YOU’RE SACKED

New England cricket chiefs dump Downton

English cricket’s new bosses flexed their muscles last night when Paul Downton paid the price for a humiliating World Cup by being sacked as managing director.

Downton was fired by new ECB chief executive Tom harrison, in conjunction with chairman- elect Colin graves, after a ring-round to each of the 14 members of the governing body’s management board ahead of their spring meeting today.

The decision to sack a man who has endured a traumatic 14 months since succeeding hugh Morris after England’s Ashes whitewash was unanimous, with one board member saying Downton was just ‘too accident prone’.

it was Downton who took the huge call to sack Kevin Pietersen and then re-appointed Peter Moores, calling him ‘the outstanding coach of his generation’. he also oversaw the sacking of Alastair Cook as one-day captain.

Former England captain Michael Vaughan

immediately said he would like to speak to the ECB about the newly created job of director of England cricket and Andrew Strauss is another possible candidate. Ultimately it was England’s failure to negotiate the first round of the World Cup after an embarrassing defeat by Bangladesh and crushing reverses against Australia and New Zealand, coupled with disenchantment at their management style from many supporters, that did for former England and Middlesex wicketkeeper-batsman Downton. ‘The England Cricket Department needs to deliver performance at the highest level and our structure needs to be accountable for reaching the standards we aspire to,’ said Harrison in an ECB statement. ‘The new role we are putting in place will deliver an environment where world-class performance is at the heart of everything we do.’ That new role will be director of England cricket, a subtle but crucial change of title which will take the business aspect of the role away from the new man and effectively make him a supremo and, possibly, head selector. That makes James Whitaker, now the national selector, extremely vulnerable even though England won the last three Tests they played last summer and he could leave as soon as today’s board meeting at Lord’s. Yet Harrison played down any suggestion that this makes Moores, still with much to prove in his second coming as England coach, more vulnerable and that the door could now be nudged further ajar for the return of Pietersen, who has rejoined Surrey after being apparently encouraged by Graves. ‘This doesn’t impact on Peter Moores’ position at all,’ Harrison said later on Sky. ‘This is with respect to delivering an environment for the future.’