Cricket officials on LinkedIn

Readers of Cricket Burble will know that I occasionally ponder in writing why ex-cricketers are considered to be right for the off-field business-related roles that surround the on the field game, rather than those with years or even decades of business experience. A bit of an assumption perhaps, to suggest that the financial concerns of many counties in England would have been avoided, but certainly business experience doesn't seem to be at the top of the list when hiring cricket officials/administrators.

So when I read this piece about how the ECB are promoting their Ashes coverage, I noticed that Steve Elworthy had the title of "ECB Director of Marketing and Communications" I thought I'd look him up on LinkedIn to see if he has any relevant marketing experience. As I suspected, Steve (who seems to be doing a pretty good job incidentally), seems to have limited experience - not surprising since he had a successful cricket career before getting into business. Very intelligent (with an Electrical Engineering Degree) and dedicated he might be, but would he be the best candidate against Director-level sports marketers with a couple of decades of successful experience? I find that hard to believe.

But, probably more interestingly, he's linked to various people in the cricketing world and while I'm certainly not going to look at each and every one, I couldn't help but take a peak at Lalit Modi's LinkedIn profile.

I wonder if the day will come when the game is run by 90%+ businessmen with ex-cricketers to support them, rather than current large numbers of ex-players?