ECB likely to let Stokes play in IPL
Go-ahead expected even if player under England ban All-rounder earned £1.7m in this year’s tournament
Ben Stokes is likely to be given permission to sign a multi-million pound contract in the Indian Premier League next year even if he is still suspended from England duty.
The full executive board of the England and Wales Cricket Board will make the final decision on whether Stokes can play in the IPL but, after giving him permission recently to join Canterbury in New Zealand, it will be hard to deny him a payday in India.
The ECB’s board will weigh up the potential damage to the game’s reputation by allowing a player to earn money playing in the world’s most high-profile cricket tournament while still on suspension from international duty.
England have missed the Durham all-rounder, who was left out of the touring party after his arrest on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm outside a Bristol nightclub in September.
There had been hopes he might be able to rejoin Joe Root’s side, but, with the Crown Prosecution Service yet to make a decision on whether to charge him, Stokes returned home from New Zealand yesterday, ending any lingering hopes he might feature.
England go into the fourth Test on Boxing Day already 3-0 down and facing a whitewash but while Australia have already won the series, the Melbourne Cricket Ground is braced for a world-record Test crowd of more than the 91,112 who turned out for the last Ashes Boxing Day Test in 2013.
James Anderson, in his column for The Sunday Telegraph today, reveals that he raised with umpires the Australians targeting England’s tailenders with bouncers, but was given short shrift.
Speaking about Stokes, Tom Harrison, the ECB’s chief executive, said: “I imagine having given him an NoC [non objection certificate] to play in New Zealand, it will be difficult for us to say on balance that we would not apply the same thinking to playing in other parts of the world. But the NoC is based on a particular tournament. If we want board backing for a decision such as this – and this has been hugely complicated and board backing for a decision of this magnitude might not be a bad idea – then the implications of it [the game’s reputation] is something we have to work out.”
The decision to allow Stokes to play in New Zealand was taken by an ECB sub-committee appointed by Colin Graves, the chairman, but a future decision will now be taken by the full board because of its importance. Once the CPS has decided whether to charge Stokes or not, the ECB’s board will take 48 hours to decide what to do next.
He is facing charges from a Cricket Disciplinary Commission but that is on hold while any criminal matters take their course, which Harrison has been advised could take up to 12 months if he is charged.
“From a board position it is about disrepute and reputation of the game. That is what the board has to protect,” said Harrison. “The CDC process is about disrepute- and cricket-related charges which has to wait until after the criminal proceedings have happened.”
The IPL auction has been set for Jan 28 and 29 with salary caps for the franchises increased by 20 per cent after the league signed a new £2.8 billion broadcast deal. Stokes earned £1.7million this year playing for Pune Supergiants and can expect to be one of the biggest draws in the auction.
Harrison arrived in Australia on Friday and has given his backing to Trevor Bayliss, the head coach, saying there will be no “rash” decision despite England losing the Ashes.
“We are in a process of delivering cricket across all three formats,” he said. “We are winning 70 per cent or so of white-ball matches and in Tests we are finding it is difficult for us to win overseas. We have to look at that.”
Although the Ashes are lost and cannot be regained until August 2019, England’s fourth Test against Australia on Boxing Day could set a world record for the largest crowd officially audited for a cricket match, beating the 93,013 spectators at the 2015 World Cup final, in spite of the incident last Thursday afternoon in Melbourne, when a car driver injured 19 people.
With Cricket Australia estimating a crowd of “between 91,000 and 93,000”, the highest for a Test at the MCG is well within reach: the 91,112 who watched the last Boxing Day Ashes Test in 2013, when England were similarly 3-0 down.
The unofficial record of approximately 100,000 was set by Eden Gardens in Calcutta a generation ago, before numbered seats were installed and before all tickets were sold through official channels.
“It’s a two-Test series now,” Jonny Bairstow said, plugging the England party line, which is to move on from 3-0 down and view as “disappointing” the loss of the Ashes. “We’ve got to go out and try to win the last two. Everyone talks about the Boxing Day Test match at the MCG.”
Joe Root’s team will fall even further apart if they panic as England did on their last Ashes tour, in order to be seen to be “doing something”.
Four-nil down in Sydney, and faced with a grassy pitch, England dropped Root and brought in three debutants in Gary Ballance, Boyd Rankin and – from grade cricket in Sydney – Scott Borthwick. The last two have never played again for England, who lost in three days, rather than four as before.
England have to make one change: Craig Overton would jeopardise his lungs and long-term future if he dived, or was hit in the ribs again by one of the many Australian bouncers.
Stuart Broad went through the motions in Perth, nursing his left knee, and about the only bouncer he could summon up on the Waca’s trampoline was scooped for six by Steve Smith like a dowager dismissing a fly. Broad, however, has sharpened up in the MCG nets to retain his place.
One out of Jake Ball, Tom Curran and Mark Wood will replace Overton. Ball has been in the squad all along, but injured his right ankle in the second warm-up game in Adelaide and went into the first Test undercooked after only 15.2 overs on tour; Curran was added to the squad after Steve Finn had injured his left knee shortly after arrival in Perth but may have overtaken Ball, and while Wood could not be selected for the original squad, because of his ever-troublesome left ankle, he has trained well enough with the Lions to be drafted in after the third Test.
Wood is short of match-practice though, and of the stamina needed to come back for a fourth and fifth spell, which England’s pace bowlers have had to do, though not Australia’s.
To make another change, voluntarily, by bringing in Mason Crane for Moeen Ali, would be a mistake. Moeen owes England runs and is acutely aware of averaging only 19. His bowling has been even less effective than most English off-spinners in Australia, but he has been tidy in several spells.
Crane would concede more than 3.29 per over, to judge by his bowling in the three warm-up games, when he would invariably begin well but, after a few overs, his patience would falter and he would lapse into more and more long-hops – and how can a 20-year-old leg-spinner learn how to construct long and subtle spells if his game-time with a red ball is confined to April, early May and September?
It is 40 years since the famous Centenary Test in Melbourne, which in turn commemorated the first of all Tests. The Australian survivors – of the 1977 game, that is – will be presented to the crowd at the lunch interval on day three. If this sounds like a mildly inter- esting historical footnote, in the context of a debate about bouncers it is topical.
In the Centenary Test Bob Willis broke the jaw of Rick McCosker. McCosker returned from hospital to bat in Australia’s second innings with his jaw wired up, swathed in bandages, his cap perched on top – and 40 years on, he says his jaw still clicks.
When England batted, Derek Randall was hit on the head by Dennis Lillee, doffed his cap and carried on.
The law on intimidation was devised for this era before helmets, and before bowling machines. In 1977 international cricket was essentially amateur: all of England’s cricketers were professionals, but players around the rest of the world were mostly weekend amateurs who were paid when they represented state or country. A no-hoper of a batsman even by weekend club standards, like Jim Higgs of Australia or Bhagwat Chandrasekhar of India, got into Test sides.
They needed protection by the Laws and by the umpires enforcing them,
In 1977, Bob Willis broke the jaw of Rick McCosker. He came back in bandages with his cap on top
because the risk of physical injury was distinct. Since the 1980s, in the era of full-time professional cricket worldwide, young players have been able – forced – to develop their reflexes against bouncers fired by a bowling machine. Higgs and Chandrasekhar never saw outright fast bowling until they played Tests; now everyone does.
There are no no-hopers. The limitation of two bouncers per over is a sufficient addition to the Laws. Australia’s Jackson Bird, expected to replace Mitchell Starc with his bruised heel, and a similar seamer to Chris Woakes, said he expects to cop his share of bouncers at No11.
James Anderson, after being hit by Starc or Pat Cummins, has not backed away: he has tended to move inside the line, overcoming his instinct for selfpreservation, and let the ball go down leg side.
Thanks to the technological advances since the death of Phillip Hughes, in extending the protection afforded by the helmet further down the neck, and narrowing the bars of the helmet so a ball cannot pass between, any Test player can protect himself from foreseeable serious injury.
But Broad admitted to nightmares after he was hit by a ball passing through the bars in 2014. Perhaps the law should be extended so umpires must intervene if there is a risk of physical or psychological damage.