Lord Botham – chair of Durham County Cricket Club and a life peer appointed by Boris Johnson in 2020 – has challenged the findings of the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) report, which highlighted cricket’s elitism and class-based inequalities, as well as widespread discrimination in terms of ethnicity and gender.
Admitting that he had only read ‘bits’ of it, Botham nonetheless dismissed the report as ‘nonsense’, which he claims he ‘threw on the floor’. Ironically, the report was only published online. One assumes he has a well-stocked printer.
Botham’s main complaint seems to be that he wasn’t central to the process. ‘No one’s interviewed me, no one asked me for my thoughts’, he said. ‘I don’t know of anyone that was asked and interviewed before this report was put together’.
Yes, there’s a lot of ‘me’ and ‘I’ in there. It’s worth remembering that 4,000-plus other people from within the game did give evidence. Contributions came from people at the very grassroots of cricket, right up to the England men’s and women’s captains, including Ben Stokes, the current England men’s captain and Durham’s most illustrious player. Some 79 per cent of the respondents to the ICEC survey were ‘white British’ and 50 per cent of the total reported discrimination of some kind within the game.
As it happens, Botham was also invited, not once but twice (along with all chairs of first-class cricket counties) to contribute to the report. On top of that, Botham’s own county, Durham, submitted written evidence.
It is surprising, to say the least, that Botham seemingly missed two invitations to respond and apparently didn’t know his team were busy compiling a written contribution. Botham did not reply to a request for comment on why he did not respond to the ICEC’s invitation.
Many of us will be familiar with friends or colleagues who are not entirely across the detail and yet still feel entitled to pontificate. Sometimes this can be brushed aside, but Lord Botham is a person of considerable power and influence. His intervention has the potential to be deeply damaging.
Botham has a major say in how public money is spent: he has overall responsibility for the development of cricket in his county and the wellbeing of all the young people who aspire to play for it. He also has a significant voice among the other chairs of the first-class counties of England and Wales (18 in total). Moreover, Botham’s considerable achievements as a player mean his views carry weight within the cricket fraternity and the public.
The ICEC report highlights serious inequalities that blight cricket. These problems need to be urgently addressed if the game is to be a meaningful ‘national’ summer sport.
The message is: relax folks, no need to read on
Importantly, the report contains not just evidence of discrimination and injustice, but many recommendations for meaningful change. For example, it gives steps to improve opportunities for state school children (the vast majority of our population) to progress through cricket’s ‘talent pathway’ and play for England.
One might hope that a member of the House of Lords and former state school cricketer would treat these issues seriously, and perhaps Botham will – but his contribution so far makes no mention of these matters.
Botham’s comments also, regrettably, give licence to others to essentially ignore the report. The message is: relax folks, no need to read on, no need to worry about the evidence, no need to confront the challenge. Botham’s remarks are the first, and thus far only public pronouncement by any of cricket’s county chairs. Now might be a good time for other cricket leaders to clarify their position.
Comments