break from a fine leg.