Yesterday we heard from one of English cricket’s great leaders, the ECB’s chief exec Tom Harrison. He’s very much the board’s youthful moderniser. Or at least that’s what he’s supposed to be.
The reality, however, is that his real skill is squeezing money out of broadcasters. He played an important role when test cricket left terrestrial TV after the 2005 Ashes and moved to Sky (for an irresistibly huge wad of cash of course), and then worked for IMG to negotiate media contracts for the IPL.
Consequently, when the ECB was looking for a new chief executive a while back, Harrison had all the right credentials: he was one hundred percent committed to generating as much media revenue as possible from TV companies … and then worrying about the consequences later.
And that’s the whole problem with Tom Harrison. The one thing he’ll never ever contemplate – because it would inevitably involve admitting that he’s spent his career seeking short term financial advantages to the long term detriment of English cricket – is whether satellite television’s monopoly over live cricket is problematic. Therefore whenever there’s a new drop in participation or attendance figures, he’s incapable of thinking objectively. He automatically assumes it’s something else’s fault.
Unfortunately this means that Tom Harrison always looks at problems from a warped perspective. He simply won’t look at the elephant in the room (even though it’s right there wearing a pink leotard and singing the Sugar Plum Fairy); therefore his analysis is always flawed and any initiatives he launches to resuscitate English cricket amount to nothing more than rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
His latest attempts to boost participation levels involve promoting All Stars Cricket – which aims to get kids playing a watered down version of the sport in the playground – and ordering our new test captain Joe Root to play ‘bold and brave’ cricket … even if that means losing a few tests along the way.
I have no issue with All Stars Cricket. I’m in favour of anything that gets kids interested in the sport. But I’d like to ask Harrison how cricket is supposed to compete with sports that are, you know, on television regularly … like football and even rugby union? Surely handing out a few plastic bats at schools isn’t going to change a great deal in the scheme of things?
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always thought that kids want to emulate their heroes (which these days is generally prima donna footballers like Christiano Ronaldo). It doesn’t really matter that Joe Root would be a far better role model because most kids in this country (unless they’re privately educated or have Dad’s who love cricket) don’t have a clue who Joe Root is. Harrison might claim that Ben Stokes has a “huge profile” but I think we all know he’s being disingenuous.
More people in this country have heard of Nick Skelton and Nicola Adams (who excel at minority sports) than Jimmy Anderson or Alastair Cook. Why? Because they were on BBC during the Olympics and were featured on BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Cricket barely gets a mention these days. But all this is irrelevant according to English cricket’s great moderniser.
As you can probably tell, I find Tom Harrison’s bizarre worldview quite disturbing. I’m also disturbed that he’s ordering Joe Root and his team how to play:
“Joe Root and Eoin Morgan understand their responsibility to be playing exciting cricket for future generations to connect with and for fans of the game to get behind us. It’s a very deliberate strategy. It doesn’t work every time you go out on the park. But we understand that it’s more likely you’re going to be forgiven for having a bad day if you’re doing everything to try to win a game, as opposed to not trying to lose it, which is a very key difference in positioning.”
Can you imagine Greg Clarke of the FA telling Gareth Southgate how his teams should play? Even a lightweight like Southgate would probably tell him to ‘eff off. He might even remind Clarke how successful England were under Kevin Keegan, who was the ultimate ‘attack, attack, attack’ manager.
The truth is that kids want to watch winners … they identify with champions far more than noble losers. Therefore I’d argue it’s much more important to be the best team in the world than the most entertaining one.
Harrison’s perspective stems from, in my humble opinion, his complete desperation to revive English cricket by trying absolutely everything other than the obvious thing. He’ll happily tell the captain how the team should play but he’ll never tell anyone that TV viewing figures are now a fraction of what they were when England won the Ashes on terrestrial TV in 2005.
And so the ECB end up missing the point all over again. Out come the cliche’s about ‘marketing’ and ‘positioning’ (when talk of ‘elephants’ and ‘corners’ might be more useful) and the false assumption that the ECB’s new franchise T20 competition is the magic bullet that will eliminate all the demons.
“We know that we’ve got a relevance issue with five to eight year-olds at the moment, as many sports do. We know that we’ve got a sport which can appeal to these audiences if we position it correctly and we deliver experiences that makes sense to parents and makes sense to kids.”
Now the above might sound innocuous to the casual observer, but look a little closer and they reveal a man who doesn’t seem to grasp the issues. The mention of five to six years olds is particularly revealing …
I’m not sure if Tom Harrison has kids but I happen to have a 6 year old boy. Kids of that age can rarely concentrate on anything for an hour let alone the three hours it takes to complete a T20 match. Tom’s pissing in the wind if he thinks Mums are going to take their six year olds to T20 games in a big city that’s possibly miles away from home. Once the snacks run out it’s game over for the family trip out.
“We’re trying to connect everything we do with this new audience that we’re trying to attract to the game … making sure it’s relevant for mum and the family to go and spend some time at the county ground watching, taking their children along, watching a fantastic, phenomenal, exciting game of cricket”.
Now Harrison’s not wrong here. Everyone surely wants to see fantastic cricket! But what irritates me is the assumption that T20 is the only kind of cricket that’s exciting.
When I was a kid I used to love going to New Road to watch Worcs play. I didn’t care if it was a Sunday League match or a championship match. All I cared about was whether my heroes Graeme Hick and Ian Botham were playing. And why were they my heroes? Because Hick was breaking records all the time and I’d seen Botham bash the Aussies on the BBC. I probably would’ve felt short changed if they’d strolled off the field after a mere twenty overs.
Although the problems facing cricket are complex and there are no simple answers, what worries me is that people like Harrison – the people we’re relying on to protect our wonderful sport – don’t quite seem to understand the issues. Indeed, I’d argue that they haven’t even grasped what cricket actually is (or what it’s appeal actually is).
The truth is that cricket will always be a fairly subtle game. It attracts people who are prepared to invest time in something – people who like to savour the intricacies and relish the game’s tactical dimensions. Cricket is not (and will never be) football, or boxing, or darts, a soap opera, or a reality TV show. It’s a novel not a comic.
And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Instead I sense the ECB thinks that turing the game into something resembling a Bruce Willis action movie is the only way the sport can survive. Don’t they understand that the resulting product will be contrived (and they’ll alienate their traditional fan base) if they follow this boneheaded course?
What’s more I worry whether the ECB really understands people (or English people anyway). It’s almost like Harrison, having experienced media rights negotiations at the IPL, thinks that the English market is exactly the same as the Indian one. Personally I’m not so sure. Can you really see English cricket fans going loopy for artificial franchises like the Hot Smoking Chennai Super Whatzits?
I sometimes fear the ECB have bought into the cliched narrative that all people today are time poor, have short attention spans (and that anything that requires patience in today’s modern society is essentially doomed) a little too much. Personally I think people are pretty much the same as they’ve always been.
So here’s something for Tom Harrison to consider. Video games are one of the primary forms of entertainment in today’s fast-paced society. In fact, I bet Harrison lies awake at night wishing that tickets for the cricket sold as quickly as copies of Grand Theft Auto. Well, I happen to be a gamer myself. And I love GTA almost as much as I love cricket.
The reality is that Grand Theft Auto is a huge open world adventure that takes absolutely hours to complete. In fact all open world RPGs (role playing games) are the same. The storylines usually take a long time to unfold, it takes ages to master the tactics and subplots, and the drama slowly grows on you until you’re absolutely immersed in the narrative. But once you’re hooked, you’re hooked … a bit like cricket wouldn’t you say?
If you Google games like the Fallout, Mass Effect and The Witcher series, you’ll find armies of completely devoted fans who spend hundreds of hours playing RPGs and exploring every nuance. RPGs are one of the most popular form of video games in the world. And they makes lots, and lots, and lots, of money. Sure I’ve got friends who prefer basic first person shoot ’em ups like Call of Duty, where you basically pick up the control and shoot anything that moves, but the enduring success of RPGs proves to me that not all people want the same things. There’s still plenty of room for slow burning entertainment.
If only Tom Harrison and the ECB realised this. Rather than turning cricket (which is the sporting equivalent of an RPG) into a simple affair with constant action and explosions, they’d be better served by playing to cricket’s strengths: its depth, its idiosyncrasies, its beauty, and its characters. Cricket is brilliant and it doesn’t need to change much. It just needs someone to emphasise its strengths and give it a bigger stage.
And that’s why, in my opinion, English cricket is staring into the abyss. It’s because Harrison’s comments imply that those running the sport in our country have absolutely no faith in their product (as it currently is). They think it’s irrelevant, needs to change dramatically, and that T20 is the only way forward. That’s what they’ve decided and they won’t even contemplate anything else.
Personally I think they’re wrong. Profoundly wrong. I believe that cricket would be far better off if the ECB ignored all the cliches about modern life, dropped all their glitzy initiatives, and simply put live international cricket (or at least some of it) back on terrestrial television.
People like Harrison are doing more harm than good. And don’t give me that rubbish about terrestrial TV not wanting cricket. Why would Rupert Murdoch pay a king’s ransom over an eleven year period for a sport no other channel wants?
James Morgan
Aaaah, the oil slick that is Tom Harrison returneth. He’s winning, because even I can’t face typing another rant about FTA these days.
Great point about kids though. Mine are 8 this summer (twins), and in the past 2 years we’ve been to 20-20 at Lord’s, The Oval and Beckenham. The first two were a dead loss, with the kids climbing on and off the plastic seats and generally dicking about, pissing everyone else off in the process. Beckenham, by contrast, was brilliant, but only because they barely watched a ball. We just spread out a picnic on the grass (sadly, there’s much less of it since they redeveloped the ground) and the kids mucked about with a bat and ball and a few of their friends, only stopping to periodically raid the grub. From their point of view their was also some boring sport going on in the background that the grown-ups were watching…
Anyway, here’s what seems to be the new Harrison Test Match model: 1100 – England put in on a damp cloudy morning; 1215 – England all out for 112 off 16 overs. Good effort lads, jolly entertaining stuff! 48 hours later – those boring Aussies finally ground out for 620. Dave Warner, 215 off 250? Fucking snail…Hurry up lads, we want a go! Day 3, 1620 – England all out for 270 off just 33 overs. Brilliant, just brilliant entertainment! We’ve lost by an innings and 250, but never mind, there are 2 free days – we can squeeze in a couple of extra 20/20s!!! Result!
Keep up the fight James. Maybe the worm will turn.
Just had the awful realisation that it’s only 3 years before we may have to face the Harrison spin-machine in 2020…
Excellent and succinct piece, James. I didn’t know that Harrison had come to the ECB from a background in TV rights. Why then doesn’t he see that the Sky deal, and in particular it’s exclusivity, are noxious for spreading cricket? Sky paid a lot of money and will naturally protect their copyright, taking down YouTube videos, blocking streams, etc. Therefore possible avenues for spreading the game are closed. In a better situation, rights would not be so exclusive and the ECB would have the opportunity to set up channels and supply direct streaming that could generate further income while widening the potential audience. In reality, the ECB is forced to spend a lot of its TV money running to stand still (and actually failing to not get pushed backwards) in terms of public awareness and participation. It’s spending the money to try and undo the harm that stems from the expensive contract! Harrison must know this but prefers to tinker now rather than promise proper change at the next contract opportunity. Again, why? I can only assume that (as i posted earlier on a Guardian thread) he sees himself as the head of ECB plc, rather than working for the governing body of a national sport with hundreds of thousands of players and even more fans – for the time being.
Yes I agree with all of that Rooto. I’m never sure if Harrison is representing the best interests of English cricket or the number of media representatives he’s doubtless met over the years? A bit like politicians representing the business people they socialise with once they assume office.
I have no evidence that Harrison is doing this, and his intentions could be completely honourable, however I just don’t understand how someone can completely write off the obvious negative impact that hiding cricket behind a paywall has. The evidence is everywhere: the viewing figures, the participation figures, the lack of cricketers with SPOTY nominations etc. It’s just a completely surreal situation.
I guess the bottom line is that it’s just far easier for the ECB to keep taking Sky’s cash, bury their heads in the sand, and blame broader social forces that are out of their control than actually reassess their whole strategy (or admit they’ve made mistakes).
“Why then doesn’t he see that the Sky deal, and in particular it’s exclusivity, are noxious for spreading cricket?”
Because Harrison doesn’t work for the ECB. He just receives money from them.
He doesn’t even mention the ECB on his linked in profile. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-harrison-a211909/
As far as he is concerned, he is employed by the multinational corporation IMG media.
That is top work AB! I’ve just tweeted this out
Well excuse me if I show my age but I can remember a time when the only international cricket was test matches. Some games stick in the memory (Deadly bowling out the Aussies on a drying pitch in 1968 for example) but many don’t. But I could watch them on the BBC. I think the ECB can’t expect a wide audience for cricket while it insists on having all English cricket on a premium minority channel.
Spot on. Sky do a brilliant job and their coverage is really good imho, but giving them a monopoly clearly damages the game. All the other major sports (except for golf which has just moved to the dark side too) keep some live games on FTA television. There’s still plenty of football coverage on terrestrial TV (including the world cups of course), and rugby’s authorities realise that having the Six Nations and World Cups on BBC / ITV keeps public interest alive.
It’s interesting that even Formula One, which has been absolutely savaged for moving to Sky, has decided to keep the British Grand Prix on free-to-air. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/formula-1/2016/03/23/f1-drivers-write-open-letter-demanding-change-and-attack-obsolet/
I’m 31 years old, and I can never remember a time when the ECB was ever competent. They seem to have the knack of making the wrong decisions every single time.
In a lot of ways they are better now than they have ever been, which sounds daft but the stories you hear from the 90s. Players in tiny rooms with two large kit bags and the admins in a fancy hotel up the road.
Players caught eating KFC by Lord Maclaurin on tour is my fave
Is Harrison claiming that a rearguard action like Johannesburg or the Aussies in Ranchi recently wasn’t exciting? Bull.
I just don’t understand the ECB’s logic. What’s the point in playing attacking and exciting cricket if nobody is watching?
Surely it’s better for cricket to have 10 million people watching a quite exciting match than 3 million watching a very exciting match?!
The spirit of Cardiff 2009! It seems he’d have preferred Colly to ‘hit out or get out’.
I missed a few out because I wrote that post on my phone, and the memory is not what it was! “Attacking cricket” is not confined to batting either (ask Michael Holding). Nice piece on Cricinfo from Mark Nicholas, which makes my point far better than I can. http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/1088014.html
I’m a supporter of any national initiative to promote cricket and ASC is a start, however every club will tell you that this is just adding another layer of complexity to the life of struggling grassroots clubs. What it may do is find new club members who like the club environment.
T20 in UK is not like the BBL and does not sell itself as family entertainment in fact its seen as just another excuse to combine beer and cricket. That needs to change not the branding.
TV is only part of the answer – streaming is now the main way children absorb entertainment. This winter parents will need to buy BT Sport to see the men’s and women’s ashes on old fashioned TV.
Finally, if either team fails to perform in the ICC competitions in England this summer ,they will be out of the competition and then it doesn’t matter where the game is being shown and the profile will take another hit!
An excellent piece, James, which states passionately what ought to be blindingly obvious but apparently isn’t to Harrison and his ilk.
Actually I suspect they know full well that the removal of all FTA coverage was a huge mistake but daren’t admit it and are anyway powerless to redress it until the current Sky deal expires. Not that I have much faith in them to do any better next time.
The whole narrative around four day tests and playing an “exciting brand” is very troubling. The salvation however could be that Team ECB might just end up looking very foolish if other teams don’t adopt the same tactics when we play them. Hungerpang’s scenario above might not prove to be very satirical after all and another Ashes whitewash down under wouldn’t be easy to explain away. (Well, not without a frenzied, media-backed campaign to scapegoat a senior player – but obviously that would never happen…)
Splendid piece, James.
One small issue is public recognition of sporting figures. Is there any survey evidence? It’s not scientific but I’m often surprised by how low the scores are for many Olympic medalists on ‘Pointless’. The last time there was a cricket question (players in the 2015 Ashes) I remember Cook scoring 27. The big sport’s scorers tend to be the main footballers plus Andy Murray and Lewis Hamilton who can score in the 70s or 80s.
It’s clear to me that the surveys they undertook to sell the new T20 tournament (expected to be ratified on Monday – even Sussex have dropped their opposition) have scared the living daylights out of them. You’re absolutely spot on that they want to blame everyone but themselves so blame it on the audience (who they clearly perceive as sugar-addicted morons) and the game itself.
Simon Hughes wrote recently in ‘The Cricketer’ that only the Ashes and T20 have a future. I don’t think that’s just him (although that’s bad enough) – I think that’s what he’s hearing at the higher reaches of administration. ODIs (remind me why they’re out priority again?) and Tests except the Ashes have no future. Their goal is to manage the game’s decline to that point. This is deadly serious.
You hit the nail on the head, Simon. It really does sound like they think first class cricket has had it. Why are people with so little faith in the sport making all the big decisions about its future.
I have to admit my assertion that Joe Root is basically anonymous is somewhat anecdotal, but cricketers are never shortlisted for BBC SPOTY anymore (even when they’re record breakers like Anderson and Cook), and I still maintain that more people have heard of Flintoff, who retired quite a while ago now, than Stokes.
There’s one serious flaw in this otherwise very persuasive argument. The world has not ossified since 2005 and TV is not the same. There is no such thing as national viewing anymore. Kids do not watch mainstream channels if they watch TV at all. BBC do no want live cricket even if they could afford it. So terrestrial is Channels 4 & 5 (highlights most likely) or ITV4 at best. Thank goodness for BT or Sky could have paid much less next time around. And don’t just think its cricket, football watching on TV is in decline too. Getting kids to play is always the first step, then they watch and then they develop love of game even if they can’t play. All Stars Cricket is about planting the seedcorn of an idea in some kid’s head that they may want to play cricket at lunchbreak for a change, has the equipment to do it with, and at least 2-3 other kids in the class who know what the hell s/he is talking about. It’s a start.
Its not about the kids watching the cricket, its about the dads watching the cricket and the kids saying “what are you watching, dad?”
Kids do watch mainstream tv, anyway. They sit in the same living room as their parents with the same nonsense blaring out of the tv screen. You think no kids watch the x factor or whatever is popular nowadays?
No-one in their right mind would sit and watch a sporting event on their laptop. Every house in the country has a big sofa point at an even bigger tv. Get cricket onto that tv, and kids might suddenly become aware of its existence.
I think to really get into cricket, you have to both watch it AND have the opportunity to play it – one inspires the other – the two go hand in hand.
I’m certain Clubs already do welcome from 5+ ASC is good as being nation wide. Not all these sign-ups will be new to cricket (so I’m wary of the stats)
Question is whether schools will allow unsupervised cricket H&S quite often still usurps common sense in this regard.
Mandatory cricket in schools now there’s a goal.
Just a small point, but this morning on the radio schools were responding to the financial squeeze most are facing over the next few years. Several said they were considering selling off property to balance their budgets – in many cases this will mean some of their playing fields.
Hi John. Thanks for joining the debate. You’re right that I didn’t really explore how viewing habits have changed to a significant extent, but this didn’t stop Andy Murray attracting 13.3 million viewers on the BBC when he won Wimbledon last year.
Perhaps there might not be such a thing as national viewing anymore, but it still helps a great deal if you’re broadcasting a sport on a channel that’s available to all rather than a select few. Live test cricket cannot even be accessed on Facebook or online in the UK … unless you’ve paid for Sky Go.
Hi James, was the 13 million it’s peak figure?
Can imagine the viewing figures for the whole 3 hour match were a lot lower. And I can’t imagine the under 13’s watched a great deal.
The point below (red nose) is moot. It’s comic relief on Friday, are any cricketers involved, do they get involved in Sport Relief
One way of boosting their profile is to get them onto mainstream TV (even if it’s not playing cricket)
Get them in the jungle, on ant and Dec etc.
I think that’s peak Neil. But he got over 17 million when he won in 2013! And Andy Murray is now a knight of the realm whereas Alastair Cook and Jimmy Anderson are nowhere near as famous.
I look forward to Harrison’s next initiatives to liven up cricket for the general public;
* Jos Buttler to be required to wear a red nose to go with the big gloves.
* Haseeb Hameed to undergo remedial coaching to eliminate the forward defensive.
* A new method of being out; anyone failing to play at least one reverse sweep and one ramp shot in an over is out.
* Ground sharing with PL clubs for the new city franchise. This has the benefit of reducing some boundaries to 25 metres.
* Compulsory corruption at the top levels of the ECB. Look at the entertainment and attention this rule has created in Indian cricket.
and finally….the end game for IMG…..
* Merger of the ICC with MLB so IMG can manage the rights from their New York offices.
for a couple of Lords tickets, I will stand behind Hameed in the nets and shout should have ramped that every time he blocks one.
A long road back to a place where cricket is the national summer sport but getting the game back on FTA should be priority number one even if it was just some Tests or some t20 to start with.
The decline in the game in state schools is often traced back to the 1980s when playing fields were sold and managerialist tendencies came to the fore. This points to the mature types who at some time past acquired a taste for the game being more of the future than the ECB hierarchy seem to think they will be.
As for there being two domestic t20 competitions, once the ECB marketing cum battle plan makes contact with reality no surprise if two becomes one. Getting more of those who went state school since 2005/did not play the game/don’t have family or mates who play to take a sustained interest will be tough going.
We all have a responsibility. My nephew’s son (my grand or great nephew?) has just been given his first bat (size 0) at age 2. Regrettably (or perhaps fortunately given her technique with a tennis racket) my daughter did not pursue a cricket interest.
“As for there being two domestic t20 competitions, once the ECB marketing cum battle plan makes contact with reality no surprise if two becomes one”.
The new tournament tickets are reportedly going to be priced at £15. The NWB will have to slash its prices to try to survive which I doubt very much that it will. I’m amazed Sussex seem to have accepted “assurances” about the NWB.
Just making a rare stop to say this is one of the best things you have ever written, James.
Thanks Arron :-)
ECB seems to have felt increasing their own reserves was a sign of the strength of the game but unfortunately that has been build on the two pillars of the ridicules Test Match bidding process and on the SKY TV deal. The former has lead to a huge amount of debt in the game and Counties relying of deals with local councils like Warwickshire and Glamorgan or wealthy patrons like Hampshire.
The latter for all the money it has provided has taken the game away from potential fans, I doubt I would be that interested if Test Matches hadn’t used to be free as my parents never had sky and I excursively buy it as an adult for Cricket so if I hadn’t been interested already I certainly wouldn’t have it now.
Tom Harrison clearly a bigger fan of Righteous Slaughter 7.
ECB don’t do marketing. As explained to me by a senior marketing director, marketing is all about making the public aware of your brand image, i.e. your name, not about selling anything at the moment. That’s why you keep seeing that larger than life fat guy in a peguin suit with twirling moustache and hair so that when you do come round to buying/renewing insurance you immediately start singing Go Compare (no plug intended).
When is cricket ever in the public’s face and consequently its mind?
As mentioned, the public love winners – more than that, they love heroes, whether it’s an outrageous all rounder who snatches victory from the jaws of Denis Lillee, a fiery fast bowler you can roar on or a super confident batsman who easily dismisses Warne into the stands.
I just feel the ECB are clueless
Everything that James says about cricket is heartfelt. What we hear from Tom Harrison is the synthetic voice of the marketing world – it’s nothing to do with our sport. Or sport. He is rolling out cliches in the same way that Virgin Trains tell us we are going to have a glorious journey. In fact the train was cancelled and the next train was nearly an hour late as well. It used to be called “patter”.
It’s excruciating when it isn’t just someone on the doorstep or someone trying to sell us franchise railways but someone in charge of a great sport such as cricket. He is so divorced from the game and what makes it wonderful that his ‘advice’ to the England team is to mistake what it takes to win a game of cricket. Maybe in his team talks he doesn’t address bowlers? Bowlers try to prevent batsmen from being ‘exciting’.
Douglas Jardine famously said: “Cricket is battle and service and sport and art”. Tom Harrison might say: “Cricket is a marketing opportunity”.
Maybe Tom Harrison doesn’t do nuance but even T20 is far more complicated game that he gives it credit for. Actually I think fans can be quite critical of batsmen who throw their wickets away in wilful disregard of conditions or the state of play. What gets them out isn’t only a mindset but a lack of skill. Blasting the ball isn’t exciting when it’s the wrong stroke to play.
Unfortunately this dangerous slavishness to cash is now infecting the whole game. Even counties are going along lemming-like over the cliff instead of standing upto Harrison and the others who are reducing the game to pounds, shilling and pence. At Lancs we have one of these typical myopic marketing men in charge. An anonymous individual who can read a balance sheet but not a game situation. When is the public going to fight back?
It won’t