Scyld Berry's ire with the ECB is never far away in the 2011 Cricketers' Almanack, but the outgoing editor admits England's travelling fans won him over
If the Barmy Army has even persuaded Wisden Cricketers' Almanack that its existence is a good thing then conservatism might one day be banished from the land. Scyld Berry has departed as Wisden editor in ill-explained circumstances, but at least he can claim to leave with a perhaps unique reputation among Wisden editors as a man of the people.
One of cricket's most graceful writers and original thinkers, Berry admits that England's travelling band of supporters won him over during the glorious pursuit of the Ashes urn in Australia last winter.
"My opinion of the Barmy Army was not favourable when it began, because the songs contained foul language which should not have been imposed on children watching," Berry writes in his Notes by the Editor. "But last winter their songs were no worse than bawdy, ridiculed senior Australian players rather than the juniors and were surprisingly tuneful, and the focus was on the cricket rather than on themselves."
It has suddenly all become clear. That low-level droning sound in the media box was Mr Berry singing along.
Wisden goes as far as issuing advice to the ECB on how to show the common touch. "I urge the ECB to help [the Barmy Army] parade at home matches ? in designated areas ? by enabling ticket holders to book more than a few seats in a row as well as by lowering prices."
This is thoroughly sensible stuff. Group tickets are severely restricted on many international grounds in an attempt to control crowd behaviour. This can have the ridiculous effect of, for example, a cricket club going on a day out to the Test and not being allowed to sit together.
The ECB could easily make an exception in the case of the Barmy Army, or at least by a link with its own Twelfthman setup ? the official fan-based community of England cricket. Committed supporters can actually impose better behaviour on crowds by a general understanding of their responsibilities to the game, just as rugby league crowds have always policed themselves by issuing powerful rebukes to any supporters deemed to be stepping out of line.
Berry could hardly be more eloquent in his praise of England's Ashes victory. "It would be hard to think of a sizeable human organisation that has come closer to perfection for a couple of months than England's cricket team during the Ashes series in Australia," he gushes. Deadlines prevented him from adding "or less close to perfection in all the one-day cricket that followed".
But his ire with the ECB is never far away. "Don't trash the Ashes," he implores, accusing cricket administrators, with sound reason, of "violating traditions built up over more than a century by staging a series in England in 2013 and 2015 and one in Australia in between". He goes on: "It is desirable that Ashes series in Australia should not be staged in the same winters as the World Cup as the last three have been, but nothing whatsoever can justify this overkill."
Amen to that, a suitably religious response when browsing the cricketers' bible. The sermon continues to browbeat the ECB for "the most ill-conceived fixture list since 1919" (in classic Wisden style, the misconceived 1919 season is assumed to be common knowledge: first-class cricket returned after world war one with a sense of enormous loss and a short-lived experiment in two-day matches).
Wisden might have made more of county cricket's financial crisis, although it does carry a disturbing warning from Nigel Hilliard, Essex's chairman. "Every Test match ground has a Test built into its business plan, and I understand why they do it but that is not too clever," he says. "Lord's and The Oval are not going to have a problem, but at the extremities, is a Test at Chester-le-Street in May going to work?
"I don't see clubs going out of business, but possibly some of them will go into administration. Football clubs do, but how many go bust? There is a lot of talk about counties joining forces, but it won't happen."
If a county does go into administration, it is highly unlikely that the ECB will set a precedent by bailing it out, in which case a buyer would have to be sought. The example of football suggests that foreign investors may be among the chief suitors.
Imagine a future in which Indian businessmen own a sizeable percentage of the county clubs, imposing their preferred future on the game with little interest in what Wisden annually refers to as cricket's great traditions. If the collapse of county cricket's members' clubs is followed by the collapse of county cricket's business management the future could be the collapse, in recognisable form, of county cricket itself.
Counties need to devise business plans earthed in reality and supporters need to realise that vaguely following their county from afar, with a daily perusal of the cricket scores, might be all very nice, but it does nothing to secure the game's future. Fail to understand that and the benefactors of the future may wish to design a solution in which India's raw capitalism is the dominant force and the county game stumbles into a brash new era.
Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2011. Published 14 April, �45. The Shorter Wisden is available in abbreviated form as an eBook for �21.60.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/apr/13/wisden-almanack-barmy-army
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