Bill Bridge: Future of cricket both worldwide and closer to home is a growing concern

IF the events of this bizarre summer proved anything it was that those who administer our cricket on both national and international fronts live in a world far removed to that inhabited by the rest of us.

That conviction was underlined by two totally separate but equally deflating incidents which, had it been any other game would have provoked outrage.

First we had Haroon Lorgat, the chief executive of the International Cricket Council, saying in public: "I believe there is no match fixing. I am confident the problem has been sorted" before, quite outrageously, claiming that the ICC had themselves "sorted" the spot-fixing which blighted this summer's visit by Pakistan.

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"We revised the anti-corruption code last year and that was the machinery which allowed us to act in the fashion that we did," he added, without even a nod of thanks to the newspapers which revealed the scam involving no-balls delivered to order.

Had it not been for those journalists who dug out the evidence the ICC would not have had anything to act upon, so inefficient was their anti-corruption unit.

With men like Lorgat in charge of the world game we really must fear for the future but things are not much better closer to home, as was illustrated by the failure of the England and Wales Cricket Board to agree on the domestic schedule for next season.

Instead they set up a working party charged with coming up with a format which will be acceptable to all 18 counties by November 17. That means the 2011 fixtures will be further delayed, causing all sorts of logistical problems for the counties.

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The sticking point at the Lord's meeting was the clubs' failure to agree on the number of Twenty20 matches each would play with the bigger counties seeking a reduction from 16 to 10 and their smaller, less affluent, brethren determined to hold on to what they see as a vital income stream.

Despite a majority in favour of the reduction, the proposal was not carried. Could that have anything to do, a cynic might wonder, with the fact that Giles Clarke, the president of the ECB, is desperate not to lose the support of the smaller counties; he knows their votes will be vital when the time comes for him to seek re-election.

"Someone at the top has to make a strong decision," said Yorkshire's director of professional cricket Martyn Moxon.

He is right but, like the ICC, the ECB does not seem much endowed in that department.

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IT WAS a week when cycling should have been celebrating the World Championships in Australia, not least Thor Hushovd's success in yesterday's road-race which won Norway a first gold medal at the elite level; instead it was – yet again – all about drug-taking.

The perpetrator – or victim, as he would have us believe – this time was Alberto Contador and for the second time in just four years the winner of the biggest race of all, the Tour de France, faces being stripped off victory.

Contador tested positive for Clenbuterol during this year's race, in which he triumphed after a magnificent battle against Andy Schleck but claims the banned substance entered his body through a piece of contaminated meat and that the miniscule levels of the drug found in his blood proved that he had not been taking illegal substances at a level which would have improved his performance.

Further, he claims that UCI, the sport's governing body, has agreed with his version of events and that they should not have imposed the suspension they have put in place until further investigations have taken place.

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Contador has been vociferous in his claims of innocence and David Millar, the British rider who has served a suspension for drug-taking, suggested UCI could be jumping to conclusions and presuming guilt where in fact there was innocence. "Alberto has just been thrown to the sharks," he insisted.

Whatever the conclusion to the latest mess cycling has found itself in –and this does not seem as a cut-and-dried a situation as that which involved Floyd Landis, the Tour winner two years ago – it seems cycling and cyclists still do not have the wit or the will to put their house in order.

In these days of tightly controlled diet, Contador was taking an unacceptable risk in eating meat sourced outside the team pantry; the UCI, on the other hand, could be accused of wielding the big stick without addressing the issue of intent on Contador's part.

WORKFORCE may have been the talk of Paris after his fine victory in yesterday's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe but in Malton they barely mentioned his name, so thrilled were they by the performance of their own Wootton Bassett in the earlier Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere over seven stamina-sapping furlongs.

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Unbeaten in his first four runs, scooping massive prize-money along the way in two Sales races, the Richard Fahey-trained Wootton Bassett confirmed his place among the favourites for next year's Classics when he ran a sublime race under a supremely-confident ride from Paul Hanagan.

The 2,000 Guineas will be the target over the winter but it is too early to say whether he will mature into a three-year-old capable of staying the 12 furlongs of the Derby. If he does, he could well become as much a national hero as Workforce, winner at Epsom and Longchamp.

Malton and Yorkshire expects …

and another thing...

VIRTUALLY every speaker at the opening ceremony of the Ryder Cup in Wales rightly made mention of the part played by Samuel Ryder, who made his fortune by selling flower seeds in penny packets, in creating one of the highlights of the golfing calendar.

Some even pointed out that Ryder envisaged his competition as a means of promoting friendship between professionals from these islands and the United States with no financial reward involved.

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All that was before the heavens opened and the carefully drawn-up timetable was twice washed out, a possibility which did not seem to have crossed the minds of those who run the biennial competition despite the fact that rain is not unusual in Wales at this – or any other – time of year.

Neither did they mention that this year's Ryder Cup had been put back a week at the US PGA's request, to allow their FedEx Cup, with its obscene prize fund, to be completed.

So it was not difficult, as towels were wrung, squeegees deployed and waterproof trousers found to be exactly the opposite, to imagine Sam Ryder, as he strolled the celestial fairways, looking down and smiling ever-so quietly to himself.