da blaze casino： England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive Tim Lamb has hit back at former England coach David Lloyd’s scathing attack of the first-class counties
CricInfo30-Jul-2001England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive Tim Lamb has hit back at former England coach David Lloyd’s scathing attack of the first-class counties.Lloyd claimed the standard of the county system was too low to produce top-class Test cricketers.”Some specialist coaches are employed in specific disciplines but not nearlyenough and not often enough,” Lloyd said in his Daily Telegraph column.”In this area counties will say they are strapped for cash but most haveever-increasing office staffs with full-time positions such as press and mediaofficer, stadium manager and the like. What do these people do all day?”But Lamb attacked those claims, saying that counties did have theirpriorities right.He said: “It’s no secret that cricket is not a rich sport and, on limitedbudgets, all the first-class counties are running their clubs on a veryprofessional and well-managed basis.”However, to do this the counties need not only top-quality cricketers, but avariety of backroom support staff – the counties, increasingly, need to be runlike businesses.”I’m sure David and his colleagues in the media would be the first tocomplain if they weren’t getting a good service, and they would be right to doso as cricket needs as much publicity as it can generate.”Also, every county needs to have someone responsible for their ground toensure the safety of players and spectators – this is essential.”Lamb also rejected Lloyd’s assertions that the central contract system, which takes players away from their counties for much of the season, was ‘ludicrous’.”It is true to say, however, that some counties will see their top players ononly a few occasions this summer – that was the inevitable consequence ofintroducing central contracts for England players, he said.”David was, of course, a leading advocate of this new central contractssystem. But, as David alludes to, central contracts have played a significant role in England’s recent run of five Test series without defeat.”The introduction of the two-division Championship has brought about atougher, more intense and competitive form of cricket that is helping to prepareplayers for Test Match cricket.”Lamb is keen to defend the current crop of English Test players, insistingthey are the victims of unfair criticism for their performance against theworld-beating Australians.He said: “We must not forget we are currently playing the leading cricketingnation in the world, which would have been a tremendously difficult challenge inany circumstances – made more so by the spate of injuries we have suffered.”But, there is never any room for complacency and the ECB – along with thefirst-class counties – is now reviewing the whole structure of first-classcricket in England and Wales and, if we conclude changes need to be made, theywill be.”Since its formation in 1997, the ECB has showed that it’s not afraid toconfront difficult questions for the benefit of the whole game.”