Counties should revolt against The Hundred and reverse the ECB coup | Matthew Engel


ECB directors have browbeaten and bamboozled counties into giving away their power – time for a Campaign for Real Cricket

Here is the squad representing English cricket at the Lord’s Test on Thursday. It may not be the one you expected. Delia Bushell, Martin Darlow, Alan Dickinson, Colin Graves, Tom Harrison, Barry O’Brien, Kamlesh Patel, Lucy Pearson, Scott Smith, Jane Stichbury, Brenda Trenowden, Jim Wood.

If you think that’s not so much a Who’s Who of English cricket but a Who? Who? you would not be alone. Don’t worry: they are not taking the field. But they are, quite astonishingly, the 12 most important people in the national summer game – and now the only 12 with any power worth mentioning: the directors of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Related: Trevor Bayliss: ‘My demeanour is chilled but I get as nervous as anyone’

Related: Domestic cricket under threat as Lord’s leaps to wretched conclusion

Related: Colin Graves: the blazered Terminator with his sights locked on cricket | Marina Hyde

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