Is there any sport which attracts the armchair administrator the way that cricket does? Football fans don't seem to worry themselves too much about the ins and outs of financial fair play but were pretty effective in killing off proposals for a European super league. Cricket fans are the reverse, always with some elaborate plan for how things can be better, which no - one pays any attention to.
Sideonblogspot is a victim of this disease, broadcasting to an empty universe but hey - ho, and this blog is my to do list for new ECB chairman Richard Thompson.
Before I get to my 7 steps for a happy game there are a couple of areas where I've no idea what to do and I'm not touching. Firstly the rise of the IPL under the auspices of the BCCI is an existential threat to the ECB which is an extension of the MCC and its imperial, paternal, world view. Responding to existential threats is a bit tricky and I'll say no more.
Secondly messing around with the structure of the English cricket season does get people wound up (I'm one of them I'm afraid) without having much of an impact on what we should be aiming for, a sport with a broad base of participants drawn from across society and a successful apex populated by good international teams. What goes in between base and apex probably matters but I suspect not that much. I couldn't resist a bit of a tinker with what we have currently, but my cricketing future has 14 first class games a season and a Hundred competition and I've eschewed the "Lets play a North v South game in the UAE", "lets play the first two rounds of The Championship on the moon", nonsense.
In summary, my plan is to pay county cricketers less, pay administrators (both at the counties and the ECB) less and spend what is saved on the grass roots and trying to build a cricket that is genuinely democratic. So on with the seven points.
Step 1
A quota of players from ethnic minorities in all top level ECB competition (i.e. one level down from international cricket).
I admit, my first idea is a terrible idea, and maybe the most terrible idea for correcting cricket's racial imbalance, except that is, for all the other ideas that have been tried, and failed. It bears repeating, 30% of people playing cricket at a recreational level are of South Asian heritage compared to 4% of professional players from the same background. Commonwealth immigration into the UK was at a height in the 1950s and 1970s, this isn't a new thing people, have been let down for generations. Perhaps, just perhaps, you could slightly mellow the unfairness of quotas by phasing them in, so say Warwickshire would need to start 3 ethnic minority players, born in the UK, in all first teams from 2025. But from that date, no excuses.
Step 2
Make Azeem Rafiq an ECB non - executive director.
Another problematic proposal given Rafiq's anti Semitic tweets. But he has made a proper apology for those comments (not a "I'm sorry if anyone was so sensitive that they were upset" apology) and in telling his story seems more concerned with improving things than getting his own back on his racist abusers. Perhaps more importantly Rafiq seems to be suffering the fate of many whistle-blowers, they are praised for standing up and speaking out at the same time as being exiled from their chosen field. All Rafiq has got out of this is a part share in a chip shop which he can't open for fear of it being attacked. Making him an ECB non - executive might bring an interesting voice to the heart of English cricket but if he just turned up four times a year, eat sandwiches and pocketed his free Test match tickets; I'd kinda feel he'd earned it.
Step 3
All first class counties to set aside an audited budget for youth player development and all county youth development programs to be 100% free.
The counties, at best, spend nothing on youth development. For quite a few it's a profit centre, Sussex run a programme where if you pay enough you can end up playing first class cricket. Would it kill the counties to spend £500k (each) a year purely on youth development?
And for any county chief executive reading, a quick reminder of what free means. No "notional" charges for kit, coaching time or using the toilet, it might be notional to you but you're on £150k++ a year. No making parents ferry their kids around, parents can come if they like but all players are picked up and dropped off at home. Free meals with all dietary requirements covered - even Lucy who won't eat anything green.
What's that chief executive? You couldn't possibly afford it. Not to worry - see step 4
Step 4
A salary cap for county chief executives
Step 5
Play the Blast and The Hundred at the same time.
Having two separate short form windows in one English summer isn't sustainable. The Hundred isn't going to be a game changing profit centre, so make it something compatible with and in proportion to the rest of English cricket. The way I'd envisage it is two parallel divisions for short form cricket, City and County. You would still have the Birmingham Phoenix (as an example) branding but under the hood it would be Warwickshire players and coaches. All domestic players would be paid once and once only by their county within the existing salary cap, no more rewarding mediocrity No more "coaches" brought in just for The Hundred.
At the same time costs can be saved by cutting those ECB positions relating to The Hundred. The counties have their own administration, ticket sales and marketing staff, the jobs don't need doing twice.
And for players in the Hundred I've cut 14 games from their county season.
Step 6
Get a bloody move on.
The ECB likes a report. One such report was the 2018 South Asian Action Plan. This included a target to have by 2024 a network of urban cricket centres. Twenty such centres was the aim. So far, four years later, we have one such centre (which I think was in progress in 2018 anyway). If this progress can be sustained the 20 centre network will be in place by 2098.
To be fair to the ECB there are some positive developments. I don't think you could count Worcester an urban cricket centre but it sounds like a really good project and if, ECB chairman, Richard Thompson, can stop Andrew Strauss from trolling English cricket's most loyal and highest spending supporters, there might be more bandwidth to progress and publicise the good work the ECB does.
And to be doubly fair to the ECB it's not solely to blame for the stalling of the urban cricket centres, Surrey and the MCC both need to spend some of the money they lavish on their own grounds on developing cricket as a democratic sport.
Step 7
Playing Fields.
Pelham Warner was an early twentieth century Andrew Strauss, cricket player, captain, administrator and magazine owner - sometimes all at the same time. Like Strauss he had a lot of influence behind the scenes, a responsibility he carried seemingly untroubled by any doubts over his own abilities or the inevitable conflicts of his overlapping roles. He was very much a man of his time with many of the failings you would expect but he also had a fair amount of good in him - he played a non - negligible role in the development of multi - racial West Indian cricket. He was also an indefatigable supporter of the Playing Fields Association.
The Association had a simple and sound basic premise, many people, particularly those living in inner cities, didn't have access to cricket facilities, public schools and universities had very good cricket facilities which didn't get used for a good proportion of the summer. Why not give people access to the unused facilities. A good idea then and a good idea now.
Obviously the ECB could do it's best to encourage better use of facilities but it's best to give universities and public schools a good bash with the stick before you start dangling a carrot. First step, lobby government to introduce a law that any school wanting to retain charitable status would need to have an access plan to ensure its sporting facilities were used by the wider community. Additional funding would be provided to Sport England to ensure plans were being carried out in reality.
And that's it,
Seven steps, none of them simple, but none of them impossible and hopefully all ideas that cricket's many and varied supporters could get behind. If incoming ECB chairman Richard Thompson could manage 4/7 of my to do list, his time in the role would be a success, putting him well ahead of his three predecessors in the position.
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