COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Loads of big, new signings | Stevens wants a new deal | Strauss in 'backing establishment' shocker | Teflon Tom joins Six Nations | ECB's new tactic - talking to counties

COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Loads of big, new signings | Stevens wants a new deal | Strauss in 'backing establishment' shocker | Teflon Tom joins Six Nations | ECB's new tactic - talking to counties

Rich Clarke
CricketPaper

Players, Coaches, Contracts and Signings

Signings: McAndrews (Sussex - Overseas, until July), Siddle (Somerset - Overseas, 2023 season), Khan (Sussex - Blast), Narine (Surrey - Blast), Munro (Nottinghamshire - Blast), Whiteman (Northamptonshire - Overseas, until end of August), Glover (Durham), Abbott (Surrey - first half of season), Mitchell and De Grandhomme (Lancashire - Overseas, Championship and Blast), Rahane (Leicestershire - Overseas, last four months), Haider Ali (Derbyshire - Overseas, all season)

Contracts: Rhodes (Warwickshire -1yr), Raine (Durham - 2yrs), Qadri (Kent - 2yr), Lintott (Warwickshire - 2yrs), Muyeye (Kent - 3yrs), Lenham (Sussex - undisclosed),

Darren Stevens holding talks with first-class county: "I would snap someone's hand off" (Cricketer)

Hmmm... so Stevens feels he was eased out by Paul Downton.

Now counties are chasing Mitchell Starc with several more Australians set to follow Steve Smith and play in the County Championship this summer ahead of the Ashes (Mail)

Ian Salisbury: Middlesex appoint former Sussex and Surrey head coach as consultant (BBC Sport)

Donovan Miller appointed as bowling coach for Essex's Pathway programme (Cricinfo)

Keaton Jennings named Lancashire club captain (Cricinfo)

Colin Ackermann to continue as Leicestershire T20 captain despite uncertainty over future (Cricketer)

Tom Curran: Surrey and England all-rounder takes break from red-ball cricket (BBC Sport)

News, Views and Interviews

Sir Andrew Strauss: "The rise of franchise cricket is one of the great steps forward"(Cricketer)

Ebony Rainford-Brent holds the aces in quest to diversify English cricket (Times)

Well, he would do, wouldn't he?

The ultimate establishment cricket player-turned-administrator backs exactly what the modern cricket establishment wants.

What a surprise.

With the English game about to apologise for racism, Essex fined and awaiting a report, the Yorkshire saga well into its second year and still to have its day in court, other more meaningful voices suggesting a major problem over class (see below), let alone the bitter division caused by you-know-what and the governing body's politicking (demonstrated by the fact that Strauss' own long-awaited report has been kicked into the long grass), please forgive me if I don't listen to a player whose nickname was Lord Brocket telling me everything in the garden is rosy.

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In the immortal words of the mighty Betty Boo, Ebony Rainford-Brent is ‘doing the do’. Her ACE programme is now three years old and has got 10,000 youngsters from ‘targeted schools’ playing the game for the first time. Some are starting to be picked up by counties. (Note that, Mr Strauss. Counties pick up talent, not franchises). Her aim has been fixed on improving racial diversity but, having got down into the weeds, she has seen a different route to fulfilling this.

“I think the bigger problem in cricket is really around class,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, racism exists in society, and there are a lot of layers there, but when you look at the provision in low socio-economic areas, that is the void I want us to fill as a game. If we did that, we would solve the race problem and we could help solve the lack of diversity in the female game. If we got into that one area, diversity would automatically flow. We know a lot of these problems can be solved because we are seeing day-to-day successes in everything we do.”

For me, class should be cricket’s primary target because, as Rainford-Brent says, it is the foundation stone. Change that and more change, at a much greater pace, can follow.


Speaking of boardroom appointments, here’s a piece from Ed Warner on being passed over for a similar role at Middlesex. Given that he was Chair of UK Athletics during London 2012 and has a life-long interest in cricket, he would seem very well-qualified. You can sign up to Ed’s newsletter by clicking the link.

Sport inc.- Not clubbable

A rancid melody has been directed at Azeem Rafiq but he’s not the only target (Guardian)

Several ex-Yorkshire players accused of racism by Azeem Rafiq are considering leaving the disciplinary process after the ECB refused to disclose evidence (Mail)

Matthew Hoggard: 'P---' was 'widely used' in Yorkshire dressing room (Telegraph)

Michael Vaughan's 'you lot' comment never happened, says witness (Telegraph)

Much-delayed report into racism allegations at Essex due in February (Cricketer)

Playing a straight bat with nature (Sustainability)

“Every day I go around with a shovel and I’m removing fox poo.”

Kent County Cricket Club's plans for Spitfire Ground will ‘obliterate’ history of Canterbury site (Kent Online)

Glamorgan Cricket: County to play at Neath, but no Colwyn Bay return yet (BBC Sport)

Counties hold meeting over fears T20 leagues will trigger player exodus (Telegraph)

Martin Bicknell (above) sums up my thoughts. The financial clout of the IPL teams, both in their own league and the franchises they hold in other competitions, means you-know-what will always play second fiddle. Or third, fourth or fifth. And, of course, the growth of franchise cricket threatens the future of the red-ball game and the established international structure. So the English game seems to be between a rock and a hard place.

February summit for county chairs in bid to find solution to summer schedule (Cricketer)

[You-know-what] to begin at Trent Bridge, four-week window confirmed (Cricinfo)

So the ECB are going to sit down with counties and actually discuss the schedule. Thanks, we need a little more ‘jaw, jaw’ and less ‘war, war’ these days because the previous regime’s tactics seemed to be:

  1. decide on the plan between yourselves in advance

  2. produce report/data using handpicked people to support this (if it does not, make the findings opaque and barely public) (eg You-know-what data, Strauss Report)

  3. bash, bully and PR heavily to push it through

  4. get some high-profile voices (who just happen to be beneficiaries) on board

  5. denigrate anyone who disagrees (eg ‘It’s not for you”, “Fleas”)

Who knows, maybe talking and discussing might lead to a little less bitterness and division. Also, let’s file the reduction of the window for the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named by the ‘new’ ECB regime under "look at the actions not the words”.

Having said all that, counties need to be open to positive change and play an active part in making their own future. If they don’t, it will be made for them.

Warwickshire's ticket scheme is huge boost for County Championship (Telegraph)

Tom Harrison, ECB's former chief, takes up new role as head of Six Nations Rugby (Cricinfo)

County cricket spat out a metaphorical mouthful of tea at this news.

Nothing sticks to Teflon Tom Harrison, does it?

Not his appalling record of governance within the game.

Not the regular, embarrassing performances in front of the DCMS Select Committee.

Not the accusations of personal misconduct.

Not the motivations that saw him push through a unilateral television deal with Sky weeks before he was forced out, thus tying the hands of the incoming Chair.

Not the shame of taking a bonus, reportedly a year’s salary, just after the ECB had made 60 staff redundant.

Not the non-disclosure agreements and reported threats that accompanied the introduction of the tournament-that-shall-not-be-named.

I’ll leave aside the stupidity of that concept itself and the damage it has done to the county game. And it is important to add that, given the economics of the world game, the ECB were right to ask this question of themselves. They just got the answer wrong and its clumsy, arrogant execution has created a civil war. Also, we must add that Harrison was swift and decisive in his response to Covid-19, keeping the lights on in the county game and staging two crucial Test series that summer. Though the ECB’s morals were again questioned in reciprocating Pakistan’s effort in coming over.

But this still amounts to a huge net loss of personal and professional failings during his time in charge of the ECB. It was hard to find a good word written about him when he was pushed out.

Yet it does not seem to matter, because Harrison can deliver a television deal.

The ECB’s media rights package in 2017 was big (£1.1bn) and strategically crucial as it returned cricket to free-to-air television. Never mind that this only corrected a hugely damaging mistake by a previous ECB regime, the new element (you-know-what) contributed only 16-18 per cent so the vast majority of the value was the old-fashioned international game and most of that the really old-fashioned Tests.  

And never mind that, despite all the PR bluster, this money is unlikely to be properly spread around all areas of the game but instead make the richest players and executives that bit richer.

Landing big-money television deals is Harrison’s trump card. It was the criteria for that bonus and, reportedly, he had been advising other leagues in this area since he left the ECB.

Running a governing body is hard. You will never please all the stakeholders all the time but you can lead without leaving such wreckage, division and resentment behind.

Media rights deals underpin modern sport but, I worry for the Six Nations if they think they are a sufficient substitute for proper governance, leadership and moral courage.

And I worry for UK sport that no one seems to care.


COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Yorks Racism hearing, at last | Hants double signing | Rob's key is being an outsider | Who cleared Canterbury's Lime Tree | Somerset, Middx sign overseas stars

COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Yorks Racism hearing, at last | Hants double signing | Rob's key is being an outsider | Who cleared Canterbury's Lime Tree | Somerset, Middx sign overseas stars
COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Azeem Rafiq at Select Comm | Arlott's legacy | Sussex's 'real fans' | Steve Smith to play county cricket? | The Grinch who stole County Cricket | Kookaburra ball in Champ

COUNTY CRICKET BLOG: Azeem Rafiq at Select Comm | Arlott's legacy | Sussex's 'real fans' | Steve Smith to play county cricket? | The Grinch who stole County Cricket | Kookaburra ball in Champ

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