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Have the administrators of top-level Cricket totally lost their way during the last five years?
I would argue that the simple answer is, “ Yes ” ; and, as a consequence of the public's sinking perceptions of the elite forms of cricket, the future well-being of cricket as a whole depends, now, more-than-ever, upon the efforts of the sport’s grass-roots - - THAT’S US! . . those of us who are involved with our local cricket clubs and schools.
These days, it feels that national news bulletins are more likely to report on yet another top-level cricketing administration fiasco, then on a scintillating performance with bat or ball. This has much to do with the tabloid-style and journalistic thirst for stories of this type, but more often then not, it is mainly due to the cricketing powers’ propensity for shooting themselves in the foot.
I am NOT specifically referring to distressing issues such-as international venue security problems, contentious team selections, poor England performances, dodgy declaration timings or the ever-present cloud of organised gambling syndicates. I’m not even that disturbed about the England players’, coaches’ and selectors’ habit of airing their differences in public.I will acknowledge at this early stage that it is not all bad news : the England and Wales Cricket Board are bringing a Test Match to Cardiff this summer ; they are efficiently refining youth coaching protocols ; the profile, standard and professionalism of women’s cricket are developing productively ; successes such as these should be promoted, and not overlooked . . .
. . . But what causes me a great deal of concern, is the large number of embarrassing high-profile episodes, which could easily be avoided by better management and a small degree of foresight.
Even a random edited list of gaffs is lengthy . . .
Just last month, at the conclusion of the one-day-international in Guyana, the West Indies mistakenly decided to come off for bad-light, thinking that they were in a winning position when they were not; thus losing the match to England.
This HAD to be the only way that England were going to end their losing-streak. With the ignominious conclusion topping the headlines, who will ever remember any of the players’ on-pitch performances from this game?
What a farce! You couldn’t make it up!! – AND, in a stadium which is equipped with FLOODLIGHTS! - no loose-change to put in the electric meter, one must assume. But, “rules are rules,” and the International Cricket Council demonstrate little desire to allow common sense to get in the way of a route to a cast-iron cock-up.
Whilst working, I listened to most of the match on the radio, but, if I had paid an admission fee (or a Sky subscription) to watch this waste-of-a-day, I would be demanding my money back. I gather that many spectators leaving the stadium had no idea what the actual result was!
Is there any other sport where this, or the equivalent, could happen?
This must rank amongst the daftest things since Roberto De Vicenzo lost the 1968 Golfing MASTERS by signing a miss-drafted score card.
The bulk of the blame for the ODI incident in Guyana must lie with the West Indies’ backroom & coaching staff ; but, the tournament organisers (the ICC) are also culpable for ineptly persisting with the incredibly complex Duckworth-Lewis method for revising targets in time-reduced games.
Duckworth-Lewis is a statistical & analytical work of genius, BUT, a team captain should not require a clipboard & satellite-enabled laptop or a team of OFF-pitch analysts, in-order to make an ON-pitch cricketing decision. If the captains, players and coaches can not work out what the match-situation is, how can they structure their game-plan; and what chance do the spectators have of interpreting the play meaningfully?
If this was the worst example of poor cricket admin at the top-level, things would not be too bad, but lamentably, there seems to be a constant stream of news items of this type.
More public relations failures from the top-level of cricket management . .
We have seen . . .
. . . the grotesque human live-stock auction of players for the IPL, broadcast live around the world and promoted as a major TV media event in its own right . . .
. . . the distasteful sight of Sirs Botham & Richards, and senior administrators, grinning & fawning over a publicity-seeking “businessman” (!?) and his oversized trunk full of imitation dollar bills; all followed by the ensuing shambolic series of events.
I use the term “businessman” advisedly, and in deference to the assumption that any man is innocent until proven guilty; after which, he should be stripped of all his ill-gotten gains, cast into prison and the key thrown away.
. . . Cricket enthusiasts have been baffled to see a club of the stature of Yorkshire CCC having points deducted for fielding an ineligible player in a 20-20 match. If the salaried, full-time officers of the white-rose county club are unable to keep track of their list of groundstaff & players, what should reasonably be expected of the over-stretched volunteer Secretary of Llechryd CC ?!
. . . We had to endure the grandiose, disproportionate & “over-lubricated” celebrations, organised after our national team’s 2005 Ashes win. Yes, it was a great and exciting sporting win, but hardly meriting celebrations on a par with those for ridding Western Europe of Nazi occupation.
Should we not be setting an example to our young players – “to draw lessons from our losses, while drawing pleasure from the manner of our wins,” and not reveling in self-satisfied gloating afterwards?
What could go wrong next? oh yes . . MBEs awarded for the whole 2005 England Ashes team – given to professionals for having 25 successful days, doing a job which they are already handsomely paid for. I always believed that an MBE was an award that the Queen made to worthy subjects from ANY Commonwealth nation, and was not meant to be an exclusively British jingoistic borble. How many of us can count on the fingers of more than one hand, MBEs or OBEs, given to living cricket players & officials from our fellow Commonwealth nations, with the citation reading, “for services to cricket” ?
However, the MBE debacle is one error of judgment which can not be laid at the feet of the ECB or ICC . . . (YES, of course it should be referred to as the EWCB, but the ECB has no wish to fix the upper-case “W” on their typewriter, regardless of any offence which is being caused on the west side of Offa's Dyke. Have a look at www.ewcb.org.uk )
Tampering with history . .
. . . We’ve witnessed the re-writing of a Test Match result, some two years after the event, and the gobbledygook of justification offered in explanation for what was, obviously, a decision made for politically & legally expedient reasons. (England v Pakistan, 4th test 2006 – ball-tampering accusation).
This particular incidence of tampering-with-history was revised yet AGAIN, some six-months later. If we all adopt this approach, we only need to wait long enough to discover that King Harold actually won the Battle of Hastings in 1066, via an obscure rules technicality !
. . . Cricket has to undergo the constant media bickering about the relative merits and skill-requirements of all the different cricket formats - 5-day tests, county championship format, 50-over-per-innings games, 20-20s. Other sports have “compact” versions ; 5-a-side football, 7-a-side rugby, indoor-short-track athletics etc, - yet these sports have few problems in attributing their different formats with an appropriate perspective.
. . . We were forced to suffer the indefensibly long-winded Cricket World Cup tournament of 2007. The tournament organisers (the ICC again) apparently made a priority of maximising TV-hours, for the benefit of the revenue generated when selling-off the media rights. The excessive number of games (and high gate-prices) resulted in many matches being played in half-empty stadiums.
To cap it all, the Final between Australia & Sri Lanka finished with ANOTHER humiliating bad-light fiasco. Surely, this should have been treated as an opportunity to learn and adapt, so as to avoid a repeat – like the ODI in Guyana . . . well, obviously not . . . but then we are talking about the ICC here.
. . . We’ve seen test matches being abandoned after a handful of overs, because the organisers failed to monitor the preparation of the playing-surfaces in advance. The excuses given for this have been truly astounding. The abandonment in Antigua 2009 is totally inexcusable, as monitoring protocols should have been developed and enforced by the ICC after the abandonment at Sabina Park in 1998 . . .
Cricket on TV – or the lack of it – my biggest worry . . .
In my opinion, the saddest manifestation of poor-management has to be the ECB’s and ICC’s attitude towards the negotiation of TV rights. These organisations justify their deals with the Murdoch empire, by saying that they have a duty to maximise income ; . . . but surely this has to be balanced with what is in the best interests of the future development of the game, and the wider perceptions of the general public regarding cricket.
How can our village cricket clubs be expected to succeed in persuading local headteachers to include more cricket within their schools’ heavily pressured curriculum, when OUR OWN sport’s governing body have engineered a situation, whereby a generation of our children are growing-up with no experience of live, free-to-view televised cricket?
The largest viewer-demographic for live cricket transmitted on Sky, is retired and unemployed adults.
Recent figures indicate that only one-third of British households are Sky TV subscribers, with this proportion anticipated by some analysts to drop during the recession. How are the other 66% of our children expected to see top-grade cricket? How will they even find out what the game looks like?!
I do not believe that half-minute news reports or short highlight packages will do the trick.
If the other TV channels have no cricket to transmit, their reporters will have no option but to cover the sport by concentrating on these negative miss-management side-shows; naturally, this will be what shapes the wider public’s perception of the game.
After the high-profile Ashes win of 2005 (which was covered live, free, and extensively by Channel 4) the England & Wales Cricket Board found themselves in possession of a valuable, televisual “Golden Goose”, and we should all remember what fate befell that particular pantomime bird.
Last year, many of Pembrokeshire’s cricket clubs will have happily banked the cheques from B-Sky-B - £125 donated per coach who’d gained a new coaching qualification in 2008; however, many consider the payments as somewhat tainted – part of a deal-postscript, designed to dissuade criticism, salve consciences and grease-the-wheels.
B-Sky-B have a very effective business-model, and there can be no criticism of them for their zealous corporate pursuit of this model . . . but the cricketing powers-that-be have track records for being dazzled, blinded and beguiled by the number of zeros printed next to the £ and digit on the contracts placed before them, at the expense of other equally important considerations.
You can’t blame B-Sky-B for doing business the way that it does; any more than you can blame a crocodile for snapping-up a dozy goat grazing by the water’s edge.
As the years of the Sky TV deal(s) go by, I am convinced that Cricket will increasingly fail to gain a positive profile amongst a huge pool of young, potential players ; and the detrimental effects will be felt by cricket clubs AT ALL LEVELS.
These effects will be experienced more in Wales than in England, as Wales starts with a lower “penetration-base” of cricket being played in our schools.
I would be delighted (and relieved) to be proved wrong about my concerns; but, I fear that the damage could be too deep-rooted by the time that measurable evidence breaks the surface.
What can WE do about this situation?
1. Make these concerns known to the ECB; after all, it is THEY who are answerable to US, for their safe-stewardship of our sport.
2. Anticipate difficult times ahead for our local clubs, and work to safeguard our clubs’ core activities.
3. Support the work of our club coaches, and place extra effort in promoting cricket within our local schools and communities.
4. It is inconceivable that the current financial crisis will not have some impact on our local sports clubs’ financial resources ; this, coupled with the fact that traditional sports grants are being cut-back (thanks to the London Olympics), means that Pembrokeshire’s cricket clubs will have to be more resourceful and imaginative in generating funds and managing costs.
5. Most important of all – current & former players, members, parents and friends of cricket clubs, must recognise and appreciate the facilities being offered by their clubs; and give the clubs their sustained and meaningful support.
Neville Cardus wrote of cricket as being, "the best and loveliest of games . . . a game containing elements of indescribable magic."
Now, it is up to us, and the sports administrators, to ensure that some of that magic remains - for the benefit of the next generation.
Troubling as the prospects painted here may be, every cricketer knows that all problems are temporarily moderated somewhat, if the weather-gods choose to smile upon us.
Wishing you all a sunny and successful 2009 season . . . . .
Mark Vincent
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