Post by hhsussex on Jan 15, 2015 8:46:59 GMT
New ECB Chairman-elect Colin Graves appears to be proposing a straightforward agenda in his interview with the Telegraph's usually well-informed Nick Hoult New ECB chairman Colin Graves: Terrestrial TV does not want cricket
He says that he will start with a blank sheet of paper, and with a team of senior executives in place they will by October ofr November "come up with a strategy of how we can improve English cricket from a playing point of view, from a spectators’ point of view, a broadcasters’ point of view and sit down and talk to everybody". Unlike previous reviews he will not focus on one aspect of the game.
He expands a little, but nor much, on his previous statement that "his" ECB will not prop up failing counties: “I don’t want counties living on the edge. At the end of the day I have to get more money down to the counties, more money into the game so we can run the game more efficiently. We have to try and help them sort things out. We will do that but they have to make sure they are running a business properly and not wasting money. It is their own money on the basis that they own the ECB as stakeholders but it is not going to be free money. We want it invested in the game to make it better.”
He is also clear that Giles Clarke, the new President-elect and Ambassador to Mars, or wherever the ICC gathers these days, will have "nothing to do with the counties"
This all sounds like good old-fashioned blunt North-country wisdom. We shall have to see whether the canny trader who built up the mighty Costcutter empire from nothing, or the sharp negotiator who makes a living from the interest he charges Yorkshire on their Headingley debt is foremost in this root-and-branch review.
Meanwhile we can make or own lists of things to consider in this review. The whole of the T20 structure is certainly one of them, but so , too, should be the relationship of counties to the ECB. Is the 18-county structure still the right way to go in the 21st century? Can we preserve the spirit of cricket, however ill-defined, in a new way that will capture the minds and imaginations of the young?
He says that he will start with a blank sheet of paper, and with a team of senior executives in place they will by October ofr November "come up with a strategy of how we can improve English cricket from a playing point of view, from a spectators’ point of view, a broadcasters’ point of view and sit down and talk to everybody". Unlike previous reviews he will not focus on one aspect of the game.
He expands a little, but nor much, on his previous statement that "his" ECB will not prop up failing counties: “I don’t want counties living on the edge. At the end of the day I have to get more money down to the counties, more money into the game so we can run the game more efficiently. We have to try and help them sort things out. We will do that but they have to make sure they are running a business properly and not wasting money. It is their own money on the basis that they own the ECB as stakeholders but it is not going to be free money. We want it invested in the game to make it better.”
He is also clear that Giles Clarke, the new President-elect and Ambassador to Mars, or wherever the ICC gathers these days, will have "nothing to do with the counties"
This all sounds like good old-fashioned blunt North-country wisdom. We shall have to see whether the canny trader who built up the mighty Costcutter empire from nothing, or the sharp negotiator who makes a living from the interest he charges Yorkshire on their Headingley debt is foremost in this root-and-branch review.
Meanwhile we can make or own lists of things to consider in this review. The whole of the T20 structure is certainly one of them, but so , too, should be the relationship of counties to the ECB. Is the 18-county structure still the right way to go in the 21st century? Can we preserve the spirit of cricket, however ill-defined, in a new way that will capture the minds and imaginations of the young?
