DOWNTON DRIVEN OUT BY WORLD CUP FIASCO
He was, as one eCB board member put it, just too accidentprone for a role that has seen him flounder in the face of the bitter fallout from an Ashes whitewash.
Paul Downton was brave enough to make huge decisions in his first 14 months as england’s managing director but the jury is still out on all of them at a time as the clamour for change has grown louder.
It was Downton who made the big call to sack Kevin Pietersen and reappoint Peter Moores as england coach.
He also had to back the decision to replace Alastair Cook as one-day captain on the brink of the World Cup even though it was the selectors who drove it.
But, most of all, it is england’s humiliating World Cup that led the 14 members of the eCB management board to unanimously back the sacking of Downton when new chief executive Tom Harrison rang them yesterday morning.
So acute was the embarrassment at england going out in the first round of the World Cup that any hopes Downton had for an extended stay in office proved impossible. To the new regime he had to go.
‘Hugh Morris (his predecessor) stayed in the background but Paul became far too high-profile,’ one board member told Sportsmail last night. ‘ He was always on the outfield before games. The bottom line is that he was just too accident prone.’
Downton is the most high-profile casualty so far of that new broom sweeping through english cricket, led by Harrison and chairman-elect Colin Graves but he will not be the last, unless england are successful in their busiest of all years.
James Whitaker, the national selector, is the most vulnerable, not least because a change of job description for Downton’s successor to director of england cricket looks likely to make the new man an all-round supremo.
Moores and captain Alastair Cook now need to beat the West Indies in the three-Test series starting in Antigua on Monday if they are to feel secure. They must then carry on winning when they face New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan and South Africa over the next 10 months in Test cricket alone.
Whether this makes a difference to Pietersen’s future remains to be seen. Clearly the removal of the man who sacked him and an eCB chairman Giles Clarke who was firmly against Pietersen must increase the odds on one of the most unlikely comebacks in sport history happening this summer. Much may depend on who replaces Downton because there is still no real appetite within the eCB, and certainly not among senior members of the england team, for Pietersen to return.
His best chance may be if Michael Vaughan is appointed by a man he is known to be close to in Graves. The former england captain said yesterday that he would like to talk to the eCB about the role.
Vaughan was the england captain who brought the best from Pietersen, admittedly when he was young and far less likely to cause trouble, and has made no secret of his encouragement for his return.
Yet Vaughan, a constant critic of Downton and Moores, has a myriad of interests, both cricketing and otherwise, that he presumably must shelve if he is to return to the eCB now.
A more likely scenario is for another former england captain in Andrew Strauss to take up a role that would appear made for him.
There were many at the eCB who wanted Strauss to succeed Morris, not least the Welshman himself, but he ruled it out at the time, saying it was too soon after the end of his playing career. Since then he has dabbled in commentary with Sky but may now think the time is right for what seems a natural progression to administration.
Alec Stewart is another candidate who, presumably, would have a more open mind about recalling Pietersen as he has just re-signed him for Surrey. He is the third man on the most likely three-man short- list. The best brains in english cricket are undoubtedly Hussain and Atherton so Harrison and Graves should be doing all they possibly can to encourage one of them to return to the national cause.
Hussain has already refused and it is extremely unlikely Atherton would be tempted either.
Downton has become a derided character but he does not deserve to be the figure of ridicule he has become as frustration has grown at the national team.
He was a respected wicketkeeperbatsman with england who had to play much of his Test cricket against the West Indies at their peak and was widely admired for his bravery and gutsy character.
His return to cricket after a career in the City came at a time when Morris assured him that everything was in place for a bright future. england’s catastrophic collapse in Australia changed everything.
THe decision to ditch Pietersen was, as far as I am concerned, absolutely right while Moores may yet prove to be the coach Downton and others believe him to be.
But a fall-guy was needed for the World Cup and Downton was the obvious candidate. It remains to be seen how many follow.
Meanwhile, here in Basseterre, Jonny Bairstow picked a bad day to remind england that he is a player of real potential despite being jettisoned after the winter’s Ashes disaster. england’s decision to turn their second warm-up game into a practice session saw Bairstow, Jonathan Trott, Gary Ballance and Joe Root bat for a weak St Kitts Invitational XI against their own team. Trott fell third ball to Jimmy Anderson, fending a ball outside off stump to third slip, while Ballance still looked out of touch in being dismissed for 17.
Yet Bairstow, the back-up keeper on this tour, made the most of his chance to score 98 before falling to the impressive Ben Stokes.
There was an early worry when Stuart Broad slipped in his delivery stride and fell clutching his ankle. He went off for treatment but later returned to bowl and looked no worse for the accident.
Root was also struck flush on the helmet fielding at short leg but came out later to bat for St Kitts and made a half-century. england will bat for the whole of today before leaving for Monday’s first Test in Antigua.