A post on Mark McCafferty, who has taken over as Warwickshire chairman from Norman Gascoigne. McCafferty came onto the Warwickshire board in 2016 and may have been recruited with an eye to becoming chairman at some stage.  He was an appointed, rather than elected, director and has now, again, been appointed; as chairman. I'm not a big fan of the appointment culture, I think Churchill had it about right when he said, "Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" But it should be recognised that democracy in county cricket, or at least Warwickshire County cricket, was always  more theoretical than a practical reality.  The men who guided the county's development, JV Ryder and Leslie Deakins, were, in theory, secretaries to a decision making committee but in reality acted like modern day chief executives and were intolerant of "interfering". Although the membership might ...

The  ECB accounts  for the period to 31 January 2018 disclose the payments made to Glamorgan  not to stage test matches. This post compares these statements with subsequent comments on the payments by ECB chairman Colin Graves: The Time line  11th April 2018 the ECB's accounts include the following statement: "The group's administrative expenditure at £132.8m remained broadly level with that of the prior year at £137.2m reflecting the continued high level of distributions made to the First Class County network and relatively flat central expenditure.  I ncluded in this expenditure was a payment of £2.5m to Glamorgan County Cricket Club in consideration for giving up the right to apply to host Test match cricket in the future ." The statement is included in the strategic report to the accounts signed by CJ Graves ECB Chairman. 14 May 2018 The Guardian and Cricinfo report Colin Graves, when questioned about payments to Glamorgan saying : " “No ...

I have only seen two days cricket at Cardiff.  One before the ground was modernised and the other the Anderson /  Panesar / Rorke's drift ashes game, but not the final day, sadly.   I don't really follow the county but from what I can see this is the  history  of the redevelopment and why it is causing such controversy in 2018 . In 2007 Glamorgan began work on a £9.5m redevelopment of its Cardiff ground, financing coming from Allied Irish Bank ("AIB") and Cardiff Council ("CC").  The sad fact was  Glamorgan, like other counties who redeveloped at the same time, couldn't generate enough cash to pay the financing costs on debt incurred.  Glamorgan's plight was particularly desperate, in part due to bad luck and weather and, perhaps, because there is limited enthusiasm for cricket in Wales. By 2015 Glamorgan CC was in a desperate state, the £9.5m million borrowed had swollen to £16m and there was little prospect of it ever being paid...