Harrison has sold Test cricket down the river

TOM HARRISON, the ECB chief executive who has made a personal fortune out of the shortest of short-form cricket, the Hundred, thinks another Ashes debacle is the perfect moment ‘to reset the importance of the red ball in our domestic schedule’. He really should take that act to the Palladium. It is precisely because of men like Harrison that England are so inadequately prepared for Test competition; precisely because so much emphasis was placed on trying to strike gold for the ECB that the red-ball game was squeezed into the unfriendliest recesses of the calendar. Now, apparently, it is time to review. England have played 10 innings in Australia, lost 4-0, and failed to make a single score above 297. Yet next summer’s schedule is already in place and the County Championship is the poor relation again. Speculation around Harrison’s future continues but what is certain is that long after he has departed, the ramifications of the ECB’s sell-out will still echo.