UPDATE AT END OF POST…. (Sunday @9:10pm)
A third piece up today. I thought it an interesting thing though.
David Hopps wrote this article on Cricinfo. Please click on the link.
England could have used the international against Hong Kong in Abu Dhabi as a celebration of the full ODI status Hong Kong received for a four-year period from 2014, a chance to show a vague commitment to the global expansion that many cricket followed hanker after. Many would have seen it as posturing, but even posturing can bring benefits.
I’ve kept the article in full by way of record in case it is altered in the light of the following Twitter exchange…
This has amused me on several levels.
First of all, the leaping to the defence of England’s cricket hierarchy by John is touching. While Hopps’s piece may not be true, and that the Hong Kong ODI team, throwing their weight around, forced England into a 13-a-side game we never really wanted, and we accommodated them (despite the rumours that we weren’t playing Hong Kong in a full ODI because we didn’t want / couldn’t afford (ho ho) our players), it’s not as if we go out of our way to give the Associates with ODI status on our doorstep much of a look-in. Ireland are an attractive side to watch, famously beat us in Bangalore, and yet we try to cram them in at the fag end of the season. It’s not as if our ICC representative is out there fighting their corner, stitching up the Big Three agreement, rubber-stamping the ten team format for the next World Cup.
Andrew Nixon, a firm proponent of Associate cricket pointed this out…
We spent a lot of last year going on about some of the press doing the ECB’s bidding. There still remains a good deal of suspicion around that area. Tim Wigmore alluded to it in a piece he wrote on Olympics and cricket. The ECB are capable of looking after themselves and defending their record. Except, of course, they are not as they showed last year.
If England would have wanted this to be a full ODI, ground status or not, they could have. Hong Kong dictating terms to England seems rather fanciful to me. But I’m not there, so I have to accept what I’m being told. It just seems a little strange.
This will be an interesting next few hours.
UPDATE:
Some more tweets:
“Don’t see any reason to doubt them?” Blimey. I don’t have to look hard to find one.
Hopps is not backing down:
Andrew Nixon is not convinced:
The match will have been good experience for Hong Kong, but the lack of ODI status for this fixture between two sides with ODI status leaves something of a sour taste in the mouth. Reports are that Hong Kong said in the post match press conference that they requested the game not be an ODI. Given what I’d heard from within Hong Kong cricket ahead of the game, that is almost certainly a line written for them by the ECB in order to save face.
Andrew’s not going to give this one up without a fight! Please click on the link.
Tim Wigmore – who wrote a book on the Associates with Peter Miller – has come to the party.
A Nepal cricket writer Tweets:
UPDATE II – John Etheridge has commented. See link.
Being Outside Cricket 
Time for the joke of the century one more time…..lol
“The ECB doesn’t leak.”
It’s still funny every time it’s retold. Well all those leaks come from somewhere. Perhaps they just fall out of magic bunkers on golfing days out. Who knows?
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Does John Etheridge fire off Tweets at journalists for writing things too uncritical of the ECB? Perhaps he has – but I’m struggling to think of any.
His work is mainly behind a paywall so I have to take him from Twitter and from CWOTV. I haven’t found him, like some, totally unwilling to criticise the ECB. The criticism seems over a fairly narrow range of issues though.
Whatever the rights and wrongs in this precise instance, the story had resonance because of the context of the ECB’s (well, Giles Clarke’s) wretched attitude towards the associates (or indeed anyone outside the Big Three).
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Wigmore knows what he is talking about:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/891197.html
He is a real journalist.
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Utterly sick of cricket’s Old Boy Network. Had 35 years of it.
A round of applause is heard from BOC readers. A small, not over-optimistic, cheer too, perhaps.
Though of course we are merely bilious inadequates and sinister people with an axe to grind.
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The sheer, I don’t know how to put it, breathless naivety of the comment “I see no reason to doubt them” as if the ECB and Team England are some pillars of probity in a world of crookedness is stunning.
Here’s a reason. They wanted a practice match and couldn’t be arsed to make it a formal one. God. That took some thinking…..
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Nailed it. Great to see someone from within the profession articulate what we’ve long suspected.
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As many have said, and I see no reason not to echo their comments, great to see David Hopps, Tim Wigmore and Miller standing up for and confirming what we have long suspected. Even better to see them ‘taking it’ to their fellow ‘ECB apologetic’ journalists.
What with the confirmation through Twitter yesterday of what we had long thought about Selvey, very close to Clarke. Then this today, are we seeing some early manoeuvring for aligning to a new force? Could Graves be about to try and reassert himself and this is the start of the ‘jockeying’ to be in the right place? Probably not, but just s thought…..
Enjoyed your reads today LCL, thanks for highlighting these excellent articles……
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I missed the “Selvey, very close to Clarke” thing from yesterday. Can you let me have a link or point me in right direction because it may affect a piece I am currently writing. Thank you.
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Tim Wigmore, Cricinfo, yesterday. The quote was “known to have a good working relationship with”.
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Here’s the link:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/937819.html
One Selvey piece with a hefty piece of Giles Clarke that’s worth looking at (if you can bear it!) is this one:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/jan/11/ecb-tom-harrison-giles-clarke
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Thank you, Arron.
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The worst thing about all of this is that it is an affirmation that the cricketing establishment of the big 3 really don’t want to grow the game. IT is bad enough watching cricket be far less as big a sport than it was in this country even compared to a decade a go and more because of sheer self interest, but it is now not going to grow elsewhere because of actions like this.
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Myself and Paul Newman had the not inconsiderable advantage of being at the England v Hong Kong match.
I didn’t notice Mssrs Hopps, Wigmore, Wilde, Miller and Nixon there.
From the Hong Kong people we spoke to, there was not the slightest disquiet that the match was not granted ODI status. Indeed, Simon Cook, the Hong Kong coach, made it expressly clear after the game that Hong Kong did not watch an official ODI. He wanted to use 13 players to give as many as possible experience against England as they prepare for their upcoming four-day, first-class game against the UAE.
England fielded only 11 although Bairstow took over from Buttler behind the stumps midway through Hong Kong’s innings because Buttler sustained a finger injury.
This is not spouting any sort of ECB or England line. Quite the contrary, I actively tried to find out if any of these claims were true. It appears they are not.
Oh, and the ICC say the ground (which was not the main stadium in Adu Dhabi) does not fulfill the criteria necessary to stage an official ODI anyway.
The Pakistan v Nepal match, played simultaneously on the adjoining ground, did not have official ODI status, either.
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John, do you know if, at the planning of this match, the option of an official ODI was considered, and therefore also at a venue that can fulfill the criteria. It just sounds like a missed oppertunity (never to be repeated for HK) to play a full member.
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John, I understand that Nepal only have List A and not ODI status. So Nepal had no real influence on the status of their match.
There is some discrepancy between what was said by the HKCA before as opposed to after the match from the posts I have read. I guess the sceptics wonder, why would the HKCA eschew significant ODI status just so they could give 13 as opposed to 11 players match experience against England. In the event, they only played one extra player in Ehsan Nawaz whose only contribution was to bowl 3 overs. Doesn’t really sound like a decent exchange for the diminution of status. If you were in charge of HK, would you say you really wanted to forego ODI status for this match so you could let one of your fringe bowlers roll his arm for three overs?
The HKCA may have said it was all their idea after the event, but we are all aware how the big fish cajole the minnows to their point of view, under threat or promise.
The curiosity for me is how the views divide. On the one hand you and Paul Newman, representing the MSM, trust at face value what the on-message PR machine has laid out. On the other, Hopps, Nixon, Miller, Wilde and Wigmore, respected voices outside the inner network, have a) heard differently, and b) are more sceptical because none of it makes any actual sense.
Our trust in cricket content will shift and adjust according to where we think verification is taking place. The concept of “no reason to disbelieve” is corrupt. Be sceptical and test every proposition. Surely we have all learned that by now?
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Several of those you mention have written a highly-regarded and well-received book about associate cricket that puts them in a better position to understand the issues facing such teams than, dare I suggest, the English press corps:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Second-XI-Cricket-its-Outposts/dp/1785310135/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1447019854&sr=8-1&keywords=cricket+in+its+outposts
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Andrew Nixon’s latest tweet…
and
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Has Newman ever gone against the ECB on anything other than when they appeared to open the door for a return for KP? I felt his criticsm of the way they sacked Peter Moores was clouded by the fact he was having a go at Colin Grabes who had become the enemy within for encouraging KP to keep playing county cricket.
It’s nausiating to read this “me too” cronyism. In retrospect it’s extraudinary KP stayed in the England team as long as he did.
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Who will be the first to say……” Who cares about Hong Kong? ……we won the Ashes!”
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The issue over associate cricket is interesting. The treatment of those trying to make it into the big show is scandalous, as the Big Three avoid playing unattractive matches as much as possible. We could play Ireland every year, but we don’t. When we do, it’s in May or August. It’s another one of those “Death of a Gentleman” points. For example, we are playing 4 ODIs against Pakistan. I mean, there’s going to be no rain, so this series could end 2-2. What is the point? What is the serious point? Have it as three, have it as five. Have a winner. Have three, play Hong Kong in a proper ODI. How could that hurt?
Arguably more interesting for me is the way we’ve heard the reports of Etheridge and Newman and immediately discounted them. Some will say it’s my problem, it’s your problem. I’d be inclined to look at myself. What have you done to say to me you are on the side of those inquisitive and pressuring souls who didn’t believe a word of the ECB’s nonsense last year, when you’ve been the enablers? Selvey chooses to ignore us, or call us know nothings. That doesn’t bother me in the slightest. Newman blocks me, no doubt because he’s sick of the abuse from here. Oh well. John engages on here, but I’m never sure why. He’s free to do so. John has put his views and commented on the various suppositions. It’s up to the readers what they want to believe.
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Couldn’t agree more with your first paragraph. As far as I understand it both Pakistan and Sri Lanka are playing 2 ODIs against Ireland next year. Why not just make it a tri-series instead? Far better than the endless rounds of bilateral series we get at the moment.
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Play under way at the Gabba. Ross Taylor gloved a bouncer to second slip already. Rain forecast later so they have some chance of saving this (plus wicket is still pretty good).
Rest of series looks grim for NZ with Southee and Boult looking crocked.
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http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR503.loop.shtml
Back-up weather radar….
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BMac 39* off 31.
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Fifty up in the way that gets you sacked if you play for England:
http://www.cricingif.com/Ball/163100
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This may as well go here as anywhere. (I think that I stuck something similar on the late lamented. If so, apologies). I think that there is a perception that the ECB, CA and the BCCI are venal, possibly corrupt and short sighted. I think that the latter is false. They are not interested in growing the game. They look to the US. In a big, rich market, the US has 3 massive earners. I suspect Ice Hockey and the US motor sports are also big money. The powers that be, I guess, see the future as cricket as an Indian game. That is where the money is. Cricket will survive in the rest of the world in the way basketball and baseball in particular are profitable in ‘other markets’. It will cope here because it will, like rugby, basically become a public school game. There’s gold in them schools. I don’t know much about Australia, but my guess is that, with the economy doing well, the game looks healthy enough.The occasional, say, West Indian, will get to play in the IPL. It will be a nice story. That the game will have withered doesn’t bother the big three because there will be more money to be made by turning cricket from an international game into an Indian one.
(please don’t think that I think that this a dastardly plan by the BCCI. I don’t. I think that it is a stitch up by all the big boys).
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I’m a bit confused about player payments. Do the English
Players get paid for going on tour and then extra payments according to how many ” official” games they play?
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Cook gets an estimated 300k / year extra for being the Test captain. You can’t tell me that the ECB has players on central contracts, who are making more than 1 million a year, while at the same time not being able to afford to pay the 11 players match fees totaling about 150 000 pounds. Not with the glut of fixtures the ECB has inflicted upon the players (17 Tests from the start of the West Indies tour to the end of the SA tour for instance).
Unless, the ECB is happy to imply that their chief finance officer is incompetent or has embezzled some funds …
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I’ve said it twice before on these comment pages. It is about time Test nations are given the bloody mandate by the ICC to big brother up with Associates and smaller. This means when you are touring you have to play the host’s little brother(s). Not bullshit warm-up games that everyone plays against a select XI. I’m sick of them.
I’m truly amazed cricket has got this far and somehow managed to be played in the Commonwealth countries, because the attitude by Clarke, et al is sickening.
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Maybe this clarifies the situation
http://www.hkcricket.org/en/news/CEO-Blog-9-November-2015/398/
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If you ignored the 2 paragraphs below from that then maybe.
“On a personal note and in response to various media reports and approaches; yes, the matter of the total cost for an ODI was mentioned during the (last minute) arrangements of the fixture, as would be expected. Perhaps, if both parties had longer to prepare, a full ODI may have been feasible and hopefully this is something both parties can consider for the future. However the reality was that in the time available – less than a month – the proper arrangements that would normally be covered by a series MOU could not be completed in time”.
“However frustrating it may seem (especially from an Associate ODI-status member perspective) the fixture would not have proceeded if not for the support of the ECB, especially its CEO, Tom Harrison. Tom has been one of the main drivers behind the scenes in the ECB’s change of stance to now support Cricket as an Olympic sport and the HKCA applauds his efforts in this respect”.
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It’s that gratuitous mention of the Empty Suit, and the fact a CEO admits he has to work “behind the scenes” (clue in the title, mate. Chief), that raised my suspicions.
Andrew Nixon, who as you might know is a source of Associate cricket had this to say:
As I’ve said, it’s a matter of trust between the old media and the “new”. We just don’t trust the old media, and we have a long way to go before we trust, which is an important word in the ECB remember, that organisation.
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David Hopps has put up his own piece on cricinfo. It strikes me as though it was something that he had got wind of a while ago rather than just writing about it yesterday given the way he structured his original article. The term that I would have used is that Hong Kong didn’t want to p*ss on their chips!
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/938859.html
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(Which is why, among other things, the whole “ground doesn’t have ODI status” argument is tosh)
On the latter point, Nixon then observes that the biennial fixture against Scotland has been dumped in 2016 and the match against Ireland in 2017 is scheduled for …. April.
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I see that there was no toss for this match. England batted first by prearrangement. Seeing as England lost every toss in the recent test series maybe they need to practice their toss technique? They should consult with the ECB hiracrcy as they are all a bunch of tossers.
This only reinforces my belief that all non big 3 countrys must break away from the ICC. I know it will be financially terrible. But to stay in the ICC means a long, slow death where you are humiliated on a daily basis. Break away and form your own Association. Leave the arrogant big 3 to play themselves for eternity. Ashes evey 6 months with only India for contrast.
If the typical England fan is happy with this then they game is totally screwed anyway. At least the rest of the world has the chance to build something new and decent.
Finally the notion that England wanted to avoid paying their players for this fixture just smacks of the neo liberal mind set that runs the ECB. Remember the buzz word is “trust.” How can the players even begin to trust their own management who tries to engineer a situation where they avoid having to pay them? Shocking!
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Gideon Haigh on the All-Stars match:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/opinion/cuts-and-glances-warne-and-tendulkars-all-stars-have-commercial-appeal/story-fnb58rpk-1227600917403?sv=222d3003ca40a8c0a68b89644c794c08
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Sorry, that link hits the paywall. Try going in through Freddie Wilde on Twitter:
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And if that fails:
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Hurrah!
Giles Clarke is the only one of the Big Three stitch-up to survive and he becomes ICC President in July 2016. Oh….
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I am comfortable with my polemic-cum-match report, slightly taken aback by the depth of response (including here), and I don’t believe that Tim Cutler’s necessarily pragmatic and politically shrewd response on behalf of HK cricket has undermined the essence of what I wrote. To suggest it has is either naive or to see what you want to see. The expansionism debate is now once again in the public domain and cricket is better for it. I am neither pro ECB or anti ECB, inside cricket or outside cricket, nor do I see myself as old media or new. I wake up and write what I think, or what I know, or what I think I know. Neither do I believe for a moment that Colin Graves/Tom Harrison are the personification of evil. On this subject, they do seem to have shown some signs of expansionism… the view about the Olympics is a step forward. Expansionism must be planned, logistically possible and affordable – all of which meant an ODI country (England) should have played an ODI country (HK) in an official ODI. Not to do so is elitist and shows a fear of expansion which is eating away at the game. The way county cricket is poorly promoted and constantly unstable and the way the expansion of the game is not conducted intelligently and with vigour and the unwieldy, overly corporate nature of the ECB is saddening.
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David,
Many thanks for the response. As I’ve found writing this (and another blog) the strangest things gain the greatest heat. It’s totally unpredictable.
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The last sentence rings out for me. Interesting debate would be, if you possessed a large chunk of real estate, in or near a city centre, that everyone was familiar with, could you make a successful business out of it? One proviso: part of it must accommodate cricket matches.
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Well I suppose I should chip in as I’ve been quoted a few times on here.
I first heard about the England v Hong Kong game back at the beginning of October when it was reported (as an ODI btw) in Hong Kong media. A few days later it was confirmed to me that it was unlikely to be an ODI as ECB were balking over “a fee”.
Shortly afterwards it transpired that this fee was indeed the match fees of the players. It is my understanding that a clause in the contracts of England players requires a match fee of a certain amount to be paid for all Tests, ODIs and T20Is. This match fee is not required (or is reduced, I’m not certain) if the match is a regular tour match. I was initially told this off the record and so didn’t make it public, but it later leaked out anyway.
It may well be the case that come the day of the match Hong Kong asked to let their entire squad play the match in order to test out their players ahead of their Intercontinental Cup match. Something about that doesn’t quite add up though – if it was about practice then Mark Chapman (primarily a batsman) would have batted and not just fielded.
The suggestion that Hong Kong never wanted an ODI in the first place is clearly bollocks given how desperate all associates are to have ODIs against full members. Incidentally, the initial agreement under the FTP when associates got ODI status back in 2005 (starting in 2006) was that each one would get at least one ODI against a full member every calendar year. Hong Kong (and Papua New Guinea) have had none in two years of ODI status. UAE had none in 2014.
There was talk about an ODI fund for associates (which one assumes could have helped make this an ODI) but – depending on which source I hear it from – this was rejected at the last ICC meeting or deferred for discussion at a later date.
I must say that it is great that much more of this stuff is being discussed. I’ve been banging on about this shit for over a decade now, and it often felt like I was talking to myself. I feel that very few people still think that associates get a fair deal from the ICC (although there are still some).
I saw above a comment about how boards should break away from the ICC. You may be interested to read this piece I wrote back in the middle of last year: http://www.cricketeurope4.net/DATABASE/ARTICLES7/articles/000042/004207.shtml (try http://www.cricketeurope4.net/DATABASE/ARTICLES7/articles/000042/004207-p.shtml) if that doesn’t work on mobiles.
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Many thanks, Andrew.
I’ve followed your tweets because of your passion for Associate cricket and your comments, which from where I sit, are based on solid sources and good information. Thanks for your post.
Hope you didn’t mind the tweets being on here. It’s been an interesting last 36 hours.
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One of the most interesting aspects of this story for me is the issue of avoiding the match fee in the England players contracts. I find this astonishing for 2 reasons. First, The ECB is awash with cash and corporate deals. The idea they can’t aford it seems extraudinary.
The second issue is the famous trust issue. How can the head of cricket talk about dressing room trust when the suits are finding ways to avoid paying the players their dues. It’s bizare.
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My guess is that match fees are usually covered by whatever money they get from TV rights/sponsorship for a particular match/series. That, of course, is still just an excuse. They could just as easily find the money from somewhere else.
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It does seem a bit cheap skate, but I guess no players will make a big deal out of it.
By the way Andrew, congratulations and thanks for all the hard work you put in on this topic. As you say it must seem sometimes that no one is listening. I don’t expect all the MSM to cover this stuff or indeed be interested in it. But the way so many of the journos sided so quickly with ECB story line was very revealing.
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Excellent article, Andrew. If there’s legs in another post on this, and I’m pretty sure there might be, I’ll give it some prominence. The points behind it are real, and feed a little into my post about what sport has become (and cricket in general).
Thanks once again. (Also, in case you are not clear, Lord Canis Lupus is Dmitri Old as well. Long story, not going to bore you with it).
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Did some digging on this yesterday, and thought I’d share what I found (though Andrew Nixon has covered most of it anyway).
England had initially been scheduled to play a UAE XI, but they couldn’t get a team together; HK stepped in, grateful for any cricket they could get against a Full Member. When the South China Morning Post reported that the Eng-HK game would be an official ODI, it sent the ECB into a bit of a tail-spin. Official ODIs bring with them various issues: TV rights, ground regulations (for players, officials and media), memoranda of understanding, and, yes, match fees. A back-of-an-envelope figure for the cost of the ECB funding the game came to around £50,000.
Now, at this (late) stage, the ECB had two options: foot the bill themselves, get the game moved to an ICC-accredited venue, accord the match official ODI status – and, in the process, attract some decent PR. They chose not to do that, for the reasons mentioned above. A member of the HK cricket administration put it this way: “£50k is a lot of unbudgeted money for anyone.”
When I asked the same administrator whether he would have expected any board to stump up the cash for what would effectively have amounted to an act of goodwill, he said: “No. I’d be surprised if any board would do it.”
This isn’t to say HK wouldn’t have bitten the ECB’s hand off had they offered to fund the game. And had there been more time to arrange it, HK might have succeeded in finding a sponsor back home.
So we arrived at a position where HK’s official position was that they hadn’t wanted an ODI in the first place – which of course was merely the position they found themselves in once it became clear that the match would not have official status. And, given the improved nature of relations between the ECB and Associates/Affiliates under the Graves/Harrison ticket, HK were not minded to score any public points.
Yes, the ECB could have funded it, and scored some serious brownie points. The ICC might have dipped into their pocket too.
HK are frustrated, it’s true – but, as much as anything, they are as frustrated with the general absence of debate about the place of Associates/Affiliates in cricket’s ecosystem.
If nothing else, at least this episode revives that debate.
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Thanks for that, very enlightening – I hadn’t realised that HK had stepped in to replace a potential UAE side.
Pity the ECB didn’t have the panache to say “Let’s go for it and make it a proper ODI, after all HK have just got ODI status, let’s make it a celebration. Hooray for the minnows!” Who knows, players might even have waived match fees.
Missed opportunity.
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An opportunity missed to commemorate the man who played for both sides and inaugurate the Dermot Reeve Cup!
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Hmmmm. Would it be on Channel 4?
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This seems to be pretty much hitting the nail on the head for me. An issue of time and money. As usual it could have been much better handled. If the ECB were seeking a chance for some good PR they could have put their hands in their pockets and moved very sharpish but good PR and helping out an associate does seem low on their list of priorities. However, with time as well as hard cash involved, I do understand their predicament, to a point.
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Lawrence thanks for that explanation.
It does reveal a problem for all associate members of getting an official match put on. Namely finance.. They are almost completely at the mercy of the bigger sides to stump up the cash.
If one wanted to be a bit cynical it seems all the rules and regulations of a match being given an official ODI status can be used to avoid a match ever being official.because it is just too expensive.
Thanks.
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Oh I forgot to say.
Why can’t the ECB just tell the truth. Instead of all this cloak and dagger stuff? They end up just looking shifty and always having an agenda.
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Thank you Lawrence. This should put the matter to some sort of rest. I think it has been an interesting and worthwhile discussion. My thanks to those that took part.
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