Ed Warner: Thompson’s ECB era will always have report in its shadow
Ed Warner writes about ECB chair Richard Thompson and how his tenure – much like Seb Coe’s – will always have its connotations despite best efforts.
Through the cloud of orange powder, I couldn’t check the privilege of the protester hauled off the Lord’s pitch by Jonny Bairstow last week to see whether he is “Type K”. No idea whether he ticks all the elitist boxes in the report of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, published the day before the second Ashes Test. Or whether he even likes the game; is perhaps a useful left-arm trundler or middle-order nurdler.
The new-ish chair of English cricket, Richard Thompson, looked pretty hollowed out when responding to the ICEC report. Hopefully it was just the studio lighting. He does though face a trio of headaches – enough to make anyone long for a lie down in a dark room.
Short leg: the Ashes hopes of England’s men and women hang by slender threads in much-hyped home series.
Mid wicket: he has inherited a long TV commitment to The Hundred, the competition that Thompson derided when chair at Surrey but now seems commercially compelled to defend.
What type are you?
Long off: the implementation of all or most of the ICEC’s recommendations, which will likely drain the England and Wales Cricket Board’s energy and, crucially, its finances.
I’ve no personal stake in the current fight over cricket’s reputation. I simply buy tickets to watch the game and have been giving some informal commercial advice to one of the first class counties. And I’m not Type K, so can’t be personally affronted by the societal stereotypes drawn by the ICEC.
I feel decently placed then to observe that by claiming cricket is institutionally elitist – racist, sexist and classist – the ICEC is impugning innumerable people in the game. That, plus the hectoring tone of much of its 300-plus page report (which brooks no dissent), and its kitchen sink of recommendations, may prove counterproductive – emboldening defences rather than collaboratively dismantling them.
The ICEC creates five social “types” in constructing a report that the ECB itself commissioned in response to the racism furore engulfing Yorkshire.
Type K: White men, educated in private schools, who are straight and cisgender, and do not report a disability; Type L: men from non-White ethnic minority groups; Type M: women from non-White ethnic minority groups; Type N: White men; Type O: White women.
Just five? Such broad, homogenous groupings? Are these generalisations a valid means of analysing a complex problem?
ECB issues
None of which is to deny that cricket has a problem – it very clearly does – but that such a blunt approach and conclusions from the commission may prove a misfire.
A business profile of Richard Thompson last weekend made much of his having finished his formal education with a clutch of O Levels at a state school. Type N not K, then. But an establishment figure within cricket nonetheless, having been supported into his ECB post by almost all of the counties last autumn in the midst of the racism crisis.
I fear Thompson’s tenure, however long, will be subsumed by the aftershocks of the ICEC’s report. Its recommendations would take years to implement. Some are effectively outside the ECB’s direct control. Others need massive investment/subsidisation. Many require a re-engineering of the amateur game that could overwhelm volunteers already time-pressed (and possibly miffed at being unfairly labelled elitist).
One parallel is Seb Coe’s first two terms as president of World Athletics. He has worked admirably to tackle governance and corruption failings in track and field. However, its product has marked time over the past eight years, losing ground to other sports while Coe has necessarily focused on structural and cultural reform.
The ECB cost
It is reported that one consultancy, Oakwell Sports Advisory, estimates the cost to the ECB of implementing the ICEC’s more expensive recommendations to be £15m a year. Add in all the other elements and the overall price of change is likely to be far higher.
Cricket in England is in hock to the revenue generated by the ECB from its men’s team – primarily broadcast income and sponsorship. Without it the infrastructure of the sport would collapse. The cost of reform at all levels of the game will ultimately have to be shouldered by that one sporting asset.
A cricket insider suggested to me that a silver lining from the report is that Thompson will be able to clear the stables at the ECB. But redundancy programmes are typically expensive, as are replacement recruitment drives. And the governing body will need to add specialist staff to implement an effective equality programme. Don’t expect much reduction, if any, in its overall headcount.
The ECB had reserves of £35m at 31 January 2023. Pretty good cover for a rainy day, but right now Thompson and team are stranded in the middle of the wicket in a monsoon without a brumbrella. Establishment figure or not, he needs and deserves help from all quarters, and certainly all five “types”.
Va Va Voom
My man in the box office says the Drive to Survive effect is real. Over a third of ticket buyers for this weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone I’m told are women – more than double the pre-Netflix series proportion. Many presumably are new to Formula 1. And a key reason why it sold out so quickly this time.
Every man is an island
The Island Games start on Guernsey on Saturday, with 24 islands from Åland to Ynys Mon competing in 14 sports. Kudos to the organisers for managing to squeeze over 2,000 athletes plus hundreds more team staff, supporters, officials and journalists onto an island with a population of just 55,000. If you can make it, events are free and unticketed. But you’ll likely struggle to find a bed.
Ed Warner is chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and writes at sportinc.substack.com