It has now been confirmed that David Davies has recommended that The Ashes should be shown on terrestrial television as a “crown jewels” event and everyone involved with English cricket should welcome the news. They won’t of course – expect a strong anti reaction from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) who will their future income streams being under threat. But in fact the news is just the shot in the arm that English cricket needs and not only the fans should celebrate. Because it should prompt a root and branch review of the finances and governance of cricket in Britain so that a fit-for-purpose domestic structure is established along with a far greater spectator/viewer imperative than currently exists.
The ordinary cricket fan has been the principal casualty of the disproportionately commercial bias of the ECB in recent years. Ticket prices for international matches are by some margin the most expensive in the world and with the only alternative for the fan requiring a satellite or cable subscription, which may cannot afford, cricket has slipped in the public interest compared with that glorious summer of 2005. That year, of course, The Ashes were on free-to-air Channel 4 and the viewing figures were huge. This year, although the cricket was almost as enticing as in 2005, the viewers were hardly surprisingly far fewer in number.
Why does the ECB seek to market its valuable international cricket properties to the highest bidders disregarding, in the process, the needs of the ordinary cricket fan? The answer, of course, rests not with the drive for income per se but with the grossly overblown expenditure that the ECB indulges in. This brings us, inevitably, to the subject of the structure of domestic cricket in England and Wales. The only way that an 18 county domestic structure can exist (just!) is if its costs are subvented by handouts from the ECB. These handouts amount to around £2million per year per county and we all know what the counties do with a significant proportion of that money and who the eventual beneficiaries are – and that they are not qualified to play for England!
It may seem slightly perverse to argue that the likely reduction in ECB income that the Davies recommendations will mean is actually good for the game. But if, as is likely, it forces the whole basis of the financing and operations of the ECB to be reviewed then only good can come out of it. And the start point for all this should be the ordinary cricket fan who wants affordable international cricket and, I would suggest, a far higher standard top-tier domestic cricket structure. A structure that is above all a developing ground for players who have the ability to get through to the international team and who are given the opportunity to do so in domestic competitions which are not primarily, as at present, nice little earners for itinerant cricket mercenaries!