Is The Hundred A Success?

dannycricket29 Comments

“By any measure, The Hundred has been a huge success” – Glamorgan CCC chair Mark Rhydderch-Roberts

“The reality is The Hundred has been a huge success both from a ticketing and TV perspective. It is also an extremely important revenue stream for the game of cricket, generating roughly 25% of the ECB’s revenue which funds the broader game of cricket, and helps maintain a viable 18 county ecosystem.” – Surrey CCC chair Oli Slipper

“The Hundred has gone well: the obvious reason is the success [of Southern Brave] on the pitch, but I would also point to the public, families, and new watchers of cricket coming in, which has been very strong.” – Hampshire CCC chair Nick Pike

“The third year of the Hundred brought good attendance figures, better matches in the men’s competition and decent viewing figures. The concentration of talent into eight teams, instead of 18, drives up standards, and from a standing start it was clear on Sunday that the teams have built a fan base in just three years. It is a success story.” – Nick Hoult, Telegraph correspondent

There appears to be a growing consensus, at least by people within the cricket establishment, that The Hundred is a ‘success’. But by which measures, and who for, are questions without clear answers.

Being Profitable

When the ECB first proposed a new T20 competition to the counties in 2016, the main objective was simple: Making money. The IPL currently earns about ten times as much from TV rights than India internationals, and the same thing might be possible in England. This would finance English cricket (and the cash-strapped counties who had to vote in favour of the project) for generations to come. A report by Deloitte suggested that an IPL-style competition might initially make an annual profit of £31.9m, with the obvious potential to far exceed that if it caught on like the IPL has in India. A foolproof business case.

Unfortunately for Deloitte (and the counties), they had not reckoned on the calibre of fools available at the ECB.

The original proposal was for the new (and presumed to be T20 format at the time) competition to follow a low cost, high return model. Annual costs were expected to be £13m, with roughly half of that spent on players’ wages and the rest being almost the minimum necessary to coach, host and produce a televised sports event. A lean, simple approach to creating a new sports league.

What almost inevitably followed was an all-encompassing form of mission creep, where the new competition would not only have to make money but also directly address every other issue English cricket faces. The ECB missed out on the chance to trademark and license the T20 format when they introduced it at the professional level, so a new format had to be created. The average attendee at English cricket matches is aging, so lavish in-ground entertainment will be provided in the form of fireworks and live music to attract a younger crowd. Ticket-buyers at cricket matches also tend to be wealthy, so entry to The Hundred was to be heavily discounted. Participation is declining, so The Hundred would be partnered with a youth club cricket scheme to boost the numbers of kids playing the game. Women’s cricket was suffering from a chronic lack of investment over decades, and so the Kia Super League would be partially integrated with the men’s competition. Former marketing executive Tom Harrison wanted more information about cricket fans in order to better tailor their product and advertising, and so a bespoke app was designed to gather as much of their personal data as possible.

Each of these additions came with a cost, in terms of both money and increased complexity. The expenses more than tripled from the original projections, which in turn reduced the potential profits considerably. Even with all of these add-ons, the ECB has declared that The Hundred has made an annual profit in each of its three years so far; £10m in both 2021 and 2022, £15m in 2023. These figures have been widely questioned though.

The most thorough external examination of The Hundred’s claimed profits came from a review conducted by Worcestershire chair and chartered accountant Fanos Hira. After looking at the ECB’s actual account books, he determined that additional costs which were not publicly declared by the ECB (such as core ECB staff members working on The Hundred) meant that the competition actually made a loss of £9m in its first two years. Given that the ECB declared a £20m profit in this period, this would imply The Hundred has £14.5m of added annual expenses which must be considered.

Everything up until now has been purely about running costs, the losses made since The Hundred actually began in 2021. They don’t factor in the tens of millions of pounds spent in the years before 2020 which led to The Hundred taking its current form. Marketing and design consultants creating the team names, the team colours, the on screen graphics, the custom fonts, or the surveys and market research carefully crafted to give the answers which the ECB executives wanted.

Nor do they include the £24.7m ‘dividend’ payments to the counties and the MCC. To be clear, these amounts were not included in the initially projected £31.9m profits either but would at least have been covered by the money earned by the new competition. Instead, most if not all of these ‘dividends’ are being paid from the ECB’s central funds which primarily come from Test cricket’s Sky TV deal.

All of which brings us to the elephant in the room when it comes to The Hundred: It only works if someone else is paying the bills. The ECB might rent the eight largest cricket grounds in the country for a month, but it’s Test cricket that’s still footing the bill for their continuing existence. Owning a 15,000-30,000 capacity stadium isn’t cheap with maintenance, electricity, refurbishment and staff needed to keep it open, and the hosting fees from The Hundred will barely make a dent in that.

The players are also only paid for one month out of the year, with their counties footing the bill for the other eleven. Not to mention the decade or more of training the counties have to pay for, so that those cricketers progress through junior pathways, second XIs and finally the first team to the point where they are worthy of inclusion in a Hundred squad. Test cricket essentially funds all of the costs related to a player (secure long term contracts, training, medical fees, etc) through the central payment counties receive from the ECB.

It is a wonderful business model if you are able to persuade other people pay all of the costs necessary for your investment to grow. The question the ECB needs to answer is whether that is sustainable in the long term.

One possible explanation for the ECB’s profligate spending might be the incentives on offer to those who were in charge of delivering The Hundred. Tom Harrison and several other executives controversially received a £2.1m bonus between them, ostensibly for achieving several targets within the sport. It seems likely that some of these benchmarks related to the new competition which became The Hundred. If a cutthroat executive is told that they will be paid a bonus based on attendance rather than profits, surely all of them would sacrifice the latter to boost attendance even one iota?

Being Valuable

It has been reported that offers have already made to buy The Hundred. Bridgepoint Group apparently bid £400m for a 75% stake in the competition in 2022, which would place its total value around £530m. ECB chair Richard Thompson responded by suggesting that he would only consider selling everything for a figure in the region of “quite a few billion” pounds. More recently, the idea has been mooted that the host counties would receive stakes in their Hundred team which they could sell to private investors.

One thing which must be acknowledged is that even considering the sale of teams or the competition as a whole means that Plan A has failed. The Hundred was supposed to be very profitable from Year 1, with the ability to grow from there to near-IPL revenue. You don’t sell a goose which is laying golden eggs.

The first response I have seen from most cricket fans to this news is bewilderment. If The Hundred is losing money every year, why would anyone else want to own it? There are three fairly solid reasons why: Profit, speculation and power.

For all of the issues listed in the previous section, it would be very simple for someone to come in and make a profit with The Hundred. There are so many absolutely unneccesary expenses which could be cut with almost no difference to the final product. There’s genuinely as much money being spent on fireworks at a group game as there is at some towns’ November 5th fireworks displays. The marketing budget for each team is ridiculously high, and could be reduced by about 90% whilst still being higher than a county’s T20 Blast spending. Developing a bespoke app for ticketing or a non-monetised fantasy game adds no financial value and could be replaced with cheaper alternatives. Last, and perhaps most importantly, there would presumably be no more £24.7m ‘dividend’ payment to the 18 counties and the MCC because they would no longer be ‘shareholders’ in the competition.

The analogy I would use to explain this is a shop in a great location and with a strong fundamental business model which has the misfortune of being run by absolute idiots. A smart investor will look at this shop and think “I’m not an absolute idiot. I could buy this place cheaply, fix its main issues within a week and turn it into a goldmine.”

At the same time, it is no secret that several counties (*cough*Middlesex*cough*) and perhaps the ECB themselves are desperate for more money, which is rarely conducive to wise decision making or holding out for something’s full worth. On a very basic level, I don’t trust anyone in English cricket not to screw themselves over when dealing with successful business leaders and highly competent lawyers.

Potential investors might also believe that The Hundred as a whole will increase in value over time, and seek to make profit on their purchase by selling it at a later date. This is speculating. It could be short term investment where they attempt to make it profitable as quickly as possible, and then sell it on. Alternatively, they could hold onto their stake for longer and collect the annual income whilst hoping that its value increases over time.

It seems likely that the process of private investment in The Hundred will be slow and gradual, with investors perhaps purchasing a minority stake in a team to start with, which brings us to the third benefit for investors: Power.

Right now, the ECB and counties have total control of The Hundred. They can add and remove teams, rename them, change the schedule or format, even scrap the whole thing if they wanted. The moment an outside investor becomes involved, every one of these things becomes significantly more difficult. Wealthy people don’t just hand over large sums of money without contracts and safeguards in place to protect their investments, which will ultimately mean any changes to the competition going forward would need to be negotiated with shareholders who only care about making more money for themselves.

Becoming the ECB’s partner in The Hundred could aid investors in broader ways too. The ECB has proven to be a very forthright supporter of Sky in all respects, and if IPL team owners were to co-own most of The Hundred’s teams then the ECB would probably be more amenable to (for example) supporting IPL-friendly measures at ICC meetings. An Indian billionaire might look at the possibility of extending the IPL (and its international window) to four months and consider that a £20m investment in London Spirit is worth it if it makes it more likely they can make more profit with their main team.

Creating A New TV Audience

There is an argument that everything mentioned so far is largely unimportant. Who cares if The Hundred is costing English cricket a bit of money if it’s drawing in new fans? Or, as the ECB probably calls them, customers.

The primary means The Hundred’s using to achieve this bold aim is airing up to 18 matches on free to air TV (currently BBC Two) every year. This is after a void of fifteen summers without regularly scheduled, live English cricket available to the majority of the viewing public (The number of caveats in that last sentence is because there were still England highlights, several seasons of the IPL and occasional single matches such as the 2019 World Cup final on FTA TV). Over fifty hours of exciting T20 cricket, much of which is in prime timeslots, will surely build a new generation of cricket fans!

It has not worked. This is not so say that The Hundred has not attracted any new people to the sport at all, but not in any great number. Certainly not in sufficient quantities to justify also losing millions of pounds every year.

TV figures are quite obscure in this country, which usually makes talking about ratings difficult due to a lack of information. Fortunately, The Hundred is one of the most popular women’s sports competitions in the UK (a topic which will be covered later) which means that it features prominently in the Women’s Sports Trust‘s annual reports. These reports in 2021, 2022 and 2023 include detailed breakdowns of how many people watched both the men’s and women’s Hundred in each year, which allows us to see how the competitions are faring.

In terms of the total number of people watching any part of The Hundred (known as the ‘reach’ of a programme), it has declined year on year. In 2021, the total number of people who watched was 16.0 million, which has fallen to 12.1 million by 2023.

This is a 24.4% decline from the first year. Essentially, people gave it a chance when it launched but did not come back to it afterwards. This year’s Women’s Trust report also includes the average viewing figures (the mean number of people watching a programme at any given point in time) for both Sky-exclusive matches and the 18 which are shown on BBC 2.

Average viewing figures20212023% Change
Men’s BBC/Sky Games1,021,000771,000-24.49%
Women’s BBC/Sky Games628,000428,000-31.85%
Men’s Sky Exclusive431,000275,000-36.19%
Women’s Sky Exclusive127,000134,000+5.51%

From these numbers, we can infer that average BBC-only viewing figures in 2023 were roughly 500,000 for men’s matches and 300,000 for women’s (by subtracting the Sky-exclusive totals from the simulcast games). This presents a significant problem for the ECB, because these are almost certainly below what the BBC would have been hoping for.

The men’s Hundred occupies prime timeslots on weekday evenings and weekend afternoons, which brings with it certain expectations. Only Connect typically attracts well over two million viewers a night on BBC 2, for example. Not only are the BBC paying the ECB for permission to show The Hundred, but it will be very expensive for them to produce relative to a studio quiz show or a reality/documentary show like Fake Or Fortune? or Bargain Hunt. I expect even repeats of these popular shows would attract more viewers on BBC 2 than The Hundred, at a fraction of the cost to the BBC.

In short: The Hundred is very poor value for money for them.

Sky were obviously quite happy with the first year’s ratings, which is why they extended their TV deal before the 2022 Hundred even began for a further four years to 2028 (It is not clear whether they anticipated a 36% drop in average men’s match viewers, so it is possible they feel differently now). It is noticeable that the BBC has not renewed their own TV deal yet as we enter its last year. To put that silence into context, the current free-to-air TV deal was announced over two years before it was due to begin. It seems likely that the BBC are not interested in bidding for live cricket again. Not only that, but other broadcasters might look at these ratings and make the same decision. Almost the whole point of The Hundred is to attract new fans to the sport through exposure to as many people as possible, and it’s not inconceivable that it won’t even be on terrestrial TV at all next year.

The Hundred follows the typical scheduling format of T20 competitions, which means prioritising and maximising the TV audience. No overlapping men’s matches, at least one of which is played every day, and all during the prime TV viewing hours. This compares to the T20 Blast which uses the more typical UK sports model, aiming to maximise attendance through matches being largely scheduled on weekends and Friday nights. It is therefore interesting to note that the T20 Blast’s group stages attracted an average TV audience of 187,000 in 2021 compared to the men’s Hundred 275,000 (for Sky-exclusive matches) in 2023. Obviously The men’s Hundred still attracts 50% more viewers on average, but it is also costing Sky significantly more than 50% extra in terms of rights, marketing and production costs.

But all of this isn’t even really the worst part. You may remember that a lot was made during The Hundred’s launch about how it would appeal to a younger demographic, to “mums and kids”, which would help secure the long term future of the sport. This is why The Hundred uses garish colours, bold designs, hosts pop acts during the break and otherwise does everything a middle-aged marketing executive can do to scream “This is for you, kids!”.

Even in this small, limited objective it has not worked. Of everyone who watched The Hundred (either men’s or women’s) in 2023, 7.2% were aged under 16 and another 15.2% were aged between 16 and 34. Or, to put it another way, 77.5% of the people who saw last season’s competition on TV were 35 and over. To put that figure in context, 49.3% of the UK population is aged 39 or less. It’s not just that average viewing figures have declined, but they aren’t even the viewers that the ECB wanted.

Attracting New Fans To The Grounds

One objective of The Hundred was to bring a new audience to English cricket grounds, with England and county cricket fans being generalised as “pale, stale and male“. The Hundred has had some limited success in this objective. The number of tickets ‘sold and issued’ increased from 510,000 in 2021 to 580,000 in 2023, but at a great cost. Literally.

The typical ticket revenue for a season in The Hundred is in the area of £6-7 million, in large part because tickets are being priced very cheaply to expand the range of people who can afford them, but the annual budget for local advertising, entertainment (pop acts, DJs, etc) and fireworks is over £12 million. This means that the tickets are effectively being sold at a loss.

From the fan’s perspective, getting to watch two games for less than half the price of a T20 Blast ticket is exceptional value. How many fans of white ball cricket would honestly turn that down?

When a retailer offers a product at a loss (called a ‘loss leader‘), the intention is typically to bring new customers in who you will then persuade to buy more things and in this way make your money back (and more). An example of this is when UK supermarkets reduced the price of baked beans tins to as little as 3p in the 1990s.

Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any obvious indication of benefits being felt elsewhere in terms of ticket sales. The T20 Blast has seen a large drop in attendance since The Hundred began, from 920,000 in 2019 to 800,000 in both 2022 and 2023. The Charlotte Edwards Cup also had very low crowd numbers compared to The Hundred, despite sharing the majority of the players with the women’s Hundred teams.

One obstacle that The Hundred faces in acting as a conduit to other cricket competitions is its placement in the schedule. The T20 Blast and Charlotte Edwards Cup both largely take place in June whilst The Hundred is in August. This means that even in a scenario where a new cricket fan enjoys a match in The Hundred and might be interested in broadening their horizons, they face a 10 month wait until the next professional T20 matches in this country.

The other obstacle would be the absolute and total lack of effort on the part of the ECB. I have followed @TheHundred on Twitter since it launched, and also signed up to The Hundred’s mailing list in 2020. Neither one has mentioned the T20 Blast once in that time. For a competition meant to rescue county cricket, this seems like an oversight.

It could also be a mistake to blindly assume a large proportion of people attending are ‘new’, rather than pre-existing attendees. County members have access to exclusive pre-sales and bargain prices for The Hundred, as well as some counties including The Hundred in county membership packages. According to Surrey CCC’s latest annual report, an average of 3,732 members attended T20 Blast games in 2022 compared to an average of 3,115 Surrey members at each Oval Invincibles home game. The drop in Blast attendances might also indicate that some people who had been attending county matches have switched to The Hundred instead.

Growing Women’s Cricket

The women’s Hundred is, by almost every metric, a success.

The total attendance in each of the three seasons (reaching 310,751 in 2023) of the women’s Hundred are the highest competition attendances in women’s cricket. Higher than any ICC World Cup, higher than the WBBL, higher even than the debut season of the Women’s Premier League. In terms of total viewing hours, it was the most-watched women’s competition on Sky Sports in 2023 beating the Women’s Super League, the Solheim Cup and the T20 World Cup. It is widely regarded as one of the top 3 women’s T20 competitions in the world, being able to attract overseas players of the highest calibre.

Any success the women’s Hundred has garnered is almost entirely thanks to COVID-19. Looking at the planned schedule for 2020, the women’s Hundred is clearly considered a lesser competition in every respect. It features 4 fewer group matches than the men, because the men’s teams played against their local ‘rivals’ home and away but the women’s teams didn’t. Of those 28 women’s group games, only 9 would have been at the team’s home venues (each team hosting once, except for 2 at Old Trafford) whilst 4 would have been at amateur club and school grounds. 12 of the group games overlapped with each other and only 9 didn’t overlap with a men’s match (either in The Hundred or the Test series occurring at the same time). The women’s final was due to take place at Hove on a Friday night, rather than at Lord’s.

Sky would not have been able to broadcast the majority of women’s matches, and some may not even have had streaming or radio commentary available. 310,751 people wouldn’t have been able to watch the women’s games because the grounds they were due to play in couldn’t even hold that many. Welsh Fire were due to only play a single match in Wales.

In short, the women’s Hundred was initially designed by the ECB not to maximise exposure but to minimise costs.

When the ECB was organising the 2021 competition, they implemented protocols which meant that COVID-19 testing was required at every venue. It was not practical to manage this at multiple grounds simultaneously, as the originally planned schedule would have needed, and so they decided to make every game (bar the two openers) a men’s/women’s doubleheader. When people saw women’s cricket, both in person and on TV, they enjoyed it (or at least as much as they did the men’s games) and the women’s Hundred exploded onto the scene.

Unfortunately, this early success has not resulted in the ECB treating the women’s competition with as much respect and importance as the men’s. The Hundred in 2022 was scheduled at the same time as a women’s international T20 competition, something which would never have happened with the men, which meant the women’s Hundred started later and had 8 fewer matches than the men’s that year. On the other hand, at least there was one women’s game in the evening because neither of the following seasons did.

The scheduling of women’s matches is very important because the status quo perpetuates the narrative that the women’s competition is significantly less popular or less marketable than the men’s. There have been precisely two women’s matches which have not been used as the support act to the men: The 2021 and 2022 women’s openers. The 2021 opening games saw a peak TV viewership of 2m for the women’s match and 2.5m for the men’s. In 2022, the first men’s game had an average of 520,000 BBC viewers compared to 510,000 for the women’s.

Other than these two matches, almost every other women’s game is in a time slot which compromises people’s ability to watch it either live or on the television. In 2023: 20 women’s matches were during working hours on a week day, 6 matches were at the same time as a men’s game and shunted to a secondary Sky channel, and another 6 matches began on a weekend morning. Only the women’s ‘eliminator’ (semi final) and final did not face any of these three significant obstacles to building an audience. By contrast, only 2 men’s group matches were played during working hours.

The women’s games also don’t receive much benefit from the extensive and expensive entertainment at The Hundred matches. The fireworks and live music, costing on average £200,000 per game, all largely take place after their match is finished. If someone who wasn’t already a cricket fan wanted to go to a game purely for a band and a fireworks display, which is the whole point of having them there in the first place, they could skip the women’s match and barely miss a thing.

There is virtually no cross promotion from The Hundred for the women’s regional teams, despite them sharing virtually identical rosters. Whilst this is also true of the men’s teams, it is far more impactful with the women’s. Men’s county cricket already has its own fanbase, built over a century or more. The women’s regional teams literally didn’t exist four years ago. Nor do the Charlotte Edwards Cup or Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy have official social media accounts run by the ECB. The Hundred’s social media accounts are by far the most popular domestic women’s cricket accounts in this country and yet are almost entirely silent 11 months of the year. It is a waste.

The ECB’s undervaluing of the women’s Hundred occurs in the financial sense too. In 2023, the women’s competition was responsible for approximately 39% of the overall attendance and 33% of the overall Sky TV audience for The Hundred. This alone would account for over £14m of revenue, even before you begin to consider the high prominence of women cricketers in terms of sponsorship. According to the ECB, the entireity of women’s cricket in this country earns £10-11m per year. There is no possible way that could be true, unless the ECB believes that a viewer or attendee of a women’s cricket match to be worth less monetarily than one of a men’s match.

Nor is the women’s Hundred seemingly being considered by the ECB when it comes to discussions about the competition’s future. When the proposal regarding the sale of The Hundred franchises (which consist of both men’s and women’s teams) to private investors was mooted, it is stated that only men’s professional cricket which will receive the proceeds. There is also no mention of whether team owners will be under any obligation to promote their women’s teams at all. When the idea of expanding The Hundred to 10 teams was floated, the question about where the extra women cricketers will come from when there are only 8 professional domestic teams for the competition to draw from was clearly a secondary concern. The women’s Hundred appears not to be a factor in the debate at all within the ECB.

There is one thing people seem to value about the women’s Hundred though: It acts as excellent political cover. To question or criticise any aspect of The Hundred is to oppose the growth of women’s cricket, at least in the minds of some. There are undoubtedly some dinosaurs who loathe women’s sports on principle, but being able to paint everyone who thinks The Hundred has issues as being one of them is a handy tool in any debate on the subject. A real bargain, considering they are paying women 2.85x less than the men in the tournament.

Increasing Junior Participation

One of the many issues that The Hundred was supposed to address was the lack of kids playing at their local clubs, which were having to close through a lack of interest. The main vehicles for the competition to achieves its aims were All Stars and Dynamos cricket. All Stars is an 8-week programme designed for 5-8 year olds launched in 2017, and Dynamos is a follow-on scheme for 8-11 year olds was launched in 2020 and specifically tied in to The Hundred.

There is very little promotion of All Stars and Dynamos Cricket within the coverage of the tournament although, as with attendance, the competition’s position in the cricket calendar does not help with it taking place after the junior cricket season has effectively ended. All Stars and Dynamos programmes typically begin in May, nine months after The Hundred is on television. However, there also seems to be no advertising of either scheme from The Hundred’s social media or mailing lists either.

What makes this particularly egregious is that All Stars and Dynamos Cricket are used to promote The Hundred quite extensively. One of the very first questions you are asked when you install the Dynamos mobile app is: “Which Hundred team is your favourite?”, which leads to the colour themes taking that team’s colours. The app features videos of cricketers in their Hundred kits demonstrating the various skills or drills used. Kids in the Dynamos scheme are given free The Hundred trading cards.

To be clear: I’m not against any of this. I want more children to become cricket fans. My issue is that it is only working in one direction. Kids playing cricket should be encouraged to watch it on TV, but kids watching it on TV (and their parents) should also be encouraged to go to their local clubs.

In terms of the total number of kids in the All Stars/Dynamos programmes, it has decreased every year The Hundred has been held so far. It was “over 101,000” in 2021 (which was before the competition began), “over 100,000” in 2022 and “just over 97,000” in 2023. Likewise, there has a slight decrease in girls within the programmes from 27,000 in 2021 to 26,752 in 2023.

From these figures (and the ECB doesn’t release broader participation data), you could honestly make the argument that The Hundred is hurting junior cricket participation in this country.

Conclusion

Everything about The Hundred ranges from a missed opportunity to a fundamentally flawed concept. Even the women’s competition, the one shining beacon of light in the whole thing, fails to lead anywhere else beyond attracting an audience for itself.

Obviously it works out pretty well for some people. Anyone employed as a marketer or PR consultant in North London, for example, or the eight ECB executives who pocketed a huge bonus cheque. A large selection of mediocre men’s T20 cricketers also have good reason to be thankful.

Beyond that, the greatest success The Hundred has had is in persuading people to say that it’s successful.

Thanks for reading. If you have any comments on this, the Test series or anything else, please leave them below.

I’ll Show You What It Feels Like, Now I’m On The Outside

LordCanisLupus7 Comments

I have taken the unmitigated liberty of posting on this, my old home, but which I have not contributed for a couple of years. It’s been a while of mad transition in my life, moving out of London, devoting my sporting life to non-league football, and losing a stack of weight through necessity! About time. The other thing that has happened is I have just lost the appetite to watch cricket. I don’t hate it, I just felt the game, and its authorities rather had contempt for the likes of me and weren’t backwards in coming forwards about expressing their love of money more than their pastoral care for the sport. That’s OK with me, because after all, I am just one person and responsible for my own choices and my own life. I still follow Surrey, even though I live in Hampshire now, and I still like test matches, and have no strong feelings either way on Bazball. It’s good to watch, it’s maddeningly reckless at times (and has cost us one test series, possibly two), but best of all it really winds Australia up! That’s the best bit.

But why now, why today to write on here. Well, as I was scouting around past anniversaries on the internet, I was alerted to something that reminded me of this time of year in 2014. I suddenly remembered that February 6th was the anniversary of starting this site. I mistakenly thought it was 10 years ago, but forgot there was one year of How Did We Lose In Adelaide before that all kicked off, while it was well and truly kicking off. Then I wound my brain forward and remembered, we had two other anniversaries – on 4th was the KP Announcement, but I had missed that, but the 9th. Oh yes. The 9th was the day that Paul Downton and the ECB, frankly, told all cricket supporters who didn’t agree with their high-handed, nonsensical thought processes, to in the words of my piece at the time

“There in lies the true inner feelings that the ECB have stated loud and clear. Pay your ticket money, your sky subscriptions and shut the fuck up.”

Know Your Bloody Place

As the years have rolled on, we did warn you. At the time too many were saying “they meant Piers Morgan” to which I replied, they should have said “Piers Morgan” then, because there were thousands of others who were as up in arms, but the ECB lumped them all together and caused me to go into apoplexy. Of course, the Cook Crew were keen to back the ultimate wisdom of Mr Difficult Winter himself, and were shown to be the sheep they were when he was booted out a year later after a spell where he couldn’t stop putting his foot in his mouth, breaching a confidentiality agreement, bowing to the obvious about Cook in ODI cricket about 9 months too late, being in charge of the Team England at the 2015 World Cup and then being sacked. That he has found a form of redemption at Kent has been good. I don’t wish anyone permanent ill. I was calling that out for the stupidity that it was.

He was replaced by Tom Harrison, who, and I hate to say I told you so (no I don’t), but I BLOODY WELL TOLD YOU SO, was the ultimate drowning man clutching at serpent syndrome. This empty suit, this evangelical, overpaid, overrated, greedy mad man has wrought so much damage on English cricket, we should make his reign a world heritage site for hubris. When he went, no-one wept. Not even he did as he trousered an obscene bonus and walked straight into another job, no doubt to cheese them off (It’s the Six Nations, isn’t it? How is he going to recast that? Reduce the games to 20 minutes a side and have 9 players?). When he came in , he used that magnificent first presser to kill off the KP kraken, allow Andrew Strauss to bring his personal grievance into team selection (remember that ridiculous job offer for the ODI team for Pietersen) and just show us it was plus ca change time.

Meanwhile, he embarked on the Hundred. A decision that caused a schism in the sport, and had me on the other side, as usual, from him and his money-grabbing caretakers of the sport. I may have gone over the top, and even been far too angry about it in hindsight, but when you see stuff you love being vandalised and you having no control over it, that’s hard to take. I couldn’t keep quiet. Until I was beaten.

A Simply Charming Man

As the years went on, I became further outside. My anxiety and panic means the thought of attending a T20 or test match strikes me with terror. About as much as the cost of it! Also, I don’t like events where I can’t eat what I want, drink what I want etc without being held hostage by rip off merchants flogging “beer” at nigh on £8 a pint. It’s this culture in sport that turned me to non-league, where you are accepted and part of the firmament. It brings me closer to sport, to the players, to the administrators and the management. You feel part of it, not a consumer, but almost a participant. Not in the playing way, of course not, but as part of the collective. County cricket had this, to a degree, but it didn’t make money for its true stakeholders, the owners, administrators and players, so it had to go. It is in its death spiral, and unless it reclaims some of the key ground lost to franchise drivel, will always be second fiddle. If we loyalists accept that, and enjoy the competition for what it is, and not worry about justifying it in a defensive way, we have a chance of enjoying something we like. Take it from me, I don’t see the best players in football, but the competition is much much more exciting. It depends what you want to watch sport for.

So I outside the cricket the public wants. That’s fine by me. I came at peace with that a couple of years ago. I will never forgive those who chose to oppose my view in snivelling devotion to a cause against a player they hated. KP has been tiresome since he went into media, but he’s entitled to his view. Horrible to feel powerless, isn’t it, when you hate his media appearances and can’t get rid of him out of the comms box isn’t it? When the decision doesn’t seem to reflect the majority of your public’s opinion? How you just wish he wasn’t there? That your majority view rules. Well that’s how it felt to be cheated of two more years of Pietersen in the test and ODI arena. He wanted to miss meaningless ODI series for the IPL, but now we see South Africa send a second team to New Zealand to play a home T20 series, and the West Indies haven’t fielded their best test XI in 20 years. Still we hear the plaintive cries of the need to protect the premier form of the game, but England, maybe Australia aside, it just isn’t, because it doesn’t make any money.

I gave my soul, and some of my sanity, to cry out repeatedly against what was happening. KP was they symptom, not the sickness – no-one cared. It was a power play, showing that the ECB controlled this, not you. You did not matter. Remember how Gary Ballance was the saviour until he wasn’t? That it seems to be, even post-retirement, that there wasn’t that much smoke to fan the flames of the dismissal (don’t talk to me about the book – six months after) is even more disconcerting. I could see what was coming. It was Tom Harrison. It…..was…..Tom……Harrison. You were warned.

I am relatively well, the whole era damaged me mentally, I know that. I don’t miss the day to day involvement, although I still love writing. I don’t have TNT so don’t get to follow the winter cricket, and my job is so much more time-consuming that despite working from home a lot, I barely follow home series on TV (yes – I am serious about home working despite what tedious liars tell you, so are most of us). I still love reading about the game, collecting old Wisdens and Playfairs, wallowing in the history of test cricket. I have no interest in T20. Once you’ve seen one six battered 100 metres, or the juggle catch on the boundary called the greatest ever, you know another one will be along somewhere next week being called the same. I don’t care who wins, I have no emotional investment. Following Phoenix Sports tells me how much emotion means. I do feel that for Surrey. But not enough. And not in T20.

So 10 years ago Paul Downton told us what he believed, what Giles Clarke, Hugh Morris, and the cadre of supine media who got in behind them thought. The fans were trash, to be milked, to be talked down to. If I played a small part in raising a voice, it would not have been in vain. But I am on the negative side of that ledger. What it brought me, and which I have been crap at recently, is the comradeship with Danny, Sean and Chris on here. We are all fans of cricket, we all care about different things in the game, and we probably disagree on more than we agree. But we are united in one thing. When Downton said what he said, we knew which side of that particular ledger we were on.

10 years confirmed. OUTSIDE CRICKET.

India v England, Second Test Preview

dannycricket3 Comments

I don’t think I’ll be making any predictions in this post.

England went into the last match against possibly the best team in the world with a debutant spinner, another spinner with one Test under his belt, an injury-prone bowler as their main spin option plus a single fast bowler who could only be expected to offer very short, sharp spells. Oh, and Joe Root who is apparently an allrounder now. To top it all off, they conceded a first innings lead of 190.

And then they won.

What does anything mean now? Experience, form, preparation, home advantage. They’re all lies, I guess. England’s trio of specialist spinners will have 3 Tests, 41 first class matches and 85 first class wickets between them, and they’re facing India. A week ago I’d have been worried. Now? I’m mainly confused, although not quite a believer to the extent some people appear to be in suggesting England are favourites. There’s literally nothing in the history of cricket which can explain what’s happening in front of our eyes. The closest I can get to expressing it is this picture:

I memed. That is what this team has driven me to.

Feel free to leave your comments below. I’m just setting my alarm clock for 3.55am…

India v England, First Test Preview

dannycricket27 Comments

After almost six months of exclusively white ball cricket for England, and a decidedly lacklustre six months at that, it is time for the England Test team to once again grace our televisions. Well, some of our televisions. If subscribing to Sky Sports has been a severely limiting factor on who can or chooses to watch live English cricket nowadays, then this series being on TNT Sport (BT Sport rebranded) will restrict viewership even more.

The run up to this series has also seemed oddly muted. The ECB opted to have a ten-day training camp in Abu Dhabi rather than play full matches against teams in India itself. This decision has been justified by the England camp by suggesting that this allows the batters and bowlers more time actually practicing their skills as opposed to just two or four innings in a typical pre-series warm-up. Certainly there is (some) logic in this approach. Host countries are certainly not above using gamesmanship with touring team’s preparations, providing pitches and opponents totally unlike what awaits them in the series for example. At the same time, the majority of the squad won’t have played a full red ball game in six months and may lack ‘match sharpness’ at the beginning of this series.

Both teams have been affected by events at home, with Harry Brook and Virat Kohli leaving the series (at least temporarily) due to personal reasons. I agree (for once) with Jonathan Agnew that this represents a welcome change from the status quo in professional cricket. Decades ago, a cricketer would have been risking their entire career if they left mid-tour due to a family tragedy or the birth of their child. They would have been portrayed in the media as ‘soft’, ‘lacking fortitude’ and ‘weak’, and it would certainly hurt their future chances of selection.

Of course, this evolution within cricket isn’t really due to more enlightened people within teams and the media as much as it is about the shifting power dynamics in the game. Twenty years ago or more, cricketers were really not paid very much. They were dependent on being selected for the national team to pay their bills, often with minimal savings or investments. Governing boards and the often petty selectors would hold this over players even thinking about taking a break. Between both lucrative central contracts (thanks to increased TV rights values) and extensive T20 league opportunities, top cricketers are rarely in desperate need for a pay cheque. Kohli is presumably set for life at this point of his career, but even the relatively young Brook could be in a financial position where he never has to work again at the age of 24. Certainly if he is as frugal as the stereotypical Yorkshire resident is portrayed.

Brook’s omission paves the way for Ben Foakes to return to the side. It was always likely, I would say, given the likely pitch conditions England will face through the series. Foakes is one of the most impressive wicketkeepers in the world when at the stumps, and with the idea being mooted that they will play three spinners (plus Root) and one pace bowler in the first Test that will be a vital skill. At the same time, sources within the team were saying that it was possible Bairstow would have the gloves just a couple of weeks ago and it certainly wouldn’t be out of character for McCullum and Stokes to go with that approach again.

One entertaining aspect of Foakes’ return is the effusive praise he has received from his captain.

“[Ben Foakes] can not only do things other keepers can’t, but also make them look incredibly easy. […] He’s a very special talent behind there and having someone like that who can maybe take a 2%, 3% chance, that could be massive in the series.” – Ben Stokes

Yes. This is what we were saying eight months ago. If only Ben Stokes was Test captain then, he could have selected Foakes for the Ashes.

All of which brings us to what may become a significant controversy through the tour. Shoaib Bashir, a 20 year-old spinner who has played in just 6 first class matches and was named in the England squad for this series is not currently in India because his visa application has been delayed. The reason for this delay is simple: His parents were born in Pakistan. There is a separate visa application process for anyone with Pakistani parents where they have to provide extensive personal and financial details, and it typically takes at least 6 weeks (and often more) to be completed. Bashir’s selection was announced just over 6 weeks ago.

The singling out of a single England squad member due to their ethnicity on a tour has drawn some parallels with the Basil D’Oliveira affair in 1968. The attempt by the South African Apartheid government to prevent the ‘mixed-race’ D’Oliveira from entering the country as part of the England Test team led to the the tour being boycotted entirely. This is, for many reasons, unlikely to happen here.

Not unlike between players and selectors, the balance of power between nations has changed dramatically in the past two decades. India are now the financial superpower of cricket, in respect of both other boards and individual cricketers. The ECB revenues when India tours England are on a par with Ashes summers, which is one reason why this is a 5-Test series. They are also seeking funding for The Hundred from IPL team owners. If they upset the BCCI then they might only agree to a 2-Test tour in the next cycle, potentially costing the ECB over £100m. Players are presumably also mindful that anything they say in this situation could risk them being unofficially blacklisted by IPL teams and missing out on millions themselves.

Of course, these conflicts of interest are nothing new. In the 23 years England refused to tour Apartheid South Africa on moral grounds, a lot of English cricketers ignored the boycott primarily due to the large amounts of money on offer at the time. Graham Gooch, Geoffrey Boycott, Mike Gatting, Simon Hughes, John Emburey and Chris Broad amongst many others went there to play cricket. Ultimately, there is a fairly broad acceptance that most people (and organisations) have their price and Indian cricket is more than wealthy enough to pay it.

At the same time, English cricket has been rocked by multiple discrimination scandals in recent years which makes the ECB’s response in this matter more critical than ever. It is easy for the ECB to pay for photo shoots and T-shirts proclaiming their principles and moral foundations, or a few token payments to schemes intended to improve equity within the sport. The senior players can talk about how inclusive the dressing room culture is nowadays in the England camp. One of their teammates is being openly and blatantly discriminated against, and they appear (at least publicly) to be doing nothing. This is the impression that people will take away from this. The ECB says a lot of the right things, but does nothing when it is time to act.

Bashir’s absence will have a tangible effect on the England Test team and perhaps this series. He was the only full-time off-spinner included in the squad, with Leach, Ahmed and Hartley all spinning the ball the other way. He has triple the first team experience Rehan Ahmed had when he made his Test debut, and it’s certainly not unrealistic that Bashir would have been selected if available. In that sense, the Indian Government’s application of their stringent immigration laws has materially affected the outcome on the field.

Perhaps the result of this series should be marked by an asterisk to note that England were prevented from selecting their first choice team?

If you have any comments about the post, the match, or anything else please leave them below.

Bazball – Why It Works, And Why It Sometimes Doesn’t

dannycricket12 Comments

It’s been over a year since Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes took charge of the England Test team, and it’s fair to say that it has been a success. Won 13, Lost 4, Drew 1. It is a historically good record. They won 3-0 against the previous World Test Championship winners last year, defeated the number one ICC ranked Test team, and then became the only team in history to win three Tests in Pakistan. Drawing 2-2 against the new World Test Champions would have seemed like a remarkable achievement 14 months ago, but now feels like a disappointment.

As American football coach Bill Parcells once said, “You are what your record says you are.” England are an impressively strong Test team now, and almost everyone (aside from Australians) would have to concede ‘Bazball’ works.

The interesting thing for me is defining what ‘Bazball’ is. There are two popular uses of the term. The first is simply as a truism, that Bazball is anything that a team coached by Baz McCullum does. The second is that it centres around a mentality of mindless aggression, particularly in terms of the batting. Neither seems particularly fair to me. For all the laid back approach, the golfing away days and so on, there does genuinely seem to be a lot of thought and insight into how England are playing now.

Breaking With Tradition

It is a fascinating aspect of almost all sports to me, how orthodox tactics become so entrenched within a game that coaches and players are almost risking their careers if they try something different. The example I would use is American football (sorry Chris). After a team scores a touchdown (the equivalent of a rugby try), they have two choices: To kick the ball through the goal from 15 yards away for one point, or attempt to score another touchdown from two yards away in a single play for two points. The kicks are scored about 94% of the time, and roughly 50% of plays from two yards out work, which means that the latter nets teams 0.06 extra points per touchdown on average. The funny thing is that almost everyone in the sport knows always going for two points is the better, more productive choice for many teams but no coach is brave enough to do it.

The reason is that many prominent voices in the sports media (and, let’s be honest, a lot of fans too) can’t wait to attack anyone who doesn’t play the game the way they think it should be played. Typically this means how they remember it from their childhood. This resistance to change can leave sports stagnant and unable to adapt to new realities. So it is that the ‘normal’ defensive approach to Test batting has persevered through decades, centuries even, to the present day.

A lot has changed in Tests over the past fifty years. Pitches are flatter, covered, and more consistent now. Batters have larger bats, helmets, and extensive training in scoring shots thanks to T20 cricket. The professionalism, fitness, and preparation for modern players are leaps and bounds beyond what was the case even twenty years ago. And yet, despite all this, most people’s perception of what an ideal Test batting innings should look like has changed very little.

The funny thing is that I look back on Test cricket, with the benefit of hindsight, I do see hints that point to why England’s Bazball batting is working now. Whenever an edge flew over the slips and the commentator would always say “If you’re going to flash, flash hard!”, because everyone knew that aggressive shots were less likely to be caught in the slip cordon. Perhaps more pertinently, the few stand out innings by greats such as Pietersen, Sehwag or Lara where they would just go berserk and the opposition seemingly had no answer for how to deal with it. The field would be spread, chances fell into gaps and everyone would applaud the audacity and effectiveness of the batting whilst simultaneously assuming that it wouldn’t work with lesser mortals, or in most conditions.

The conventional approach to setting a field in Test cricket is simple. For your good deliveries, place catching fielders where edges from a fend or prod might go. For your bad deliveries, place a few on the boundary to minimise the opponent’s runscoring. I remember hearing someone summarise the differing approaches of red and white ball cricket several years ago. In Tests, you have defensive batting against attacking bowling. In T20s, you have defensive bowling against attacking batting. With Bazball, that no longer applies. Deliveries on or near the stumps are just as likely to be scored off as any other, which means that the opposition have to radically alter their own tactics. As it stands, even teams with strong bowling units seem unable to counter this England batting lineup.

The new batting approach also seems to be helping England’s batters develop whilst in the Test team. When McCullum and Stokes came in, Joe Root was the only player in the squad to have a Test average above 40. For several years now, promising batters would come into the England dressing room only to become progressively worse over time. Now, both Ben Duckett and Harry Brook have career Test batting averages above 40.

My suspicion is that England’s batting malaise over the past decade has been caused in part by overcoaching. Batters have been given complex (and often conflicting) guidance from coaches and analysts within the England setup, which meant that they didn’t have any sense of clarity what they should be doing at the crease. This led to indecision, being fractionally late in their shots, which led to wickets and loss of confidence. That loss of confidence led to even greater hesitancy, and their batting average spiralled as a result. Bazball’s batting approach, to attack the ball whenever possible, simplifies the mental process at the crease. A confident attacking stroke is less likely to lead to a wicket than an indecisive defence, as well as obviously producing more runs as a result.

Returning To Tradition

Regardless of the previous section, it would be foolish to suggest that everything about England’s approach to Test cricket has to ‘reinvent the wheel’, so to speak. Some things are traditional because they work.

This year’s first Ashes Test aside, it is an absolute necessity to take 20 wickets in order to win in that format. Whilst the aggression of England’s batting unit has been largely making the headlines, there has also been a similar change in intent from their bowling and fielding. It is noticeable that there have been more deliveries targeting the wickets, and more close catchers being used through the innings.

Where England’s changes to their batting are without precedent in Test history, their bowling approach could almost be considered old fashioned. It was only in 2010 that England switched to ‘bowling dry’, being focused on reducing the opponent’s scoring rate rather attempting to take wickets as quickly as possible. The traditional Test bowling tactic was always to prioritise dismissing the batter over everything else.

The approach can best be described as the fielding captain doing whatever the batters don’t want them to do. Does a batter prefer being surrounded with fielders in close positions, including in their eyeline, over having a few boundary riders which might restrict scoring but also allow easy singles? Do they like having to play every single delivery because it’s near the stumps, or being able to leave every ball from the over? We all know the answer to these questions, which is perhaps why Bazball isn’t getting much credit for the change. Some things are so glaringly obvious that it seems ridiculous teams weren’t already doing it.

Prioritising taking wickets over economy rates presents a number of advantages for the team. It increases the likelihood that England will make early inroads with the new ball, which is particularly crucial if you don’t have some 2018 Dukes balls stashed away somewhere. Shorter innings means a lower workload for the bowlers (as well as less rest for the opposition bowlers), and reduce the probability of a draw. Perhaps most importantly for England, having shorter innings reduces their need for a spin bowler. This is not an area of strength for England, and hasn’t been since 2014.

Luck and Momentum

It’s easily forgotten how fortunate England were to win their first two Tests in the Bazball era. In both matches, New Zealand lost one of their bowlers to injury during the game. Root and Bairstow’s fourth innings heroics, whilst tremendously impressive, were against an overstretched and tired bowling unit. Those wins seemingly gave the England side a huge burst of confidence, particularly after a lacklustre winter, and allowed them to believe that their approach could work against the best teams in the world.

One of the interesting parallels to observe with Bazball is its similarity to England during Trevor’s Bayliss’ time as head coach. Selecting aggressive batters, playing batters out of position, picking inexperienced players on a hunch. These are all things which failed five years ago, but seem to work now. There are two obvious differences. One is the captain. Ben Stokes is far more attacking and proactive than Joe Root. The other is England’s form. Players coming into the squad now have a luxury which hasn’t been the case for over a decade; They are joining a team which is more likely than not to win the match. That is huge.

Success often seems to breed success in sports. Football teams with recent triumphs are just able to win 50-50 contests, snatch undeserved points or otherwise come through pressure unscathed. There’s an inbuilt confidence throughout the squad that they can recover from any position, no matter how dire. This England team has that, and it’s just plain fun to watch.

When It Doesn’t Work

If there is one thing which annoys me about batting in Test cricket, it is the half-hearted fend or prod to a delivery which is short and/or wide of the stumps. I simply don’t see the point in it. The best case scenario is that the ball hits the face of the bat and there’s no run, which would also be the outcome if the batter left it, but with the risk of catching the edge and losing a wicket. It is a high risk, low reward shot, and England are still guilty of playing it pretty often. I would rather they threw the bat at it, and at least score some runs, than keep doing it.

That’s right, I’m complaining that England’s batting isn’t aggressive enough.

On the same theme, there have been times in games when the team’s confidence and commitment to the Bazball approach has deserted them. On Day 5 in the first Ashes Test, England had virtually every player on the boundary whilst Cummins was on strike rather than actively trying to take his wicket. He’s Australia’s number 8 and you would normally back your bowlers to dismiss a lower order batter relatively cheaply, even with an old ball. Instead, England gifted him single after single just for the chance to bowl a few deliveries at Nathan Lyon. After the previous 12 months, it was an oddly defensive and archetypal England captain’s choice to make.

The failure to fully commit to doing what their opponent would least like them to do at any given point is perhaps best exemplified by the declaration on the very first day of this Ashes series. With 6 overs left in the day and Joe Root steaming along at roughly 10 runs per over, Ben Stokes declared. Given the choice between Joe Root continuing or essentially dismissing him and having to face 4 overs in relatively benign conditions, I feel certain Australia would have chosen the latter. This was a rare moment in Bazball when I just couldn’t fathom any logical reasoning behind Stokes’ decision.

Australia will also have been delighted by England selecting a patently unfit Bairstow over Foakes as their wicketkeeper. That choice arguably cost England the series, with Bairstow missing as many chances as he took in the first two matches. There are two aspects to this decision which made it questionable even within the context of Bazball. The first is that it ignored the strategy of being aggressive as the fielding team. Ben Foakes is a threat to the opponent’s batters in a way Bairstow wasn’t even at his physical peak. Not unlike having a short leg or silly mid off, both fielding positions Stokes is more likely to employ than his predecessors, even the knowledge Foakes is behind them plays on the minds of the batters.

The other issue is the lack of loyalty shown to Ben Foakes. He was England’s first-choice keeper for the first year of Bazball, a period in which they won all but two matches. He played well with both bat and gloves. He did everything asked of him, and was still dropped for an unfit replacement. For a team which has put great stock in standing by underperforming players and not changing a winning formula, it just felt incredibly weird. And it’s going to feel even weirder in 4 months’ time, when England will almost certainly select Ben Foakes as their wicketkeeper for the next Test series in India.

It may be a choice which also harms Bairstow in the long run too. As the only England men’s player who is seemingly in the first choice team for all three formats, as well as being an integral member of Welsh Fire’s squad in The Hundred, he looks set to play at least 7 consecutive months of solid cricket. He is a 33 year old wicketkeeper who has just returned from a serious injury. No one doubts his commitment or desire, but it may not be wise to put so much strain on him.

There’s definitely more good than bad with regards to England’s Bazball approach, but there is always room for improvement. With over five months until their next Test match, likely on dusty Indian pitches, I have no idea what will happen next. Who they will pick, how they will play. But that’s a lot better than being certain they will lose, as I was 15 months ago.

Thank you for reading. If you have any comments about the post, or anything else, please post them below.

Rode the Six Hundred (and four)

thelegglance14 Comments

So there we go, 2-2, honours shared but Australia return home still hanging on to the urn by their fingertips. Not quite a classic series, but only because the Old Trafford rain ruined the possibility of a denouement, and as a result the destination of the Ashes was already known going into the final Test. The matches themselves certainly were, only the curtailed Old Trafford game was one sided, the rest were nip and tuck throughout.

And yet it was a missed opportunity for England. The Manchester rain would have been insurmountable no matter what, and the complaining about declaration timing is fairly irrelevant set against the reality of losing two days to the weather. If that happens, you’re just not going to win very often. Equally, the response to bad weather on too much of the English media side was to rail against the cricketing conditions that have prevailed for a century and a half – such as ridiculous suggestions for a spare day. It rains sometimes. It’s unfortunate, but it’s as much a part of the game as winning the toss and batting on a glorious sunny day. It happens, deal with it.

With that match aside, England certainly could have won 4-0 with only a slight shift in outcome, and while Australians could legitimately say they could have too, the difference is that throughout the series it was England who were the ones pushing, and making the running. It was their mistakes that gave Australia their openings, their fluffs that cost them matches. With England 1-0 down I argued (https://beingoutsidecricket.com/2023/06/26/working-six-to-leg/) that the Bazball approach was the best chance of beating Australia – at the end of the series I remain of that view, and equally sanguine about the fact that such a high risk approach also engenders mistakes. Selection might have been contentious, but there were no easy solutions, and too many seemingly wanted to pick twelve players to get around that, something even the Australians were bound to notice. As it turned out, many of those players dismissed early on as the ones to remove had a huge say in the outcome of the series – particularly Zak Crawley who was showing consistency and improvement all the way through, and before his huge century. It is for him to kick on from here, and a single successful series doesn’t mean he will, but his shot selection has improved out of sight, not because he’s playing fewer of them, but because he is committing to them. Edges flying over slip from full blooded drives is exactly how he should play, he gets into trouble most of all when he’s hesitant.

All this talk has been about England, and for good reason. This series is one that has happened to Australia, pretty much from first ball to last. They have resisted extremely well, particularly early on, but they were the ones under assault and trying to fend England off throughout, which made their 2-0 lead feel very odd (and perhaps explains the anger at mistakes of the kind that happen in cricket), and made England’s comeback less surprising than it might have appeared from the outside.

Any Ashes series that is competitive carries its own narrative (as an aside, this is why Australian fans create their own amid the boredom of a thrashing of the England team down under), the twists and turns highlight individual instances and players and it’s ever unsurprising that Stuart Broad inserted himself into the story. A player who has been more than just his statistics throughout did it again. The switching of the bails in both innings, and subsequent wicket the following ball each time was so very Stuart Broad. Some cricketers seem to have the ability to shape reality around them far beyond their on field skills. Ian Botham once returned from a ban and the first ball he bowled was a slow, wide, half volley – unaccountably snicked behind by (I think) Bruce Edgar. Narrativium was a glorious Terry Pratchett concept, amusing in itself, and sometimes a little hard to deny when you see it happening.

Broad bowled beautifully throughout the series, though showing his age as it went on and he tired somewhat. A year ago he had looked toothless and coming to the end, certainly compared to Anderson who somehow seemed to be getting even better. The switch in fortunes for the pair this summer could not have been more stark. Perhaps that is why it felt a surprise when Broad announced his retirement first, mere days after Anderson had insisted he was going to carry on. Broad’s explanation that he wanted to go out on a high made perfect sense, but then so did Anderson’s that he wanted to continue for as long as he could. People are different – some former Test cricketers play club cricket into their seventies, others never pick up a bat or ball again after retiring from the top level. At Anderson’s age, it is impossible to have a poor series without being considered to be at the end, and maybe he is, but if he wishes to continue and try to prove otherwise, then there’s no reason not to allow him to, as long as selection remains on merit. Being available to go to India in the winter is quite the commitment from him.

But this piece is to be primarily about Broad. He was, perhaps, just a little below the level required to be called a great, but longevity itself should never be underestimated as something to praise without qualification. Some of those with better records would not have such had they played for as long as he has, while his overall statistical record has been one of gradually undoing the damage of a fairly poor start. To look at his average over the last decade or so is to see a player who has been exceptional, and the only reason for refusing the tag of greatness is because that truly should be reserved for the best of the best, irrespective of the trend towards greatesteveritis. He occasionally went off the boil, and struggled, particularly in the daft “enforcer” period, but he was also capable of spells that really were great, and as a result struck a note of fear into opposition hearts constantly just in case it was one of those occasions. Stuart Broad Day was a concept familiar to fans all over the world for a reason, when he was on song he was completely irresistible.

If the refused tag of greatness is to be qualified, his batting might well be the reason why. His bowling record is extremely good, but had it been allied with the batting prowess he showed in his earlier years, to the point where he was close to being considered an all rounder, then he would be propelled to the top of a great many lists. His 169 against Pakistan remains extraordinary, not just because of how he did it, but also because of how different his batting looked subsequent to being hit by Varun Aaron. He became a genuine tailender in those latter years, and it has to be wondered how hard England worked with him on his batting to overcome it. Strangely, it picked up just a little bit in the last few years when it had looked for a time that he would be a true rabbit, even below Anderson in the order. Speculation all, for the mental difficulties he confessed to after that injury cannot be gainsaid by an outsider, we simply do not know truly how hard it was for him, as it clearly was.

Therein lies a particular irony. As his batting declined, it became more celebrated. The occasional echo of past glories as he would lash bowlers into the stands became a meme, something to be looked forward to by cricket followers all around the world. An “Is Stuart Broad Batting?” Twitter account was set up, and amassed by the end nearly 16,000 followers, a level of silliness that ended up actually causing a sense of loss from many with the final tweet, viewed an astonishing 1.2 million times at this point.

Perhaps that’s one reason that set Broad apart. Another is certainly his combativeness, something that irritated plenty in the earlier years when he was viewed as a cocky upstart. Either he changed or we did, or both, because over time the barbs were laced with an acute sense of humour, most of all when they were aimed at the Australians, for whom he became the ultimate pantomime villain.

That it can be said it was a pantomime villain rather than a real one can be defined by the way no one, apart from the terminally dense, could get truly irate about a player not walking after an edge, while wandering into the Gabba press conference carrying the morning newspaper slating him under his arm was delightful. As for his delicious dig at the sandpaper affair by wondering why Australia had changed a method that was already working for them, it all merely adds to the appreciation level that has seen him approach national treasure status in recent times.

He will reappear in the commentary box, and it’s to be hoped he maintains the asperity, for there is no shortage of anodyne observation already. Whether he also goes down the celebrity route, Strictly et al, is to be seen. But he does leave a hole in the England attack that will not be easy to fill, and perhaps more importantly, a hole in the sense of fun for everyone watching. He is going to be missed, and for a retiring sportsman, perhaps that is timing it best of all.

Crime And (A Lack Of) Punishment

dannycricket2 Comments

I had intended that my next post would be about Bazball, what worked from it and what didn’t. Then Yorkshire CCC’s ‘punishments’ were announced and that really needs an immediate response.

For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, the Cricket Discipline Commission (the ECB’s semi-autonomous body used for disciplinary issues) published their sentencing for Yorkshire CCC yesterday. Having plead guilty to four charges of bringing the game and the ECB into disrepute, their punishment was:

  • A 48 point deduction in the County Championship
  • A 4 point deduction in the T20 Blast
  • A £400,000 fine

These are large numbers, a historic punishment when looking at the headlines, but there is a catch: In practice, they are all virtually worthless. Both of the points penalties, whilst potentially large in impact, apply to the 2023 season only. Yorkshire CCC are already in Division 2 of the County Championship, and were in 6th place (out of 8) before the deduction. The difference between finishing 6th or 8th in Division 2, with no possibility of demotion, is practically nothing. £300,000 of the £400,000 fine is suspended for two years and, barring a “further serious breach of cricketing regulations”, will not have to be paid at all. This means that what Yorkshire CCC will actually have to hand over is £100,000.

By far the most laughable part of the sentencing was the deduction of four points from the 2023 T20 Blast. A competition which finished two weeks ago, and in which Yorkshire CCC had already failed to qualify for the playoffs. It’s like if the Welsh men’s football team were to be given a retroactive punishment of a million points in World Cup qualifying between 1962 and 2018. Aside from forcing media companies to update a league table for an already finished tournament (so far the BBC has updated their table for the Blast, but ESPNcricinfo hasn’t), it makes literally no difference to anyone’s lives.

In effect, the only meaningful aspect of the punishment handed to Yorkshire CCC yesterday was a £100,000 fine.

One thing that many have questioned is whether this punishment is fair. There are two principles behind this question: Retribution and proportionality. Retribution is a simple concept, people have an almost visceral desire to see the wicked suffer and the righteous prosper. Being given a fine which amounts to 0.7% of their 2022 turnover, even if their massive debts mean that this might still feel like a significant sum to them, seems insubstantial to the general public. Given that Yorkshire CCC’s mishandling of racism complaints has caused this issue to overshadow much of the last three years in English cricket, and cost the ECB and its clubs many millions in the process, there was certainly an appetite from many for a severe penalty to be applied in this case.

Proportionality also relates to humanity’s sense of natural justice. There is an instinctual understanding that murder is worse than assault, which is worse than verbally abuse, which is worse than littering, and that the level of punishment should reflect this. If a person is given a more lenient sentence than someone perceived to have have committed a less serious offense, then that will likely be seen as unfair and unjust.

This is why the CDC’s previous rulings regarding counties are being compared to Yorkshire’s punishment. Here are a selection of counties’ penalties from recent years:

  • 2019 – Somerset CCC receive a 12 point penalty in next season’s County Championship (which ended up being in 2021 due to COVID-19) due to uneven bounce in a match at Taunton.
  • 2022 – Essex CCC receive a £35,000 fine (0.7% of their 2020 revenue) for failing to properly investigate an racist phrase allegedly used during a 2017 board meeting.
  • 2022 – Leicestershire CCC receive a 2 point penalty in the T20 Blast for an accumulation of minor offences during matches, which knocks them out of the quarter finals.
  • 2022 – Durham CCC receive a 10 point penalty in the 2022 County Championship for a player using a slightly oversized bat.

All of these transgressions feel far less serious than what Yorkshire CCC were found guilty of. The four charges which the CDC upheld said that Yorkshire failed to act following clear evidence of racism within the 2021 racism report, attempted to cover up their wrongdoing through the intentional destruction of evidence, and failed to adequately respond to complaints of racism (not just from their own players) over a span of at least seven years.

All of these counties, and perhaps several more I haven’t mentioned, might feel hard done by today. Not only were Essex CCC fined a similar proportion of their annual turnover to Yorkshire CCC for just a single mishandled complaint, but only 30% of their fine was suspended compared to 75% for Yorkshire. Leicestershire CCC were literally knocked out of a competition, ironically allowing Yorkshire to qualify for the playoffs in their place, through their points deduction, because of a send off and a bowler accidentally doing two full tosses. Somerset’s points deduction being applied to the following year rather than the season the offence took place in (and which had already been completed) clearly has a greater impact on the team and its players.

You will have probably noticed that I didn’t include the most egregious punishment that a county has received: Durham CCC in 2016. The simple reason is that this was exclusively done by the ECB board and not the Cricket Discipline Commisssion. Not unlike when the ECB withdrew and then reinstated international matches at Headingley in the winter before the 2022 season, there was no pretense of being an independent or quasi-legal process. The ECB’s executive saw something they did not like, a county asking them for financial help, and acted with impunity. The total list of sanctions applied to Durham were:

  • Summary demotion from Division 1 of the County Championship, having finished 45 points clear in fourth place.
  • A 48 point deduction from the following season’s County Championship.
  • A 4 point deduction from the following season’s T20 Blast.
  • A 2 point deduction from the following season’s One Day Cup.
  • A strict salary cap to reduce team costs from 2017-2020.
  • The loss of Test match status in exchange for a £2m one-off payment.

It should be said that the CDC does not have the authority to enact many of these. In terms of cricket clubs, they only have three punishments available: Points deductions, fines, and reprimands. The loss of England matches, salary caps or any other restrictions are beyond their purview currently, although a broadening of possible sanctions is recommended in the ICEC report. Even so, Durham were clearly punished far more severely and over a much longer period of time for what almost everyone would consider a far less serious matter.

Beyond the perception of fairness, any justice system also has to consider the effect of any sentence going forward: Is the guilty party likely to re-offend, and will the punishment deter others from taking the same path?

You could certainly make the argument that Yorkshire CCC are a very different organisation now than they were two years ago. Different personnel, different philosophies, and different policies have made Yorkshire a more welcoming and proactive club. It is very unlikely that an issue of similar scale will occur there in the near future. A cynical person might point out that these changes only began after sponsors began deserting the club, and could perhaps be watered down once they are in a stronger financial position. Hopefully not, but time will tell.

The most damaging part of Yorkshire CCC’s sentencing yesterday is the absolute lack of deterrence it provides. Other counties, and clubs around the country, will look at this punishment and decide it is probably worth the risk trying to ignore, minimise, and destroy evidence of discrimination and mismanagement. If they succeed, then they suffer no bad consequences at all to their reputation and can go on as they did before. If they fail and are caught red-handed, they can pay a negligible fine and make a few changes. It will not instil any sense of urgency or importance to dealing with these issues in club executives and chairs across England and Wales.

Whilst the punishment of Durham CCC in 2016 has been almost universally criticised for the past seven years due to its severity, you could argue that it worked. Every other county knuckled down and did everything they could to ensure that they did not share the same fate as Durham. (It also, perhaps coincidentally, likely made the sales pitch for The Hundred easier as it was sold to the counties as an extra source of income for them.) Deterrence does work.

So what now? The ECB does have the ability to appeal the sentence to the CDC and argue for a more severe sentence. Alternatively, the ECB board is free to impose any punishment they like as they did with Durham in the past. However, it seems more likely that everyone in the higher echelons of English cricket is pretty happy with the outcome. For the ECB, the disciplinary process is finally over and so they can suggest that they followed their procedure correctly whilst drawing a line under the matter. Yorkshire CCC will be ecstatic to have received such a slight slap on the wrist. The other counties certainly don’t want the precedent set of severe penalties for things they may have done in the past, or risk doing in the future. All in all, everyone wins.

Except for anyone discriminated against within English cricket, of course.

Thanks for reading my post. If you have anything to add about it, the Ashes, or anything else then please do so below.

Should Lord’s Host Another Men’s Test?

dannycricket25 Comments

After a Test which ended up being both exciting and one-sided, it might not be everyone’s first thought as to whether the Marylebone Cricket Club will (or should) host matches next year. However, I have not forgotten about the ICEC report into discrimination within English cricket unlike most people in the media. At points within that publication, the MCC was singled out for particular criticism and the notion of withdrawing international matches from outdated and recalcitrant host grounds is presented as a key recommendation. It is difficult to name a cricket club in the whole country more outdated and recalcitrant than the MCC.

Before considering the grounds of equality, diversity and inclusion for this move, there are at least a few other reasons why the ECB might want to move men’s Test matches away from Lord’s on a permanent basis. The first and most obvious is England’s form at the ground: Lord’s is the only ground where England have lost 50% or more of their home Ashes Tests since 2005. England have not lost a English Ashes series in that period (at least until now), and yet they do not perform well in North London. Conditions clearly favour the opposition there in a way that does not occur at other grounds. Australia would never schedule matches at a ground where they felt their opponents had either a psychological or technical advantage. Nor would India. Part of being a strong Test team is using home conditions to your benefit, and England playing Tests at Lord’s does not achieve that.

One explanation for England’s record might be the MCC ground staff’s repeated preparation of ‘chief executive pitches’ which are slow, flat, and almost guaranteed to require five days of play. The second Test in this series certainly conforms to that pattern, in spite of Ben Stokes specifically asking for quick pitches in order to suit both England’s batters and bowlers. Aside from not helping England teams achieve victory at the ground, these kinds of pitches can also produce long stretches of play which are relatively boring in Test matches.

There is also the slope. Test cricket is a 21st Century professional sport and not a PG Wodehouse-esque sketch about a match on a village green where hitting the the post box at midwicket is a four. Lord’s is a multi-million pound sports stadium and the MCC can well afford a spirit level. Dig up the tall side, dump it on the short side and even it up. It’s an embarrassment.

The real reason why Lord’s losing its customary two men’s Tests per year is even a remote possibility is the ICEC report into discrimination within English cricket. There are two recommendations in particular which could (or should) alarm the MCC and its members. The first, which gained some amount of media attention, is that Lord’s should no longer host the annual match between Eton and Harrow. It is notable because this makes the MCC the only organisation other than the ECB which is specifically named as having to make changes within the document, with all of the other recommendations applying broadly to every county team or all cricket clubs in the country.

Recommendation 18 – We recommend to MCC that the annual fixtures between Eton and Harrow and between Oxford and Cambridge are no longer played at Lord’s after 2023. These two events should be replaced by national finals’ days for state school U15 competitions for boys and girls (see Recommendation 38) and a national finals’ day for competitions for men’s and women’s university teams.

Previous attempts to pressure the MCC into no longer hosting these matches led to the members revolting, and forcing their leadership to retain them by calling a Special General Meeting on the topic. Failure to change course now would place the club in the position of openly ignoring the advice of a report into discrimination, which might present very poor optics for the game but the MCC’s members can be very stubborn.

The more serious threat to the MCC hosting future matches might be recommendations about adding EDI criteria to selecting international hosts going forwards:

Recommendation 19 – We recommend that the ECB revises and clarifies its processes and criteria for allocating, suspending, cancelling and reinstating high profile matches to place greater emphasis on EDI. There is clear evidence that being allocated such matches, or having the right to host them withdrawn, is a powerful tool to encourage compliance with EDI. The current process for match allocation (via a tender process against six criteria) expires in 2024 and we have not identified any formal process for deciding to suspend or cancel matches. The revisions should:
a) Ensure greater emphasis on EDI in the criteria for allocation, giving EDI criteria equal status to the most important of the other criteria.
b) Consider making a bidder’s performance on EDI a ‘gateway criterion’ requiring hosts to meet stretching minimum EDI standards in order to be able to bid for a high profile match.
c) Introduce a clear and transparent decision-making process for suspension, cancellation and reinstatement of high profile matches.
d) The Cricket Discipline Commission (or any future adjudication body if it is replaced and/or renamed) should have the power to suspend or cancel the right to host high profile matches for regulatory breaches, in particular related to EDI

The reason why such a change to the ECB’s process would disproportionately affect the Lord’s Test matches is that it is arguable that the MCC is the least equal, diverse and inclusive cricket club in the country.

The ICEC report focused on three broad areas which English cricket needed to improve upon: Class & wealth, women & women’s cricket, and ethnic origin & religion.

I don’t believe that it would be hyperbole to suggest that the MCC is the poshest cricket club in the country. Possibly even the world. Whilst there may be clubs which have a higher membership fee (although £500+ per year for members within London is plenty high), there are surely none who are able to command a membership of 18,000 at such prices.

The very structure of the MCC has been created and maintained specifically in order to keep the ‘wrong sort of person’ out. You require the endorsement of three existing full MCC members and a senior MCC official simply to join the (currently 29 year) waiting list. Once there, you have to continue paying £200+ every year as an associate member for those 29 years until enough full members move on and a vacancy opens for you.

Except of course that there is a shortcut available to the very wealthy. When wanting to raise money, the MCC offers life memberships for the princely sum of £80,000. A fortune to most people, a year’s tuition for their kids to others. There is no pretence of fairness or egalitarianism from the club when there is money to be squeezed out of its members.

As an aside, the 29 year waiting list to attain membership also inhibits the MCC’s role as being in charge of the game’s laws. With a minimum age of 16 to even join the waiting list, the youngest people to become members will be 45 (and most will be much, much older). Because of their age, it is unlikely that most MCC members will be active cricketers or have even played a cricket match in the past decade. And yet it is this group of elderly men, disproportionately coming from English public schools, who govern the rules of the sport. Perhaps with a broader membership, closer to the game as its played in clubs around the country, the laws could be made clearer and with less need for the MCC to release statements about their interpretation after high profile events.

Every county cricket club began as a private Victorian gentleman’s club, but it is only the MCC which has been allowed to continue its practices into the 21st Century. In fact, the MCC’s membership policies would see them banned from every ECB league in the country. Every team from the Middlesex County Cricket League Premier Division to the Middlesex 3s Division 6B has to abide by an accreditation scheme known as ClubMark. Originally run by Sport England, ClubMark gives every cricket club in the country a checklist of policies which they should operate in order to ensure the safety of people at the ground and prevent discrimination. One of these (Criteria 3.4) specifically bars cricket clubs from requiring applications to be approved by existing members. There is good reason for this. The people who already know three or four MCC members move in the same social circles as them, are quite possibly related to some of them, and so this severely limits the diversity of new members as they likely share similar backgrounds, views and ethnicities as those already in place. This is why I suggested that MCC being the least equal, diverse and inclusive cricket club in the country is at least an arguable statement. Every single cricket club in every single ECB-affiliated league has to meet the minimum requirements of the ClubMark programme, but not the MCC.

This system of requiring an invitation in order to become a member may have had an effect on racial diversity at the club. London’s population is 48.2% non-White according to the 2021 census, and that certainly does not appear to be reflected in terms of those MCC members who attend matches at the ground. This may not be emblematic of the entire membership, but the Lord’s pavillion is often presented as being the least representative group of the local population within English cricket and this portrayal is probably not without cause.

One key area of the ICEC report was with regards to women’s cricket and its lack of support from the ECB and their members. In the professional era of women’s cricket, beginning with England central contracts in 2014 and the Kia Super League through to the regional teams and The Hundred now, it’s hard to see how the MCC could have put in less effort in terms of hosting women’s matches. In fact, if you exclude The Hundred (since the non-hosting counties are unable to compete for them) then the only one of the eighteen county grounds to have hosted fewer professional women’s cricket matches since 2014 is Cheltenham.

Scheduled Days Of Play (2014-2023)

GroundWomen’s TestsWomen’s ODIsWomen’s T20IsKSLRHFTCECTotal
Taunton84494635
Bristol45459229
Southampton011117727
Chelmsford018211426
Hove02486323
Worcester061010421
Leeds01078420
Loughborough000125118
Beckenham000014317
Manchester00055515
Birmingham00215614
Guildford00092314
Leicester07004314
Derby02711213
Northampton01304513
Chester-le-Street00107412
The Oval00172111
Nottingham50011310
Canterbury44000210
Arundel0003317
Blackpool0004026
Liverpool0004206
Scarborough0202206
York0005106
Cardiff0010135
Chester0001225
Sale0000415
Wormsley4000105
Lord’s0110114
Cheltenham0001203

The MCC’s decisions on which games it does (or doesn’t) host can be directly attributed to the way in which they have restricted who is able or feels welcome to join. In 2022, less than 2% of their full members (the membership category allowed to vote on issues relating to the club) were women. That means fewer than 366 of the 18,315 full members. There are almost certainly a lot more members who attended Eton and Harrow than women members of the MCC, so it should be no surprise that the match between those two schools has more support within the membership than hosting Sunrisers or the England women’s team. In fact, the MCC even has a special full membership category for staff members at certain schools which accounted for 520 of their members (roughly 200 more than women) in 2022.

Compare the number of women’s games grounds have hosted to how the ECB has awarded lucrative England men’s matches in the same period. The ground which has hosted the fewest days of professional women’s cricket has received almost double the number of men’s Test matches as the next-closest ground, whilst the two grounds which have hosted the most women’s games have been given virtually none.

Scheduled Days Of Play (2014-2023)

GroundMen’s TestsMen’s ODIsMen’s T20IsTotal
Lord’s899199
Manchester4510863
The Oval459155
Leeds457153
Birmingham405449
Southampton3010848
Nottingham308341
Cardiff56718
Chester-le-Street55212
Bristol0549
Taunton0011

The MCC does not separate how much money it generates from England games from its other income (such as Middlesex and London Spirit matches) and so it is difficult to say exactly how much they receive through hosting two guaranteed Tests plus a white ball match every year. Surrey earned £8,313,000 in 2022 from one Test and one ODI, so the MCC probably makes in the region of £15,000,000 (not including sales of food and drink) in a typical year just from those three men’s games. Thanks to that England match day income, the MCC boasts a higher turnover than counties such as Surrey or Lancashire who have non-cricket revenue streams such as hotels and concerts in order to fill their coffers.

It would not be unreasonable for each of the seventeen other county hosts to look at the MCC and ask why they receive such preferential treatment from the ECB. Their counties host more women’s matches, they abide by the ECB’s guidelines regarding new members, and they have more diverse memberships in terms of gender, age, wealth and ethnicity. Why is the one club which comes bottom in all of these metrics rewarded inordinately with the most valuable prize that the ECB can offer: Hosting men’s Tests?

The first, and perhaps most important reason is money. Whilst the ECB has repeatedly made proclamations about ensuring cricket is a game for everyone, that women’s cricket is a big part of the game’s future, that racism is abhorrent and must be excised from the sport, the single constant which has run through its 26 year history is greed. Lord’s has the most capacity of any English cricket ground and can charge the highest individual ticket prices of any English ground whilst still selling out. It generates the most revenue of any host, and that’s all the ECB has ever really cared about.

The other, more pernicious reason is that the English cricketing establishment and the MCC are intertwined in a way which is virtually impossible to separate. The ECB’s headquarters are at Lord’s, which effectively makes the MCC their landlord. That in itself would appear to be a colossal conflict of interest for a sport’s governing body, and a significant risk if the ECB were to take action against the MCC.

Perhaps the greatest reason why the MCC feel no pressure to make any changes is the person that the ECB have put in charge of responding to the ICEC report, former England captain Clare Connor. Prior to being appointed ECB deputy CEO, Connor was President of the MCC in 2021-22. She was also given an honorary life membership to the MCC in 2009 (worth up to £80,000). It seems vanishingly unlikely that last year’s MCC president is going to propose taking men’s Test matches away from Lord’s, regardless of the strong arguments in its favour.

The degree to which the ECB will act with regards to the ICEC report probably comes down to external pressure, which appears to be almost non-existent at this point. The report was released in the middle of two exciting Ashes series, which has distracted the entire English cricketing media, whilst the UK Government and Parliament are already preparing for next year’s general election and have no time to spare regulating the UK’s eleventh most popular sports team if there are no votes in it. Absent any outside involvement, it seems probable that the ECB will enact the smallest and most cosmetic changes possible just as they did after Azeem Rafiq’s testimony in 2021. In which case, the same issues will continue to dog the sport and we will have to hope that the next review in twenty years or more will create real change.

Hopefully I’m wrong, and even the threat of losing matches might move the MCC into modernising and becoming a 21st Century cricket club with an inclusive and broad membership. I would love for that to happen.

But my lifetime of being involved in cricket has made me very cynical, and I sadly just can’t see that happening.

Thank you for reading this post. If you have any comments or corrections about the post, or just want to talk about the Ashes and Bazball, please do so below.

Working Six to Leg

thelegglance17 Comments

Two Tests, two defeats for England, but in rather different ways and with different attitudes, yet in both cases it is Australia who are 1-0 up.

This morning the women concluded on the fifth day – praise be for that change – but England came up short and will have some regrets, firstly that they didn’t kick on a little more in the first innings and for the shot selection in the second (plus a couple of tight lbws that didn’t go their way, c’est la vie). Australia are a fantastic team, and the addition of a fifth day making a result far more likely meant that Australia would have been deemed the likely winners before the start, but England had their chances and didn’t take them, the very essence of sport. It is instructive to note that the England women, while they score quickly, adopt a more traditional approach to run scoring than their male counterparts, which ought to be notable in the sense that this did not make them immune from making errors under pressure and playing poor shots. It is not purely a characteristic of Bazball. But unlike with the men, this one defeat really wrecks England’s chances of winning the series.

The response to England’s defeat to Australia at Edgbaston has been rather interesting. Ranging from a shrug of the shoulders to outrage depending on outlook and approach. What can be said is that it was a terrific Test match, that swung one way and then the other and was in doubt through to the very end. That in itself is becoming something of a habit for this England team, and few would deny they are quite extraordinary to watch.

The question though is to what extent England threw it away and how much it was that Australia went out and won it – plus what it means for the rest of the series. There aren’t any right or wrong answers to this, and the criticisms have validity, but equally so do the words of the defenders.

What can be agreed is that England’s approach has brought a lot more success than they had been having up to the point they flicked a switch and went on a rampage – a single win in seventeen Tests has been succeeded by eleven wins in fourteen. Overall, few would deny that this is rather better, so the criticisms are around the matter of degree rather than in general, except perhaps for a few who particularly revel in a two runs an over approach for its own sake.

Plenty of teams have adopted a positive approach to the game, that’s nothing new, where England differ is that they do so with an insouciance that looks reckless to many. But I would argue that this is not quite what it seems, or more specifically, the recklessness is deliberate, strategic and built in. “Playing without fear” is a mantra heard often, but it hardly ever means what it says, as Test cricket even in its modern form isa game where restraint is almost always the order of the day. In essence, whatever they might say, “fear” is baked into the equation, the fear of getting out, the fear of a collapse, the reluctance to play with complete freedom. It’s not a bad thing at all, it’s normal, at least historically. Where England are unique is that when they say they are playing without fear, they really mean it. Getting out is met with indifference and an occupational hazard precisely because of that approach. Anaethema to many it may be, but it is central to how England are playing. And this is important to note, because when it is said that all England need to do is to reign it in a bit, it is to change this mentality completely – it is to add fear, it is add the reticence to play with complete abandon. You will not get a team who can romp along at seven an over with it.

That doesn’t mean England can only throw the bat, for after England were somewhat unfortunately batting in poor conditions (sporting luck and bad luck, so be it) and lost wickets, they did tick over a bit more slowly in the second innings as it proceeded, Root’s scoop first ball of the day notwithstanding; but the ability to do that still without fear is the central aspect of England’s approach, the urgent desire to cut loose being transparently obvious even as they scored a little more slowly. Indeed, Stokes has been fairly criticised for going too far on many an occasion, throwing his wicket away when he scores fast enough normally not to need to do so, and yet in that second innings that is precisely what he did – his eventual dismissal being one of those normal enough cricketing occurrences. But to believe that England could flick a switch in terms of their approach is to misunderstand how they are even capable of going berserk in the first place – to change it in one context is to change it in all, it cannot be to cheer them on scoring at seven an over only to insist they don’t have that mindset when it is deemed to be inappropriate, it is, in cricketing cliche, to ask them to hit sixes but not take any risks. It isn’t that people are wrong to do so however, but it is to emphasise that the only reason you can have the extraordinary sight of England going nuts is to appreciate that they cannot just defend and accumulate, it really is one or the other, the mental bridge is far too wide.

The same applies to the declaration on day one. In the first instance, to assume a day one action led directly to the day five result ignoring all that went between is to beg the question, but also because the thinking and mentality was so clear. It was to put Australia on the back foot and try and get late evening wickets and then have another go the following morning with a still new ball. It can be disagreed with certainly, but the logic of the aspiration was clear and we cannot solely judge on the outcome as though if they’d taken three wickets on that first day it was a stroke of genius and because they didn’t it wasn’t. In terms of the attempt to put Australia on the defensive in approach, it did work – Australia were oddly passive throughout the Test match (the very vocal sledging coming from Australian sidelines is instructive too – you don’t need to do that if you’re not a teeny bit concerned), and while they won, that might have an impact further down the line when England carry on doing this. Or not, there are no guarantees. Furthermore, Australia might have won, but they are in any case a far better side than England, defeat in itself doesn’t mean the approach was wrong, any more than believing a more restrained England would have got across the line has a great deal to back it up. The suspicion has to be a more defensive England would be hammered. It is, in essence, the opposite – England’s best chance of beating Australia is to go all out, and if that is concurred with in principle, then it means accepting the downside that it cannot, will not, always work, and may even not work at all.

The same applies to selection. Whether Moeen Ali was the right call or not is open to question, but believing a tailor made alternative would have come in and scored a century and taken ten-fer is to indulge the realms of fantasy. No player is as good as when he’s been left out of the team, but the criticisms there need to be aimed at the structural weaknesses of the England cricketing structure that meant that he was a viable option in the first place. Another player might have done better, or might have done worse, to assume certainty is to reprogramme the matrix.

Similarly, Bairstow’s inclusion came at the expense of an extremely unlucky Ben Foakes. When analysing the reasons for England’s defeat the dropped catches and missed stumpings loom large, and unlike with Moeen Ali, it is reasonable enough to acknowledge that Foakes is more than good enough for it to be assumed with reasonable cause he would have taken more of them, especially stood up to the stumps where he excels. But few would deny that Bairstow should be in the side as a batsman, and as a result a decision had to be made about where. Given Zak Crawley has few advocates, the option there would be to move someone else to open and have both Bairstow and Foakes, but it is an either/or and they went with retaining Crawley. On that one, it is selectorial stubborness for sure, but Crawley himself is very much part of the England thinking because of how he plays – it is less a matter of whether he is worthy in itself and more whether someone else can do precisely that role better than him. To understand is not to concur, but failure to understand means the wrong criticisms are made.

Those dropped catches had far more consequence in terms of outcome than anything else. It is a cricketing normal, catches win matches being more than just a cliche. Indeed, even at the end a difficult chance put down by Stokes could be viewed as being the game right there. But it also must be said that some of the critiques failed to sufficiently acknowledge what an outstanding partnership it was from Cummins and Lyons – whatever else went on, to win the game eight down from there was an exceptional performance. Australia won that game rather than England losing it, and sometimes you simply have to doff your cap. Had two quick wickets fallen some of the earlier England decisions that have been criticised would have been praised as creating the time to secure an England win. And this is no small matter, a more conservative England approach, even had it succeeded, would have resulted in the match being drawn. And yes, 0-0 might be preferable to 1-0 down, but it created the opportunity for England to win the match, that they ultimately didn’t take it is a separate matter.

England do have a tendency to state their aim is save Test cricket, which irks plenty of Australians – and therefore is a good thing in itself – but also English fans who say their first priority should be winning matches. And so it should too, but the reason England players say this in defeat is to give affirmation for their approach when they’ve lost. It is evidently human to say such things.

This is somewhat lofty, but all teams do need that self-justification when things go wrong, to reassure themselves they are on the right path in what they do. It’s understandable, and when looked at in the wider context it is also welcome in that it is pleasing that they believe it to be worth saving,
but it is also undoubtedly fair comment to point to the discrepancy, as long as there’s understanding why they say these things.

Many are annoyed, many more are disappointed. I just can’t be. Might you disagree?  Absolutely so, and that’s fine, but I will challenge that and say why I feel as I do.  It’s certainly not that I’m right and others are wrong, it is that sensing an affinity as to why they do what they do means that I remain entirely content to take the rough with the smooth on these things. The question then put is how I’d feel if England lose the series heavily, and I can honestly respond that it will be with the same general indifference to individual outcome when set against the bigger picture. I do get why others differ, but I can only express how it is for me. And I will leave you with one thing – anecdote isn’t data and there’s no reason to assume it ought to be, but three friends generally relatively indifferent to Test cricket followed, listened and watched this one with fascination, enjoyment, excitement and at the end crippling nerves. And that gives me hope for the game. Hope has been missing for a very long time.

OK, So You’re Brad Pitt

LordCanisLupus23 Comments

Hello everyone. It’s been a while. There’s been some exciting cricket played while I have been away from here. The media has gone all in for the “saviours” of test cricket. What’s not to like? Well. I have some concerns. We’ll get to them. But let’s start with an opportunity.

Two weeks ago I received a message from a work colleague. Would I be interested in a ticket for the Friday of the Lord’s Test? England v Australia, second test. I think you might guess my reaction…

“How much?”

“£120”

“Nah, you’re alright.”

There is so much sorrow in that response. Like it wasn’t even given a thought. That’s a No. Life has moved on and changes have taken place that have altered a lot of my foundations. I’m not a Londoner by residence any more. I live near Stonehenge now. Even living in London, that’s still too much to pay. It would take me less time to get to Taunton than Lord’s.

My last day at an Ashes test. Smith got 200. Root didn’t.

The price is just too much in these economic times, with a much higher mortgage, higher running costs of life. That I could even consider paying £120, with the £50 return ticket by train, the cost of feeding and watering myself for the day, taking the weather risk, and whether the teams can be bothered to stick in an 80 over, let alone 90 over shift for the day, and I thought not. It wasn’t even close. No regret. There are plenty of other, much better off, and much more committed supporters of the game, and frankly, good luck to them. I still love the sport, but it’s a diminished love these days, and I get my kicks elsewhere. If you follow me on Twitter you will know it is in non-league football, and well down the pyramid too.. Top level sport and its costs have passed me by. The economy and my enthusiasm waning. But there is a spark? Test cricket remains fun. So enjoy, from the sofa, what you can.

Which leaves me more detached when it comes to cricket blogging and following. I had a look before I wrote this piece, and it appears the last thing I wrote on Being Outside Cricket was over a year ago. Before the Bazball Bonanza took over. I know the other blog stalwarts have had their say on the way England play, and I thought Chris did a masterful job for the pro-lobby. But I am not quite the fan that most others seem to be. I am in the minority, but not a vocal one. 2014 me would have been blasting off the ceiling about throwing away a series win in New Zealand on the back of our godforsaken ego, but then realising that we would not have won the four preceding overseas tests playing the way we used to. I think my anger was in enforcing the follow-on. That was pure ego. It abandoned sense. It was different for difference sake. it provided an entertaining match, which due to me packing in everything that isn’t Sky, I couldn’t watch (those cost of living cuts again).

You can change approach if sense dictates you need to. So far the media, well the UK media, are giving Bazball a free pass. It’s bish, it’s bash, it’s bosh, it’s Baz and Ben. But a part of me dies when Joe Root, as good a player as we have ever produced, who when flowing naturally is majestic, is ramp shotting early in his innings and looking like giving away his wicket. A part of me dies when Ollie Pope miscues and gets away with it, and in the case of the Ireland innings, repeatedly. There is the concept of return to mean, of balance, and if so England could be in for a rude awakening.

But it’s entertaining Peter. It is never dull with this England team. Just live life and let yourself be free. Go with the flow. Sure. They aren’t going to read an article like this and go “that moany old KP loving bore don’t like it, so let’s go back to being 30 for 4 every week”. Nor should they. Believe me, if this style means we bash up the Aussies, unable to respond to the aggression and ferocity of Ben Duckett being able to achieve what the world’s best openers struggle to do, succumbing to Crawley’s fluent shot-making, and preventing keeping Harry Brook to human levels, I’d pay my train ticket and be at the parade (they’d need to be quick to squeeze it in before the Hundred, though). The canary in every Ashes failure goldmine is there. Key bowlers appearing to fall by the wayside, veterans on their third “last hurrah” needing to carry the load, and the gnawing feeling we are putting all our positive thoughts into the “hope” category rather than “expectation”.

The irony that the print and TV media, and some of those so protective of Sir Alastair and so disgusted with that awful Pietersen chap, who was derided for his “that’s the way I play” comments, are now so in line with the “that’s the way we play” mantra now adopted. Indeed Stokes appeared to say there would be no way into the team for a modern day Sir Alastair. I’m not laughing. No, honestly, I’m not. You’d think these Bazball Barnburners were just waiting for their hero to come along and take up the assault, and not the same people who threw themselves in front of the flak for their hero Sir Al, and the ECB. By the way, much respect for Sir Al for playing on for Essex. Huge respect. Loves the game. That much is clear.

Yes, let’s be clear. I enjoy watching the England team, and that’s not to be sniffed at. They haven’t been entertaining for a while now and the last year has been a fun time. I am not going to be the one to just say “you are all wrong” because I enjoy being contrary. Heavens, given the mental health stuff I have been going through, my counsellor thinks I am mad enough without bringing this stuff into my sessions! I’ve told her many times that people say my angry writing is good, and yet I know, deep down, that the blog was an exercise in self-harm for a long time. Be angry. The readers loved angry.

But anger isn’t a positive thing, not for me now. I just want to enjoy sport with meaning, and that last part is important. Meaning. That the prize is delivered through endeavour and spirit and not bought. That upsetting conventional methods, which I find almost unsettling because it attacks my value system (and I couldn’t play a shot in front of square to save my life), takes some getting used to. But when I hear Nasser Hussain say to Stokes, you are 300 in front, 2-1 up in the Ashes, last test, last day, three wickets down, are you declaring, and Stokes says “yes” then I want to scream. Out loud. You’d ego throw away a series, the one to us, rightly or wrongly, that matters the most on your own principles/ That’s not meaning. It’s madness.

Of course, does he really mean it? I don’t know. That he would even say it has me reaching for my non-existent calming pills.

“You can’t control what he does, Peter. So why let something make you anxious that you can’t control. What will being anxious achieve?”

My counsellor never watched Millwall chuck away a play-off place on the May Bank Holiday. I could see that car crash coming.

I deal in logic. Logic suggests that for the first time in 22 years, we will lose a home series against Australia. There looks to be mountains of runs in Smith and Labuschagne. Head will contribute, Green looks dangerous with bat and ball, Carey might contribute a few, Opener is a clear weakness, but you either trust your instincts that the two have failed a lot in England, or that the law of averages suggests one of them might “get it”. The bowling looks miles better than ours. We could, potentially, be carrying a passenger in Stokes. Broad and Anderson have to end sometime. We have no extreme pace. I think we’ll still be fretting over Jofra’s elbow in 2027.

Sport isn’t logical, not all the time. I thought we would lose in 2005, and especially after the first test. That team had built up over a number of years, and brought in talent, especially in the bowling department. They had nurtured Harmison and Jones, had the steadiness and swing of Hoggard, the power of Flintoff, and the under-rated with bat and ball, Ashley Giles. The bowling here is two OAPs in cricketing age, a steady seamer with fitness doubts, and Potts and Tongue are not Harmison and Jones. But if they play well, they might just get three wins. You never know. The batting might fire on all cylinders.

I am so amused at how Bazball appears to have got under the skin of the Aussie media and resident rent-a-gobs. That’s probably worth it all on its own. Sure, some of them pretend they are joking, but I see them. They want it both ways. Malcolm Conn will only see it one way. I am not sure why I bother looking at him at all!

It should be fun. I doubt I am going to get to see much of it as work is busy, spare time is spent on motorways and trains, non-league football is my true sporting love now, and, well, there’s just not enough hours in the day.

Not sure how we are going to play it over the course of the next six weeks or so on Being Outside Cricket. I am a bit of an absentee landlord these days, but I am sure I might stick my oar into the pond. Whatever, the one thing I am determined to do is enjoy what I do watch because life is too damn short to get angry with everything. If England had stayed on their path, they would have been beaten. In 2019 we won a dead rubber, in all essence, and relied upon a miracle that will never be repeated. Now we have a punchers chance, maybe a bit more, but England need to put Australia on the ropes early.

If all else looks grim, I can turn away and read one of my secondhand book purchases. Yes, for 50p I bought “That Will Be England Gone” by Michael Henderson. Call the nurse!