Tom Harrison calls for reset and recalibration of first-class cricket

GEORGE DOBELL: While Harrison refutes the suggestion that England’s improvement in limited-overs cricket came at the expense of the Test team, he does accept a need to "narrow the gap between Test and first-class cricket"

Tom Harrison has called for a "reset" and "recalibration" of first-class cricket in England in Wales in light of England’s disappointing results in Test cricket across 2021.

While Harrison, the ECB chief executive, refutes the suggestion that England’s improvement in limited-overs cricket came at the expense of the Test team, he does accept a need to "narrow the gap between Test and first-class cricket" and has called for the game to "come together and work out how we want to move forward."

And although Harrison admitted the Ashes result had been "extremely disappointing", he expressed the hope it could be used as "a brilliant opportunity" to "effect change" in the game.

"Sometimes the ability to effect change on something as complicated as our schedule is when you have a performance-related issue," Harrison said. "And we have one now.

"It feels like this is a moment to reset the importance of red-ball cricket in our domestic schedule, for us to recalibrate how we play first-class cricket in the UK. It’s a brilliant opportunity for us to come together as a game and really sort that once and for all.

"Let’s have the right balance of red and white ball cricket. Let’s look at when we play red-ball cricket. There is a debate about whether we play more red-ball cricket through the summer. Let’s find a way to be able to do that.

^{Harrison accepts there is a need to narrow the gap between Test and first-class cricket [Robert Cianflone/Getty Images]}

"These are the questions we need to ask: the pitches we play on; the ball we use. We are trying to replicate conditions in Test cricket as much as possible. We do it really well in the white-ball game. We are currently not doing the right thing with respect to red-ball cricket and we have seen that play out over the last 12 months or so.

"We have got to sort our schedule out. We know that is a significant challenge for us. We have got to look at that debate around the volume of cricket. That is not just the volume of red ball cricket. We need to build a better narrative with our schedule. That is the challenge that faces us over the next couple of weeks. There were debates going on all last summer.

"It was a leading topic about whether we are preparing players at home in the best possible way for Test series and we have really got to get to the bottom of this once and for all and make sure the debate is answering the questions we are asking.

"This is something where the PGG [the Professional Game Group], will come together and work out how we want to move forward to work out how both the conditions in which we play first-class cricket in our country and the schedule for first-class cricket reflect the ambition that we have to be the best in the world in this format.

"Remember the schedule is put together by the game. It is not the ECB imposing the schedule. It is done together. It is the PGG that effectively decides the competitive windows and the amount of matches we play and the counties vote on the number of matches they play in any particular competition and that is a red line in our constitution and rightly so.

"But there is an ability to have this debate in the round and get this right."

There may be some raised eyebrows at Harrison’s comments. He has largely staked his reputation on implementing The Hundred, after all, which has squeezed a white-ball window into the middle of the English season.

He has also been chief executive of the ECB for seven years which would, you might think, have provided opportunity for implementing many of the ideas he is outlining now.

The reference to the PGG is, perhaps, especially intriguing. It appears to suggest the group, largely made-up of county chief executives, are responsible for scheduling. In truth, they have input only after the main shape of the season – the dates of The Hundred and the international matches – has been set. Harrison’s words may, therefore, be interpreted as an attempted to shift blame.

While England have played more international cricket than their rivals, Harrison also called for the international schedule to be tackled "in the round".

^{England's white-ball success has not come at the expense of the Test team, believes Harrison [Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images]}

"When we get out of the immediate aftermath of the wake of Covid, we’ve got to look at how we manage fixture workloads," he said. "This is something that the chief execs committee at ICC need to tackle in the round. With an additional few weeks of IPL every year and a World Cup every year the windows for bilateral cricket and what we need to do to become the best in the world are becoming more challenging.

"It is a difficult challenge for world cricket. I don’t think we’ve lived through a year of a 72-match IPL and a World Cup in the same year. 2022 will provide that and it’ll be interesting how we manage workloads through that.

"We obviously have had a lot of postponements, shifting matches, shifting tours, cancellations in some cases as a result of the pandemic, which has put huge pressure on global boards around the world.

"Keeping the show on the road has been really difficult. We do have to look at the schedule: everyone knows that. These are the difficulties with which we’re trying to cope as international boards going forward. We do have to address that front on as a group of boards."

Harrison on Root as captain: "I think Joe's been a fantastic leader through this very difficult time. I've had lots of conversations with him and I for one hope that Joe continues to be our captain for the foreseeable future. I think he’s demonstrated that he's able to perform whilst holding the office. This has been a very, very difficult tour."

The make-up of the ECB board: "In terms of the directors on the board, I think there's a strong case for having more cricket knowledge on there and I think it's recognised by the board. That is something we need to look at as part of this governance review that we're about to undertake."

The DCMS committee report: "We welcome the scrutiny. It's obviously been a difficult few months for us. But we have the opportunity to come out of this crisis with a roadmap that demonstrates that we are absolutely serious about tackling discrimination in our sport - not just racism - and that we can some together as a game and do that as a partnership.

"We want the government to hold us to account and when we are able to demonstrate that we can tackle this, perhaps we will be less of the sport under the spotlight and more the exemplar in terms of how we deal with really complicated and difficult issues in our sport."

Whether it’s appropriate to take his bonus given England’s results, the DCMS committee report and the ECB making redundancies: "The board set the criteria on which we are judged and that's a matter for them. It's an employment contract matter."