We now know more about which English grounds will host international fixtures during the seasons 2017-19. This is the process which the ECB call the ‘major match awards’, the outcome of which they announced yesterday. What’s the significance? For a start it’s instructive to see the geographical spread of the matches – and which ones you could feasibly attend (if you (a) have the inclination and (b) have the money). A huge amount was at stake for the counties, who...
Who England will be playing – and where
We now know more about which English grounds will host international fixtures during the seasons 2017-19. This is the process which the ECB call the ‘major match awards’, the outcome of which they announced yesterday. What’s the significance? For a start it’s instructive to see the geographical spread of the matches – and which ones you could feasibly attend (if you (a) have the inclination and (b) have the money). A huge amount was at stake for the counties, who...
Picking over the bones
I don’t know about you, but I’m still reeling from the events of the last twenty four hours. We witnessed a Paul Downton media appearance surreally juxtaposed with an England performance so dire it demonstrated the exact opposite of everything he said. This was the stuff of Comical Ali. This was the owner of the White Star Line still boasting about the Titanic’s unsinkability at the very moment survivors were scrambling aboard the Carpathia. This was a man arguing that black...
Spin and the Downton Downturn
Sometimes clever people make things far more complicated than they need to be. Here’s what Paul Downton, a highly intelligent and articulate man, should have said about Alastair Cook and the England cricket team on Monday: “I can understand the fans’ concerns. It’s not going to plan at the moment. Alastair hasn’t scored runs for an awful long time, the team is an awful slump, and we’re not improving enough … if at all” “We’ll be having a frank discussion about what we can do, at this late...
Paul Downton speaks – part three
So our lord and master has deigned to speak. As you’ll surely have seen by now, Paul Downton, managing director of the ECB’s national sides, yesterday gave a series of media interviews. This was only his third formal public appearance since his appointment in January, and his first since the expiry of the Pietersen confidentiality agreement. And what a load of old cobblers he came out with. To summarise, Downton accepted that Alastair Cook has long been in dismal form, but says...
The questions the hacks must ask Downton
Dear mainstream cricket journalists, For the last ten months the likes of us have given most of you a very hard time. And rightly so. You’ve let your readers down. When the Pietersen affair began, it was immediately obvious the ECB’s story did not hold water. It hardly required the nous of a Woodward and Bernstein to sense a cover-up. Paul Downton and Giles Clarke were dissembling, obfuscating, and downright fibbing. They have perpetrated a great deceit, and their conduct strongly...
