Chris Waters: ECB’s obsession with money-spinning white-ball formats has led to Ashes humiliation and parlous state of Test cricket

WOULD English cricket be in a better condition if Boris Johnson was running it as opposed to Tom Harrison?
Over and out: Yorkshire and England's Joe Root reacts after being clean bowled by Australia's Scott Boland during the Hobart defeat. Picture: Darren England via AAP/PA Wire.Over and out: Yorkshire and England's Joe Root reacts after being clean bowled by Australia's Scott Boland during the Hobart defeat. Picture: Darren England via AAP/PA Wire.
Over and out: Yorkshire and England's Joe Root reacts after being clean bowled by Australia's Scott Boland during the Hobart defeat. Picture: Darren England via AAP/PA Wire.

WOULD English cricket be in a better condition if Boris Johnson was running it as opposed to Tom Harrison?

It says everything that you probably need to think about that for a few moments before answering.

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Why, you could probably put this Sue Gray character in charge of the England and Wales Cricket Board and get a better return than Harrison has delivered for circa £700,000 a year plus bonuses.

Mutual respect: Australia's captain Pat Cummins, left, shakes hands with England's captain Joe Root after the Hobart Test.  (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)Mutual respect: Australia's captain Pat Cummins, left, shakes hands with England's captain Joe Root after the Hobart Test.  (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)
Mutual respect: Australia's captain Pat Cummins, left, shakes hands with England's captain Joe Root after the Hobart Test. (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)

Perhaps once Gray has finished her inquiry into the Downing Street parties she can turn her attention to the rot running through the ECB, where not even the most highly-skilled spin doctor could put a favourable gloss on the Ashes debacle.

For it is not so much a red-ball “reset” that is needed, to quote the ham-fisted Harrison, after England lost the fifth Test in Hobart inside three days, the tourists capitulating to surrender their last 10 wickets for 56 runs having been 68-0 at one stage in pursuit of 271 for a consolation victory.

No, it is a red-ball revolution that is required after the ECB’s prevailing obsession with money, white-ball cricket and pitiful concepts such as The Hundred provided the predictable backdrop to a 4-0 defeat that would have been 5-0 but for an unlikely escape in Sydney with nine wickets down.

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“It feels like this is a moment to reset the importance of red-ball cricket in our domestic schedule, for us to recalibrate how we play first-class cricket in the UK,” said Harrison the other day, as though the one penny that he had not banked during his time at the ECB had suddenly dropped.

Four-midable: Australia celebrate winning the Ashes series 4-0 after winning the fifth Ashes test at the Blundstone Arena, Hobart. Picture: Darren England via AAP/PA Wire.Four-midable: Australia celebrate winning the Ashes series 4-0 after winning the fifth Ashes test at the Blundstone Arena, Hobart. Picture: Darren England via AAP/PA Wire.
Four-midable: Australia celebrate winning the Ashes series 4-0 after winning the fifth Ashes test at the Blundstone Arena, Hobart. Picture: Darren England via AAP/PA Wire.

When Ashley Giles, English cricket’s Sue Gray, compiles his review into the series to take to Harrison and his colleagues, it is a fair bet that the managing director of men’s cricket will point to failings in the County Championship schedule, the quality of pitches and the clear need for systemic change; in other words, it will be a document detailing the bleedin’ obvious.

It is not the fact that England lost to a clearly better team that sticks in the craw; this Australian side is not a great side, but it is a very good one, with all bases covered in its own conditions.

It is the fact that England did not even compete overall as highlighted by the humbling margins of defeat: nine wickets, 275 runs, an innings and 14 runs and, in Hobart, 146 runs.

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Throw in some poor team selection and curious tactics, for which culpability, for once, does not rest with Harrison, but with captain Joe Root and coach Chris Silverwood, and it was a recipe for the humiliation that followed.

As an advert for Test cricket and for Ashes cricket it was dire; as an advert for the present state of English cricket it was an embarrassment.

Root batted off questions concerning his captaincy with considerably more success than the shooter which snuck beneath his bat and bowled him on a chastening day at the Bellerive Oval, the Yorkshireman reduced to mere mortal during a series in which he managed 322 runs at 32.20 - still nearly a hundred runs more than any of his team-mates, by the way.

He insisted that he wants to carry on as leader and, in the absence of viable alternatives, may do so while Silverwood potentially carries the can - not least for the failings of those above him.

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Indeed, practically the only positive amid the wreckage in Tasmania was the manner in which Root conducted himself in defeat, paying generous tribute to Australia and generally displaying the ambassadorial skills that are not the least of his myriad qualities. The Yorkshireman is not only a great batsman, but a great man, too.

Alas, he and his colleagues are being scuppered by a system that not even Root’s usually prolific output of runs can mask any longer, a system that is broken almost beyond repair and perhaps now only partially repairable.

Yes, England’s white-ball cricket went to a new level en route to the World Cup triumph of 2019, and The Hundred has done great things for the exposure of women’s cricket in particular, for too long the bridesmaid and not the bride.

But the over-emphasis on white-ball cricket generally and the introduction of a fourth format for the men’s game has resulted in a tipping point for a red-ball format which Harrison and his ilk have too long taken for granted along with those who support it - not least Yorkshire’s loyal members and supporters.

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In an attempt to make yet more money and win over new fans, people who have no interest in cricket and probably never will, the ECB has forgotten about the supporters it already has and simply assumed their undying devotion.

For years they have got away with it but this tour feels like an assumption too far, a line in the sand from which they cannot simply retreat and hope will somehow magically disappear with the tide.

No, people are fed up with it. They are fed up with seeing England routinely hammered in Australia. Even the Australians are fed up with it. They want a fair dinkum contest as much as the Poms.

Of course, this being England, there had to be an element of hope thrown in before all hope was extinguished. Rory Burns and Zak Crawley indeed played well to fashion England’s only half-century opening stand of the series - itself a damning statistic and one that prompted Michael Vaughan to urge on Twitter: “Wake up in England... genuine chance of a Test win looming!”

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Although the numbers of those actually capable of reading tweets while asleep is unknown, the point was a fair one - namely, get yer sens out of bed, people, and turn on the nearest television or radio. You never know what might happen...

Alas, deep down, all of us knew exactly what would happen - no doubt Vaughan included.

There really is no point in describing the dismissals; just imagine some of the softest, most unconvincing shots that you can think of and you will not be in the ballpark of delusion.

England got what they deserved - and they also got what had been coming for a long time.