The Wicked Cricket Column

Should that be Vicked Cricket? And spoken in a kind of Bela Lugosi Transylvanian accent? "Goot eefening. My name is Count Vlog"

Should that be Vicked Cricket?

Presently, I am writing a song entitled, The Vlogger from Vladivostok. 

I attended the Members Meeting last night with Hhs and while he is writing several posts about it, I will just add a few of my own 
insights.

First, I was absolutely delighted to see our Chairman visibly change his tune during the evening from an initial negative response
towards the CBT a few weeks back to one of positive embracement. Whether it was something he ate in the Cricketers Pub earlier
on while he chatted alongside Zac with the 3 ECB representatives, I am not sure, but Jim seemed very open to discussion about
the CBT and the ECB proposals.

Earlier I had a brief but warm chat with Zac at the bar where he confirmed that he would be retiring on December 23rd for good. A
farewell to business life and hey-ho Cyprus. As he put it, "I need to re-aquaint myself with my family!" He told me the four years at
Sussex had been the toughest job he'd experienced but also the most fulfilling. There had been a lot of problems along the way and
much hard work to resolve them.

Zac kindly invited me for a chat with him in the next few weeks to discuss his reflections of 4 years at the club. So, hopefully, I can offer
this Forum an exclusive.

Sanjay Patel



The one major piece of news is that when talking to the ECB Head of Marketing Commerical Director, Sanjay Patel, after the meeting, he
confirmed to me that each county would receive £1.3m a year out of the proceeds of the CBT. That is, seemingly, now set in stone.

A quick addition to the Members Meeting last night. I asked Sanjay Patel another question - this time about the plight of Durham CCC.

I had contacted the ECB media office last week both by email and phone asking for clarification about whether the ECB had "forced"
the county to become a TMG as some media pundits and tweets had stated. I gained no response from their Head of Communications,
Andy Walpole. So instead, I asked Sanjay the same question.

His response: “I have seen no evidence to support the view that Durham were told by the ECB to become a TMG. I believe this was
carried out at their own volition.”

If true, then certain members of the media and Durham supporters have been barking up the wrong yew tree.

Also, I learnt that several Sussex Board Directors feel quite strongly that Durham were not only poorly managed but very fortunate
to be bailed out by the ECB. I am awaiting to hear from one Director who is happy to explain why.

Richard Barrow is a Sussex CCC Board Director and has been an important and integral member of the club hierarchy for 20 years



After speaking with Richard at the Members Meeting on Wednesday evening, I became aware of his strong views concerning the recent ECB bail-out of Durham CCC. The following day Richard sent me an email expressing his opinions and is happy for them to be published on the blog.

“Durham have been very poorly managed and advised over the years. They have two shady and anonymous owners who live in the Far East; no one seems to know who they are; and an absent Chairman in Clive Leach, who never ever attended the cricket matches. His resignation was long overdue. Arguably they should have gone out of business. To be clear: £3.75m of funding is in reality a gift from every other county of £220,500 each to keep Durham afloat. I suspect a lot of counties will resent this when they have their own difficulties.

“I do find it hard to have sympathy, when over the years Durham have exceeded the £1.9m pay cap on several occasions; pitched for Tests they had no realistic hope selling; and could barely make a profit from an Ashes Test, which takes some doing when you look at the vast sums all other Test Grounds make in Ashes years.

“Frankly, the club have deluded themselves that they deserve international cricket, when they clearly do not. They pay their cricketers inflated salaries and sign overseas players they cannot afford. On top of this the North-East crowds do not support either the Tests or county cricket. They are not interested. Indeed, in 2016 Durham along with Glamorgan had the lowest average attendances for their Twenty20 home matches, at just 3000 per game. I do not buy the assertion that Chester le Street is isolated and difficult to get to. It is well serviced by trains and buses; has decent road access; and plenty of inexpensive dedicated parking.

“I do have a lot of respect for Paul Collingwood as a cricketer and ambassador for Durham over the years, but thought it was disingenuous of him and Ben Stokes to claim they had no idea what was going on when the financial problems of Durham were being freely discussed by the press last summer. In fact, it was even reported the club CEO, David Harker, had a private meeting with the players back in July to assure them Durham was not about to go into administration. Collingwood cannot be 'Mr Durham' banging the North-East drum one moment and in complete denial the next.

“Nobody in the cricket world wants to see counties fold, but by the same token they have to demonstrate responsibility, financial control and good governance. Maybe the ECB should place Durham into ‘special measures’?”

Good scoop S&F. Very interesting to hear from another point of view.

Methinks Durham will have to like it or lump it and Kent are going to end up looking rather foolish.

I assume this is Barrow's views and is not the view shared or supported by the club. Let's look at the facts. Durham's current wage bill puts them 13th out of 18 counties. Hardly what I would call a county which plays inflated salaries. The ECB caused this mess by their ridiculously folly policy of having nine test grounds and only six test matches. They then further compounded this by introducing a ridiculously absurd bidding war which was destined to fail. It is ridiculous that any county is in a financial mess when the ECB are sitting on £73m of cash reserves. Without the counties the ECB would be nothing and would have no reason to even exist. It's a full of pompous idiots who don't know one end of their body from another.

Unfortunately for Durham the price of the Ashes test was taking all the other rubbish matches which no other test ground would touch with a barge pole. As for Durham's T20 attendances it probably has something to do with the fact their results on the pitch have not been up to much. Whoever at the ECB thought it was a good idea to schedule back to back tests at Headingley and Chester Le Street deserves to be shot. But for the Spen Carma legacy Sussex would in the same mess as Durham. Sussex have made some bad decisions like increasing the playing budget by £300K and getting relegated. In 2009 Jim May was quoted as saying "Our salary bill is around £1.4million. Sussex players are paid between £20,000 and six figures."

So in conclusion I feel his comments are both ill informed and crass especially the Ashes comment where the accounts showed a £2.6m improvement in the bottom line. His assertion about the train and bus service is also nonsense. Finally, they didn't pay enough to keep Stoneman or Borthwick who opted instead for moneybags Surrey (Is the wage cap £3m for them?). Furthermore the ECB owe Durham a debt of gratitude for producing players like Collingwood, Harmison, Stokes, Wood, Plunkett and Onions. Without the counties there would be no England or ECB!