County Championship: Does the Durham Punishment Hint that the ECB has a Hidden Agenda?

 

County Championship

Does the Durham Punishment Hint that the ECB has a Hidden Agenda?

October 4^th  2016

 

[I have taken the unusual step of adding a lot of links in the text to news stories that provide background on the events discussed here. It is worth following some of them to remind yourself of events as they happened and their consequences.]

In my last entry, I wrote:

“Bizarre things happen within English cricket”

How right I was!

Once again the County Championship makes headlines for the wrong reasons and those within the game start to suspect that maybe the ECB is making a point.

Is it a coincidence that just when the ECB is trying to break the hold of the counties on the game in the British Isles with a new city-based T20 tournament that almost no one actually seems to want and the Championship has been reduced to make room for it, Durham receives a brutal punishment for getting into debt that will beholden it to the ECB for several years?

And, of course, Durham is one of the sides that had not reached into its cheque book to sign big stars: it has developed its own players and produced many who have gone on to play for England, while also re-habilitating players such as Liam Plunkett.

Counties that want to hold international cricket have to improve their grounds to the requisite standards. There is nothing wrong with that: fans these days expect decent facilities. The problem is that they have to make bids for games no guarantee of what they will get… apart from a huge bill from the ECB for the privilege of holding the game.

Let us have a look at one example – not Durham – that has been nearly catastrophic for the club involved. There are plenty of other counties who have similar, if less disastrous experiences.

Gloucestershire held their first ODI at the County Ground in Bristol during the 1983 World Cup. In that tournament some games for the less-fancied teams went to grounds that had never dreamed international cricket. Tunbridge Wells got the extraordinary game in which Zimbabwe oh so nearly eliminated eventual Champions India from the tournament, despite Kapil Dev’s stunning 175* having come in at 17-5 (fans can speculate how the history of cricket would have changed had India lost that game). Bristol got the rather low-key New Zealand v Sri Lanka game but, for cricket fans in the West, it was a welcome chance to see an international live without having to make a 200km road trip.

It was 16 years before Bristol saw another ODI, this time in the 1999 World Cup – Pakistan v West Indies – a plumb game for a city with big West Indian and Pakistani populations. From then until 2010 Bristol saw 12 ODIs, including two England v Australia matches and a couple of other big games.

The ECB then stepped in and told Gloucestershire that if they wanted to retain status as a category “B” ground (i.e. able to hold ODIs, but not Tests), a major re-development of the ground was required. It was a huge undertaking: 147 apartments, a new ground entrance, new TV facilities, a new pavilion, underground car parks, floodlights, etc. And ground capacity increased to 17000.

17000? Around the year 2000, club membership was 6000 and One Day games regularly attracted 4000+ paying spectators. By 2014, the membership had reduced to just one thousand paying members, plus a hard core of another thousand life members. And with Gloucestershire’s playing results slumping – in T20 especially Gloucestershire has had a dire record – attendances have plummeted. One doubts that there were many days with more than a hundred paying spectators in the Championship.

I would be the first to admit that the Neville Road ground, with its low concrete roof over the public seating, wide open spaces and council houses behind the ground was not the most beautiful setting to play cricket in England, nor the greatest spectator experience. Certainly it was not number 1 with players (one well-known international even compared it to Derby!)

However, a rather poor club like Gloucestershire that has been mired in Division 2 since 2006 and that has not won anything since the five years around the turn of the Millennium when Mark Alleyne gloriously turned the team into a force in the Limited Overs game, cannot find Ten Million Pounds at the drop of a hat. Everything depended in obtaining planning permission for luxury flats and for floodlights: the former to defray costs, the latter to be allowed to host big games and bring in revenue.

Of course, Bristol City Council rejected planning permission in January 2012. As a result, the scheduled 2013 ODI disappeared. Planning permission was eventually granted on appeal, but only after Gloucestershire were faced with a move away from Neville Road and lost players whose contracts depended on the development making money available to the club, which had severe cash flow problems. Things were so bad that Gloucestershire were close to having to use amateurs to be able to field a playing XI during the 2012 season, having just failed in a bid for promotion the previous year as Surrey came from nowhere to join Middlesex in going up. Half of that 2011 side left for the 2012 season because there was no money to pay them.

Was this the end of Gloucestershire’s travails? Of course it was not!

October 2014: Gloucestershire applied for planning permission for floodlights. Without them international cricket and the lucrative day/night matches are impossible. Having them was a pre-condition for getting games in the 2019 World Cup.

February 2015: Planning permission was rejected. With that, ODIs in 2017, 2018 and 2019 plus the four World Cup games allocated are suddenly in danger – no floodlights, no World Cup games.

April 2015: Floodlights finally approved on appeal, although the four World Cup games are now three. Small mercies.

So, since being told by the ECB to upgrade facilities, Gloucestershire have gone through hell and their very existence has been threatened. Mind you, there are plenty within the game who feel that Gloucestershire’s record – no County Championship and only a small number of England players developed in recent years (Jack Russell, Mike Smith, Jon Lewis, David Lawrence are the only Test players that I can think of) – makes Gloucestershire prime candidates to be merged with another county (Glamorgan are the usual suspects for a merger), or just disappear completely.

So, what have Gloucestershire got from this six year odyssey?

The answer will be breathtakingly familiar to Durham fans. Since the England v Bangladesh game on July 10^th 2010 (England lost a low-scoring thriller), the Neville Road ground in Bristol, now re-branded as Brightside, has seen just two games, both abandoned. England v India in 2014 – no toss. England v Sri Lanka in 2016 – no result.

So far at least, Gloucestershire’s huge investment in retaining international cricket has hardly paid-off in resounding fashion. So there will undoubtedly be much sympathy with Durham’s plight in Bristol.

So, what of Durham? Rumours that the county were in desperate financial trouble and could go under have been circulating all season. Even in May there were suggestions that Durham needed a rescue of at least two million Pounds and would have to forego its right to hold more Tests.

Grounds bid for a package of games and, having received a prime game in the 2013 Ashes series, the flip side was to get a low-profile, early-season Test as part of the package (take it or leave it). That meant a game against Sri Lanka in 2016.

Having awarded the 1^st Test v Sri Lanka to Headingley (Sri Lanka totalled 210 in two innings), Durham was assigned the 2^nd Test. Apart from the fact that this was seen by many as a rather mean-spirited attempt to discomfort the tourists by playing May Tests on seaming pitches in cold weather, the one-sided nature of the 1^st Test and the fact that it had also been played in the north meant that advance ticket sales for Chester-le-Street were poor. A Friday start (unlike the more affluent south, an expensive day off work to watch a Test is a real luxury), the absence of Ben Stokes, injured, and a game that seemed likely to end in three days hardly encouraged fans to turn up on the gate.

Durham made a huge loss on the game and were unable to pay the ECB their £923000 staging fee. Add this to perhaps as much as £6 million owed to the local council and the interest on that debt and Durham were in real trouble.

Why did Durham even want to stage Tests? It was one of the conditions of receiving First Class status that they have a Test-class ground and the Riverside is unquestionably one of the loveliest grounds in the country, although some distance from the big population centres of Sunderland, Durham and Newcastle and their huge pool of potential spectators.

Have Durham actually committed “financial impropriety”? (that word is a euphemism) The ECB says “no”. Some angry fans say “yes”, that they have been trading when insolvent. Others point out that they have just followed ECB directives and paid the price for it.

Have they gained an unfair advantage this season? This is a tricky one. Judging a “what if…” is nearly impossible. Durham are the only side that have actually ever been punished for breaking the salary cap and part of their punishment now is a strict salary cap for several years. Would Durham have been relegated if they had taken drastic financial steps to balance their books? Many around Hampshire, but certainly not all their fans, think that they did gain an unfair advantage. Having missed out on salvation on the last day of the season it is not unreasonable that they grasp any opportunity to save themselves (NB: for much of the campaign Hampshire’s results have been pretty dire and many would have added the word “lucky” had they escaped]. One suspects though that Durham did not gain an unfair advantage, simply because unless they had been initiated pre-season, the logical thing would have been to cut playing expenses at the end of the season by releasing players: mid-season only off-field costs could have been reduced. You can certainly argue that the crisis was only triggered after the Test match and that, had the match made money, the crisis would have been averted, thus Durham have not had an unfair playing advantage.

What is not in doubt is that many fans are very unhappy about the opportunistic way that Hampshire have taken advantage of the Durham misfortune and the triumphalist trumpeting that has followed their reprieve. It could well be that not all neutral fans will forget this easily.

The ECB release trumpets that Durham have “accepted a substantial aid package”. That is a masterful use for the English language. What has been done is to write-off half on the debt… but only half. There is still around £3 million hanging around their necks like a millstone.

What about the sanctions? This, for many fans, is the worry.

Relegation: several players have already left. Others have release clauses in the case of relegation. Durham may have to make a drastic reduction in their playing staff to meet the salary cap. Income will be down. Membership will undoubtedly drop. Division 2 cricket does not pull in the crowds the way that the top Division does. It is harder to attract and keep the big names who might take a small pay cut for the prestige of playing Division 1 cricket and getting help up the ladder.

With a reduction in playing staff, getting back up is made so much harder (look at the problems that Gloucestershire and Kent have had to get back on an even keel after massive cuts in Budget). The suggestion is that Durham may have a tough time in 2017.

Of course, not all counties suffer as badly from relegation. Lancashire and Yorkshire (who have had to deal with their own financial strife) bounced straight back. Worcestershire are the original Division One and a Half yo-yo.

The suspicion is that Durham must either come straight back up, or face a return to the bad years after their elevation, with years in the wilderness which, in the current financial position, would threaten their very survival.

Points deduction: Et tu brute? Many fans point to the strong community atmosphere at Chester-le-Street. This makes one suspect that a lot of players will rally around and stick with the club, even in Division 2 and with smaller salaries. If Durham were to bounce back, things will be fine, but what if next season is a disaster and Durham look set for five or ten years in Division 2? Will they still hang around? What if a player like Keaton Jennings sees his prospects of an England career vanish because he is stuck in Division 2?

Of course, the ECB has had a simple solution for this. A whopping 48 point deduction. This means that Durham will need 2 maximum point wins more than their rivals to get promoted.

Basically the ECB is saying “we are relegating you and we are damn well going to make sure that you stay relegated”.

Durham being Durham and with their seam attack, it is perfectly possible that they could still even win Division 2. Most seasons there is a side that completely dominates the Division (unlike the 2016 season). And one can imagine that some of the players will be utterly determined to obtain promotion, whatever the obstacles put in their way, but they will be trying to do it with one hand tied behind their backs.

And, just in case, there are also smaller, but important points deductions in the One Day Cup and T20 Blast just to stop any sneaky qualifying for the profitable knock-out stages of those competitions next year.

It is hard to avoid the feeling that the ECB wants to make sure that it has sides in its pocket when it announces new, money-spinning (possibly) initiatives for cricket. Durham for one will be hanging on TV revenues and the ECB’s annual pay-out and will be in no situation to make waves.