English cricket’s rot starts at the top with incompetent ECB

Ben Stokes’s sudden retirement, less than a year before the next Ashes, stems from English cricket having a governing body that is not fit for purpose.

Stokes’s downward spiral began with England’s failure to put up a fight in the last Ashes series in Australia. Had England not necessarily regained the urn but at least competed and not been a laughing stock, Stokes would not have entered his current frame of mind.

Basic problem

The fundamental issue is that the England and Wales Cricket Board is governed by people who have no experience of professional cricket: not a single game of first-class cricket between the lot of them.

So, instead of acting as the governing body of English cricket, the ECB is just another arm of the business empire run by its chair Richard Thompson, who runs a group of companies in the advertising and marketing sectors.

Fundamental objective of English cricket

However outdated it may sound, since September 1880 the primary objective has been to hold the Ashes urn, figuratively, and not let Australians get their hands on it. But the ECB board, which oversees all the decision-making, while consisting no doubt of the “great and good”, clearly has little interest in the subject.

England’s preparations for the 2021-22 Ashes were inadequate, left in the hands of a minor administrator called Mo Bobat who, subsequently, has proved his worth as the director of the Royal Challengers Bangalore franchise, the winners of the Indian Premier League. But preparations confined to a club ground in Brisbane could be explained away by Covid.

Rob Key, the director of cricket, was also responsible for England’s failure to prepare for last winter’s Ashes by arranging nothing more than a three-day intra-squad game on a club ground with a slow pitch. A lack of attention to detail has been levelled at Key as well as head coach Brendon McCullum, who have therefore not been a complementary pair.

An alert ECB would have been eager to know what preparations were being made for the last Ashes. The question was never raised, according to one insider who attended board meetings. Board members, drawn from advertising and marketing, together with the likes of a retired deputy chief constable, know the questions to be asked about the sale of Hundred franchises. But cricket, as played on the field?

Inadequate preparations

McCullum was therefore allowed to dictate the preparations for England’s last Ashes without proper oversight. The priority was an extended holiday in the resort of Noosa, free of any temperance regulations, and the idea of booking the Waca as a ground where England could prepare for the Perth stadium’s fast pitch was a belated afterthought.

McCullum is well known in Australia. In his 17 Test innings there for New Zealand he averaged 23 with the bat (sometimes he kept wicket as well). His constant downplaying of the importance of technique resulted in England’s batsmen throwing away their chances of a strong start: in their second innings at Perth, Ollie Pope, Joe Root and Harry Brook went hard at front-foot drives through the off side as England declined from 75 for two to 75 for five. The series was effectively over because Australia had found England’s Achilles’ heel.

One change has been subsequently made. Ed Smith, MCC president, was in Australia for the Ashes, socialised with Thompson, and has been added to the ECB board with effect from October. He has played three Tests. He also had a chequered record as England’s chairman of selectors.

Bad governance

It is a self-perpetuating board which Thompson steers as the chair. He can guarantee that nobody asks difficult questions because he is also the chair of the Nominations Committee. Not even Vladimir Putin would be so unsubtle in surrounding himself with yes men and yes women. Thus the great and good can pick up £20,000 per year apiece.

It should be added here that Thompson has done English cricket a service – or rather he has done the finances of English cricket, and indeed the British economy, a service. During India’s last Test at Lord’s, in 2025, he entertained Jay Shah lavishly, to such an extent that the former head of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, who is the son of India’s home minister and now the chair of the International Cricket Council, duly agreed to let England stage the next three World Test Championship finals.

Richard Gould has been the fourth major figure involved, as the chief executive of the ECB. As such his job is to implement policy rather than create it, but he still has to take responsibility for the post- Ashes review. It papered over the cracks which became the chasm into which Stokes disappeared.

Good governance

If English cricket wants to know what a competent governing body looks like, it has only to look at the winners of England’s latest Test series. The board of New Zealand Cricket consists of eight members, two of whom have played Test cricket.

Last winter, New Zealand had an existential decision to make about their future: should they join in Australia’s T20 competition or muddle along with their own, folksy version, devoid of overseas and otherwise engaged New Zealand stars? One board member, Dion Nash, a former Middlesex as well as New Zealand seamer, resigned after the decision was made (to continue their T20 competition as it was). But at least the debate was healthy, lively and informed.

Contrast that with the introduction of the Hundred. Most people would agree it was time to introduce franchises and attract a new audience. But the Hundred has alienated as many people as it has attracted, because of the actual format, consisting of 20 five-ball sets.

This reinvention of the wheel, and coming up with something square, could have been averted if a more knowledgeable board had insisted on more trials, not simply a couple of days of experimenting at Trent Bridge. For example, 15 six-ball overs and, for novelty, one super over of 10 balls, or even 10, 10-ball sets as a series of duels.

Conflicts of interest

In white-ball cricket another example of questionable governance is to be observed. McCullum has a stake in a joint-business venture with, among others, Jos Buttler. Surely it is a conflict of interest that McCullum, as an England selector, should be in a position to influence the future of Buttler as a player in the national white-ball teams? The ECB should have forbidden any joint business ventures involving management and current players.

Likewise, the case of Andrew Flintoff, the former England all-rounder and TV personality, who has been rapidly promoted without going through the county system and is now the coach of England Lions. His agents are M+C Saatchi Merlin, of which Thompson is chair.

Stokes had to deal with clunking machinery. He was remote from the decision-makers, when he needed more support for his mission in life. Had there been a couple of former male Test players on the board, he would have known them or at least known of them, and felt able to communicate, to be understood.

Instead, England’s chances of regaining the Ashes next summer are even further diminished.

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