ECB fail to convince after being made to sweat on key questions regarding the future of cricket

NICK HOWSON: Colin Graves and Tom Harrison fail to provide answers on key topics included free-to-air television, The Hundred and the future of the county game

The Men's World Cup on one side, the Women's World Cup on the other. But this wasn't the show-and-tell that the ECB had perhaps hoped it would be. Over more than two hours they were probed by the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport select committee, producing answers either drawn directly from the script or which flat-out failed to answer the question.

Whether it be cricket's relationship with free-to-air television and the links towards the sport's falling participation numbers, the close links with broadcasters Sky, the formation of The Hundred, the protection of the domestic game or the make-up of the ECB management board, there was a distinct lack of clarity and definitive conclusions.

Perhaps it is too early to ask them to show their working, but more evidence the ECB have the solutions to the sport's shortcomings is not too much to ask.

“We're better placed to address the challenges than we've ever been,” was the stand-out quote from chief executive Tom Harrison's opening stanza. But that vagueness continued throughout the afternoon.

Not least when Harrison was asked about the mechanics behind the decision for the World Cup final between England and New Zealand to be shared between Sky Sports and Channel 4, on free-to-air television. Perhaps conscious of the importance of the satellite broadcaster - “we're very reliant on it” - who have paid £1 billion for the next rights package until 2024, Harrison was the personification of coy.

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“Conversations were had during the World Cup as it became clear that was going to happen (England reaching the latter stages),” he said. 

“It was a conversation between Sky and the ECB to ensure the negotiations that then took place had our approval.

”I can tell you that in the lead-up to the World Cup there were conversations between the ECB and Sky contemplating activity should the outcome be what it was.“

Having avoided the opportunity to amplify a good-news story for the ECB, Harrison was hardly likely to reveal key figures behind the failures since the 2005 Ashes series, the last supposed watershed moment in English cricket's recent history.

”A massive amount,“ is not the reply the select committee, particularly Ian Lucas MP, wanted when Harrison was asked how much money had been invested in the sport thanks to the exclusive link-up with Sky in 2006, amid the tumbling participation figures. The number of people aged 16 and above playing cricket once-a-week was down 38,000 between 2006 and 2016.

^{The Hundred has seen the formation of eight new city-based franchise sides}

”You've had all this extra money, over that period, and participation has fallen. What are you going to do differently?“ added Lucas. It was from this point that the ECB chiefs, chairman Colin Graves, non-executive director Lord Patel, began to recoil. ”Don't let it happen again,“ was Lucas' epic send-off.

The only time the ECB were specific on numbers, they were forced to wipe away the dust first. Harrison repeated a claim from 2010 that £137 million would be removed from the sport if a single Test match was shown on free-to-air television during the period of 2014-17. ”That strategy premium for a pay-TV operator effectively makes the strategic investment into inspiring generations extremely difficult for us to justify,“ Harrison said, about the upcoming rights cycle between 2020 and 2024. And yet the World Cup final found its way onto FTA.

Terrestrial TV will, of course, be infused with some domestic and international cricket over the next rights cycle, including a handful of England T20 internationals. Central to that return is The Hundred, the silver bullet in the ECB strategy plan.

It is quite clear from the outset of the session that the new 100-ball competition is the reason why we are here. The ECB's vision for the sport might be the headline title, but the abridgement is veiled in potato-based snacks, drafts, city-based franchises, and 10-ball overs.

Every written submission made to the DCMS - from county members, broadcasters, journalists and stakeholders - mentions the tournament in a major way, both endearingly and negatively. Some of the detractors are in the public gallery, sporting anti-Hundred t-shirts, which under parliamentary rules they are later forced to remove.

Much like the ECB strategy through the launch of the competition, we got another violent about-turn.

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”The Hundred is a really good way of protecting everything we're serious about,“ said an increasingly pale Harrison. ”It is about protecting Test cricket, protecting four-day Championship cricket, it is about getting more kids playing in school.

“It is not a threat to the county. It is much more a threat to rest on our laurels and say everything is rosy in our garden and we'll be fine if we keep ticking along as we are.”

If the ECB does indeed intend that The Hundred enriches their other competitions, not least the 18 counties across the country, this is perhaps the first time they have been as brazen about it. And in downgrading the 50-over competition, slashing points available for Championship games and making the fixture list unbalanced, ostracising the clubs who don't host Tests and the domestic players who have paid into the system for years, they have a funny way of showing it.

Former ECB director and Somerset chairman Andy Nash would later appear, questioning the idea they had fully consulted the counties on the implementation of The Hundred, prior to the vote which sanctioned the competition. Nash reached out on Twitter to substantiate the claim before sitting in front of the committee and received waves of denials from members and fans.

“To suggest this hasn't been properly consulted is incorrect, I think,” Harrison told the committee. “There was a huge consultation.” Graves added: “I can assure you that in the last three years there has been more consultation with the counties, the chief executives and the chairman than ever in the history of the ECB.”

^{England's maiden World Cup was watched by more than eight million people in the UK}

Evasive skills that even Steve Smith would have been proud of resurfaced as Harrison was asked about the cost and the budget for The Hundred. While total figures have not been revealed, at least £24.7m is being paid to the 18 counties each year as part of the competition. Harrison, however, refrained from engaging even on a ballpark figure and outright refused to provide information on the expenditure so far. It was an opportunity to provide clarity on a competition that has divided so many. And one that was missed. 

Director of women's cricket Claire Connor was far from ignored during the session, but it would be fair to observe that she was not given the same grilling as her colleagues. Perhaps most notably, the 121-time England international failed to criticise the vast gender pay-gap for The Hundred. “I thought that was coming next,” she replied when Jo Stevens MP raised that the highest male's salary stood at £125,000 when compared to £15,000 for the top-bracket female stars. “We have to be realistic about the journey we are on. It doesn't happen overnight.” An unsurprising response, yet a poor one.

As the interrogation slipped into a second hour, the pressure exerted on the ECB appeared to lead to a spate of direct, short and blunt answers. A revelation from Graves that the counties have formed the unannounced schedule for 2020; confirmation that discussions are ongoing with the Premier League regarding scaling and grassroots operations; a pledge to write to the ECB board over the secondary ticket market and that £1m was needed to turn the Olympic Stadium into a venue for the World Cup. Four countries are even interested in how The Hundred "progresses".

These were small morsels of information but they could not mask over the failure to answer key questions in vastly more important areas. Westminster is hardly the home for perspicuity right now but in many ways the ECB looked right at home.