Shastri and Gavaskar BCCI employees

There seems some genuine surprise at the fact that Ravi Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar are paid by the BCCI for some of their commentary work. I don't think it's that surprising given, as ex-India spinner Maninder Singh has said "It's symptomatic of what the country is going through. There are scams, corruption in every sphere of life and cricket is no different." If you've ever been to India you'll recognise and understand that sentiment.

Surprising or not, I do think the amount they're paid is obscene. 3.6 crore, which I believe is £4,896,000 [this is actually 10 times too much - see comments!]. It doesn't seem a justifiable amount for an annual salary for any role, but certainly not cricket commentary. So the assumption I find it hard to avoid considering is that they must be being paid that much to ensure that they say exactly what the BCCI would like them to say - it would be interesting to hear what other explanation there is for that much money being paid for an ordinary commentary role?

Interesting to see that Shastri's intransigence around the UDRS, echoing that of the BCCI, is now being called into question. His little spat with Nasser Hussain made me laugh - first Hussain references the fact he has played 96 Tests as a reason why he's allowed to voice an opinion about the BCCI....surely it's the fact that he is a commentator and his role is, as Geoff Boycott isn't shy of reminding us, to comment. Who cares how many Tests he has or hasn't played?

And then Shastri's retort...."India has every right to take it or not". Erm, not really - ever heard of democracy Ravi? The ICC members should be putting it to a blind vote and then implementing the UDRS. One of the reasons the BCCI gave for not implementing the UDRS a while back was that it cost too much. Perhaps a bit of a cut back on paying back-handers to commentators fellas, and then you wouldn't just be able to pay for the technology for India's home series, you'd be able to pay for the low-income nations to use it too. Now that really would be fantastic leadership of the game of cricket.

A little bit of cockiness can go a long way...

At the PCA player of the year awards Eoin Morgan won ODI player of the summer and when collecting his award was asked by Nasser Hussain "Are you as cool as you make out, or are there some butterflies going on within?"

Morgan's reply: "No, I'm as cool as I make out."

Nice!

James Anderson coming out of his shell

Nasser Hussain famously said that he struggled to get a word out of James Anderson in the England changing room, but it appears that he's now Mr Confident. He's leading England's bowling attack, and he's getting his kit off. Not content with this starkers shot advertising Hugo Boss, he's now going to appear nude on the front of gay magazine Attitude to assert the rights of gay men in cricket to come out. I can't imagine Graeme Swann congratulating him on that without a hint of sarcasm!!

Save Test matches!

We have discussed the craziness of the players going off in decent light before on Cricket Burble, but it happened again yesterday and I can't help thinking it's absolutely vital now - for the successful future of the game - that something is done about it. Yesterday I was at the Oval and the light was decent all day, but there was cloud cover at all times. Mid-way through the afternoon the umpires asked for the lights to be put on.

The light hadn't changed to the naked eye - in fact it seemed better than earlier in the day - when the players were taken off after 73 overs in the day. The match situation was interesting to say the least - a game that looked like going into day 5 at tea was suddenly threatening to be cut very short by England's collapse so the authorities were looking at the prospect of having to repay some of the ticket price to the sell out day 4 crowd on Saturday if the match finished quickly.

The only explanation for the players being taken off is money - there is no doubt in my mind about that. The light was definitely not dangerous for cricket. The only explanation for the fact that players are taken off in Tests, and yet the same conditions aren't considered dangerous in one dayers or Twenty20s, is that spectators have already paid their money when the game is contained to one day, and there's no benefit to stalling the game for the authorities.

Nasser Hussain summed things up nicely on Sky when the umpires first discussed the light a few minutes before they took the players off. Talking to Michael Atherton, he said "You are joking Michael, this is rediculous, they can't be chatting about light surely?" Need I say more? I hope whoever pressured the umpires to come off to ensure more money in the coffers had trouble sleeping last night but somehow I doubt it - he or she probably thinks they did a brilliant thing as money is the only thing that counts it seems.

But the future of Test matches is at stake. I haven't been to a Test for a few years because of the bad light issue, and it happened again when I went back to try again. Why should people like me keep returning? Perhaps a campaign is required?

SAVE TEST MATCHES! Play in the same standards of light in all 3 formats of cricket - it's either dangerous or it isn't!

Bad light ends day early....again

Sadly the England batsmen accepted the offer to go off for bad light in non-dangerous circumstances. I won't bang on about the craziness of the bad light law given the huge amount of protective gear now worn by batsmen. But I'm pleased I didn't go up to Old Trafford - a ground that I've never been to - despite not working today! I did give it some consideration but this sort of thing means that I, and people like me, will continue to stay at home....I'm not sure how that can be helpful in the attempts to boost Test cricket.

On another note, why is Nasser obsessed with calling Ian Botham "Sir Ian" - surely he can just call him Ian or Both?!?

Four letter word usage....

Is it just me and the rest of our touring cricket party who thought that Johnson turned to Anderson having got him out this morning and called him the C word? I'm not a lip reader but it looked like that. Two questions arise:

1. Can't the Aussies of the past give these current lot some sledging advice - just calling someone a c*** shows little imagination and won't bring a smile to the faces of those who hear that sledge many years later like some of the best old ones have done.

2. What is it about Anderson that winds oppositions up? Fidel Edwards seemed to lose the plot when he came in and it's not the first time. When I read Nasser Hussain's autobiography he said that he struggled to get Anderson to say a word in the England changing room so it's difficult to believe that he does anything to rile players so much in the middle.

Owing it to cricket?

Obviously a lot has been said and written about whether the England team should or should not return to India and I bet there are more twists to come out of the story yet. But what bothered me was Nasser Hussain (of whom I'm normally a huge fan) saying that they had to go because they 'owed it to cricket'. I'm pretty certain that if I planned to go where terrorists have recently targeted tourists my wife and family would reckon that I owed it to them more to remain safe rather than owing any 'duty' to any form of employment, no matter how lucrative.

Did anybody else find it amusing that it was suggested that the Middlesex players Finn, Murtagh and Richardson (who's in the 'development squad' anyway) should join England as they'd already got visas. Do you need visa for India and how difficult would it be to get one if you were going there to play International cricket ?

Hussain gets plaudit from Tendulkar

"Asked who he thought was the most inspiring captain he had encountered, Tendulkar said Nasser Hussain, the former England captain, was one who was always two steps ahead of the game."


So says Sachin Tendulkar at the end of this piece which mostly refers to the fact he may still want to take part in the next World Cup. (I find it surprising that is news - before the last World Cup the Indian media where near hysteria about the fact that it was the last World Cup was the last one for several of the older generation - I always thought Tendulkar would play in 2011 - we'll see but he's certainly not on his last legs yet).


Anyway, Nasser Hussain has not been thought of as a strategically adept captain in the past as far as I know - inspiring - yes, gritty - yes, but a cunning strategist - no. Perhaps Hussain's tactics of bowling well outside off to Tendulkar that received such criticism at the time had a greater affect than we gave Hussain credit for.

More on Ian Bell!

England's batting has been decidedly fragile in the first 3 ODI's in New Zealand and my thoughts on that the other day were to move Mustard down the order. This piece by Mike Selvey in the Guardian got me thinking about Bell though....I've never been a huge fan of Bell as my previous posts show (Bell sums himself up in one innings), possibly because England chose to leave out their best batsman over the previous 12 months going into the 2005 Ashes for him. There is just no comparison between Graham Thorpe and Ian Bell as far as I'm concerned, but it's not Bell's fault he got picked for that series and worked over by the Aussies.

A certain other Cricket Burbler, Dave McCabe, has previously laid out the positive arguments for Bell: Ian Bell, but I've still not been converted, despite Bell's decent ODI record which has also been burbled about before (Positives for Ian Bell). Selvey's article sums up many of my reservations about Bell, and it was interesting to hear the radio commentary team describing watching Bell in ODIs as being like watching Nasser Hussain - the pressure builds and builds until he has to play a get out of jail shot which he either gets away with, or is his downfall. What the article doesn't mention - but perhaps is implicit in the opinion that Bell can't pace his innings correctly - is his shot selection. I continue to fear that Bell will give his wicket away at any stage in his innings (admittedly he was done for by another wrong decision in the last ODI). He is also renouned as the person that always plays great shots for 0 as his placement lets him down.

You can read the full article here. Michael Vaughan or Owais Shah for number 3 in the ODI set up anyone?

Hussain slates Gatting and Morris roles

It was a near certainty that Nasser Hussain wouldn't be happy with Gatting getting a senior England role and he hasn't disappointed. He argues that this smacks of "jobs for the boys".

As readers of Cricket Burble will know, it has long concerned me that cricketing authorities seem to think that ex-pros should get preferential treatment when recruiting for cricketing administration positions. If you look at the skills required logically, playing the game to a high standard would come well down the list of requirements. It's a bit like having a foreign language when interviewing for a UK based jobs. It's no more beneficial than that. So why are so many cricket roles filled by ex-cricketers?

I agree with Hussain that until positions are filled on merit, English cricket won't move forward with the pace that would be ideal.

Politicians and cricket boards

More controversy about Zimbabwe and whether to tour there - or at least a little bit of controversy where there should be none. Put aside the fact that Australia are so much better than Zimbabwe that sending their full strength team there would be like men against children still in nappies, they clearly also shouldn't go because of the political situation in Zimbabwe.

The Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, said as much, "My view is that the tour shouldn't go ahead. If it were to go ahead then Australia, which is after all the world champion team," (just had to get that in there didn't he - typically Australian!), "would give Zimbabwe's regime and it's President, who has been patron of Zimbabwe Cricket Association, a propaganda victory. We shouldn't do that - this is a horrific regime in Zimbabwe and we should take a stand against it."

Couldn't agree more. But why did he have to go public with that statement now when he's meeting Cricket Australia next week? How much stronger would the statement of not sending the team have been, if he had kept his mouth shut until after the meeting and then the government and Cricket Australia had held a joint press conference utterly condemning Mugabe's regime and publicly stating that the Australian team will not tour Zimbabwe until things have changed. No fuss, no controversy, no big build up. Just the correct decision at the correct time, publicised in the correct way.

Obviously the situation isn't unique to Australia - England had all sorts of problems in the lead up to the last World Cup and the team's refusal to play in Zimbabwe ultimately meant that they didn't make it through the group stages. The difference here though, and this is something that the Australian government should be applauded for, is that the government has already said they would pay the $2m fine from the ICC when Australia decline to tour there. The England team in 2003 unfortunately didn't have that support from their goverment, as Nasser Hussain outlines in his autobiography.

The fact that the ICC are ignoring moral issues and continuing to fine sides that don't tour Zimbabwe is outrageous and surely it's a matter of time before a cricket board or group of national cricket boards gets together to challenge the ICC in a court of law. Until then though, aren't the ICC missing something? If they scheduled back to back series in Zimbabwe then the amount of cricket would be the same - zero - but their revenue would go up through all the fines. Given their stance on Zimbabwe that compleletely lacks and moral considerations, this would seem an obvious road for them to go down.

The Schofield Report

There is an epidemic of enquiries and reports across all publicly accountable organisations these days, whether it be government or, in this case, the ECB. Clearly there was a requirement to look into what happened in Australia and the Caribbean, as is the case after all tours whether they be successful or otherwise, but is it just Cricket Burble that thinks there are too many people contributing?

The list of authors are a list of ex England cricketers and Ken Schofield himself, who was Executive Director of the European Golf Tour for 30 years. The full list of these ex-players compiling the report are: Nasser Hussain, Nick Knight, Angus Fraser, Hugh Morris, Micky Stewart and Brian Rose. Cricket Burble would be very interested to hear how they are going about their task, because seven heads is surely too many to collate a report like this? And why the list of 6 ex-England cricketers - playing cricket doesn't necessarily mean that you are in the best position to evaluate the backroom processes of an international cricket team - in fact, some like Hussain, are too close to Fletcher and some of the players to be truly objective, even if it is only on an unconscious level.

If you take Hussain in particular, he went very public in his autobiography about his huge admiration for Fletcher - while he would certainly be able to put this to the back of his mind, he must be able to admit he's not the best man for this job. Interestingly the report is meant to be delving into the team's affairs over the last 4 years - one wonders what has happened to the previous tour reports that must have been compiled. And have you noticed the significance of the dates involved - Hussain was still playing at the start of the 4 year period he's looking into. Hussain's decision to take up the ECB's request to play a part in the report seems all the more odd because of his quite correct publicly stated objections to "jobs for the boys". He outlines in his book just why he feels so many counties are poorly run - because they are run by ex-cricketers rather than businessmen.

When Greg Chappell resigned as coach of the Indian team he allegedly declined to give in his post World Cup report that was expected of him and the BCCI didn't push him for it. Duncan Fletcher's ECB legacy it appears, is out of his hands too, although the decision wasn't of his making. Let's hope that Schofield and his ECB assembled group of ex-international cricket players, can come up with a report that really drives English cricket forward, rather than digs knives in to various backs. If they do, they at least will have proven that they perhaps were right for the job of writing the report, even if there are too many of them.