In the end, the decision to reverse the ban on England’s players talking about the Ashes at upcoming county media days is a victory for common sense.
It’s also an admission from the England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) that it spectacularly misjudged the public mood over what happened during last winter’s calamity in Australia.
This is an organisation that had already lost public trust thanks to the clumsy attempt to cover up Harry Brook’s altercation with a bouncer in Wellington last October. The fact it compounded this by initially allowing Brook to lie about being on his own on the night in question only made things worse.
There was already huge frustration and disappointment at the 4-1 series defeat. Now it appears likely that coach Brendon McCullum and managing director Rob Key will keep their jobs, there is also a sense that nobody will be held accountable for the poor preparation, planning and execution on the field in Australia.
So when The i Paper exclusively revealed on Thursday afternoon that centrally-contracted England players involved in the Ashes would be banned from speaking at their own club’s upcoming media days, the backlash was swift and ferocious.
Not only were fans outraged but counties, too, given the inconvenience of having to rearrange their pre-season media days and the fear that this would fatally undermine attempts to drum up interest in the upcoming season that starts on 3 April.
This attempt to control the message and prevent anybody from speaking out of turn was interpreted exactly as it should have been – as a sinister overreach that undermined the credibility of the ECB and left supporters asking what else they were trying to hide.
The fact this clumsy intervention came on the same day as the much-hyped men’s Hundred auction did not help.
McCullum now looks likely to cling onto his job as England coach (Photo: Getty)The spectacular reverse-ferret – and the traction The i Paper’s story got from other news outlets in the UK, India, Australia and beyond – ultimately made the ECB see sense.
It was hinted on Thursday evening when the ECB sent out a memo saying: “We want to enable the counties to promote the game ahead of the start of the domestic season, and for England players to take part in these events. We’re in touch with counties to enable this to happen.”
Confirmation that this was definitely happening came on Friday, with the ECB telling The i Paper that there had been a complete climbdown. All centrally-contracted England players have been cleared to engage with the media and it would be up to the individuals themselves and their respective counties whether they wanted to speak or not. There are no restrictions on what players can talk about – including the Ashes. And rightly so.
Yet the suspicion is whether the ECB’s attempted gagging order will make certain players now think twice about talking. This is only to be expected. And in all honesty, the temptation to self-censor is a natural reaction to all this. It’s also an unintended consequence of what the ECB attempted to do.
The first test of this U-turn appears to have been passed after Surrey confirmed that Ollie Pope, Jamie Smith and Gus Atkinson – three players who were involved in the Ashes and are not playing at the Indian Premier League – will be speaking at their pre-season media day at The Oval next Tuesday.
At the time of writing, no other counties contacted by The i Paper had confirmed the availability of their England stars for their respective media days, with some reluctant to do so in case the situation changes again.
For what it’s worth, it seems that there is a genuine admission from the ECB that they got this wrong and have learned from the episode. There are a lot of good people who work for the governing body and not all were involved in this.
For those that were, this is a reminder that when you become the story, your media management strategy has failed spectacularly.
As for whether anybody will actually be held accountable for England’s dire Ashes, well that’s an entirely different story altogether.
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