Cousins tragedy a loss to cricket too
THE family tragedy that saw Compass chief executive Richard Cousins and five others die when a chartered sea plane crashed near Sydney is a big loss for cricket as well.
Cousins, 58, who was due to retire in March having turned the ailing catering company Compass into a £25billion global business leader, was a keen cricket fan who had travelled to Sydney with his two sons Will and Edward, who also died in the crash, to watch the fifth Test.
Briton Cousins was also very much on the England Cricket Board radar as a potential independent non-executive director when the governance reform changes take effect after the May AGM.
And Cousins, whose fiancee Emma and her daughter Heather plus the pilot also perished in the New Year’s Eve disaster, was just the type of cricket-loving successful businessman the ECB are searching for to beef up their new-look board.
Meanwhile, those who believe ECB president Giles Clarke, who has to stand down in May, has already had more than enough time at the cricket helm will be alarmed that he can carry on by becoming president of the ICC next month.
GRAEME
SWANN’S awful performances as a pundit on both BT Sport and Test Match Special is the gift that keeps on giving. The latest to have a go at him is David Warner, who tweeted about Swann’s Big Bash appearance on Channel 10 this week: ‘Great to see @Swannyg66 commentating out here. Thought after being 3-0 down he might have left tour early again . . . Waste of $$$$ from 10.’ Swann (right) replied: ‘See you’re still only chirping when you’ve got some runs.’ AT LEAST Stuart Broad’s Christmas present drone did not make an unscheduled appearance at the second practice day before the fifth Test as it did at the first. But the Broad drone has been seen above some of Sydney’s beaches. Maybe he is keeping an eye on the latest manoeuvres of his publicity-hungry ex-girlfriend Bealey Mitchell, as she has been following him around Australia.
THE
Aussies have not only shown the lead on the field in this one-sided Ashes series, but also off it. The Ashes console computer game obviously features imagery of both sides but Cricket Australia have been the driving force behind the game, produced by Melbourne-based Big Ant. The Aussies also have a second Big Bash game out, while the ECB have merely talked about such products, which are crucial for cricket’s growth.
England’s old school bias
THE unhealthy number of former public schoolboys in the England Test team was underlined again by the latest debutant being Mason Crane, who went to Lancing College. He joins Joe Root (Worksop), Alastair Cook (Bedford), Tom Curran (Wellington), Dawid Malan (Paarl Boys High School, South Africa), Stuart Broad (Oakham) and Jonny Bairstow (St Peter’s), who were educated at or went to elite fee-paying schools on a scholarship like Root. Much more must be done to boost cricket in state schools before it disappears altogether.
IAAF
president Lord Coe was a surprise visitor to the SCG yesterday, having been asked at late notice to unveil statues of Aussie athletic legends Betty Cuthbert and Marlene Mathews on the SGC precinct. The request was made when it was discovered Coe, who will also be a guest of the SCG Trust at the fifth Test, was in Sydney visiting family. Australia loves sporting sculptures: there are 14 at the SCG and 16 outside Melbourne Cricket Ground. England has football and cricket statues dotted around stadiums but track and field is unrepresented. The likes of Coe, Ovett, and Thompson should have sculptures of them around the troubled London Stadium to emphasise its crucial athletics legacy as well as being West Ham’s ground.