Dave Richardson - the man on a mission
By Jonathan Liew
One of the perils of making a career as a global sporting administrator is that for all its generous remuneration, it can be a fairly humdrum existence. The air-conditioned airport lounges and executive boardrooms all begin to blend into each other after a while. Every so often, though, you can escape the treadmill. And for Dave Richardson, the flawed, frustrated but essentially well-meaning chief executive of the International Cricket Council, that escape happens to be a trendy bar in Shoreditch, east London, where dozens of kids from around England are celebrating the one-year countdown to the 2019 World Cup by playing some street cricket.
For Richardson, it is a scene that encapsulates the sort of legacy that he and tournament organiser Steve Elworthy are hoping to craft a year from now, when England take on South Africa at The Oval to bring up the curtain on a tournament that means so much. But at this crossroads in the global game, when cricket is busily renegotiating the very boundaries of what the sport will look like in future, next year’s World Cup offers a chance to put some meat on the bones.
But Richardson has little time for the view of Colin Graves, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, that the younger generation are simply not interested in cricket.
“That is,” he says with a delicious precision, “very much an English viewpoint. Globally, the average age of the fan is lower than even football, and certainly rugby.”
It is interesting to note how ECB’s new 100-ball tournament, to begin the year after the World Cup, has attracted derision not just in this country, but worldwide.
“From an international point of view, probably we would say no,” he says. “But historically, we used to have 60-over one-day cricket. In England they had a 40-over competition. In South Africa we used to play 45 overs per side. So domestically, there’s always been trialling of different formats. If eventually, it comes about that 100-ball cricket eventually is a better product than T20, then who knows. But certainly there isn’t an appetite to create another format.”
Of course, before we reach the sunlit uplands of next summer, there are plenty of grey clouds to negotiate. The recent Al-Jazeera documentary has once again raised the ugly spectre of fixing in cricket, with hazy, unsubstantiated and fiercely denied accusations.
“I’m always concerned if people are talking about fixing in cricket,” he says. “I’m a little perturbed by any accusation that we would attempt to sweep it under the carpet, or pretend that nothing has happened. So we will investigate fully. We are meeting with them [Al-Jazeera] in the next couple of days.”
The ICC have done a very reasonable job of safeguarding international cricket against the approaches of fixers. Instead, it is the various and often unsanctioned Twenty20 leagues, popping up all over the world like sprouts on a rotten potato, that provide the broadest target for corruption.
“It would be very surprising if international cricketers were able to be got to,” Richardson says. “And therefore, because that target has been hardened, these guys are now trying to create their own leagues, at a much lower level. I think those leagues do provide an additional opportunity for the people that want to get involved and try and fix.
“So what we need to make sure is that anyone staging a T20 domestic tournament — especially televised — that they have in place minimum standards. To make sure they have an anti-corruption code in place, that all the players are educated, and that we are monitoring the franchise owners, the people involved in the tournament, doing due diligence.”
On doping, Richardson acknowledges the increased incentive offered by T20 and its emphasis on power hitting and quick recovery. He insists that the testing programme at international level is substantial and Wada-compliant. He confirms that every team at next year’s World Cup will be tested, although he admits that the recent decision to extend official T20 international status to all ICC members — increasing the number of teams from 18 to 104, the vast majority operating on a shoestring budget — means there is still “some work to do”.
“The nature of cricket hasn’t made doping a high risk. To run between the wickets that fraction of a second faster: historically, cricketers haven’t felt the need to bolster their performance by using performanceenhancing drugs,” he says “Having said that, with T20 coming to the fore, we recognise that potentially it could become a bigger risk going forward. Slowly and surely, you’ll see the volume of tests that we conduct increasing.”
One of the perils of making a career as a global sporting administrator is that for all its generous remuneration, it can be a fairly humdrum existence. The air-conditioned airport lounges and executive boardrooms all begin to blend into each other after a while. Every so often, though, you can escape the treadmill. And for Dave Richardson, the flawed, frustrated but essentially well-meaning chief executive of the International Cricket Council, that escape happens to be a trendy bar in Shoreditch, east London, where dozens of kids from around England are celebrating the one-year countdown to the 2019 World Cup by playing some street cricket.
For Richardson, it is a scene that encapsulates the sort of legacy that he and tournament organiser Steve Elworthy are hoping to craft a year from now, when England take on South Africa at The Oval to bring up the curtain on a tournament that means so much. But at this crossroads in the global game, when cricket is busily renegotiating the very boundaries of what the sport will look like in future, next year’s World Cup offers a chance to put some meat on the bones.
But Richardson has little time for the view of Colin Graves, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, that the younger generation are simply not interested in cricket.
“That is,” he says with a delicious precision, “very much an English viewpoint. Globally, the average age of the fan is lower than even football, and certainly rugby.”
It is interesting to note how ECB’s new 100-ball tournament, to begin the year after the World Cup, has attracted derision not just in this country, but worldwide.
“From an international point of view, probably we would say no,” he says. “But historically, we used to have 60-over one-day cricket. In England they had a 40-over competition. In South Africa we used to play 45 overs per side. So domestically, there’s always been trialling of different formats. If eventually, it comes about that 100-ball cricket eventually is a better product than T20, then who knows. But certainly there isn’t an appetite to create another format.”
Of course, before we reach the sunlit uplands of next summer, there are plenty of grey clouds to negotiate. The recent Al-Jazeera documentary has once again raised the ugly spectre of fixing in cricket, with hazy, unsubstantiated and fiercely denied accusations.
“I’m always concerned if people are talking about fixing in cricket,” he says. “I’m a little perturbed by any accusation that we would attempt to sweep it under the carpet, or pretend that nothing has happened. So we will investigate fully. We are meeting with them [Al-Jazeera] in the next couple of days.”
The ICC have done a very reasonable job of safeguarding international cricket against the approaches of fixers. Instead, it is the various and often unsanctioned Twenty20 leagues, popping up all over the world like sprouts on a rotten potato, that provide the broadest target for corruption.
“It would be very surprising if international cricketers were able to be got to,” Richardson says. “And therefore, because that target has been hardened, these guys are now trying to create their own leagues, at a much lower level. I think those leagues do provide an additional opportunity for the people that want to get involved and try and fix.
“So what we need to make sure is that anyone staging a T20 domestic tournament — especially televised — that they have in place minimum standards. To make sure they have an anti-corruption code in place, that all the players are educated, and that we are monitoring the franchise owners, the people involved in the tournament, doing due diligence.”
On doping, Richardson acknowledges the increased incentive offered by T20 and its emphasis on power hitting and quick recovery. He insists that the testing programme at international level is substantial and Wada-compliant. He confirms that every team at next year’s World Cup will be tested, although he admits that the recent decision to extend official T20 international status to all ICC members — increasing the number of teams from 18 to 104, the vast majority operating on a shoestring budget — means there is still “some work to do”.
“The nature of cricket hasn’t made doping a high risk. To run between the wickets that fraction of a second faster: historically, cricketers haven’t felt the need to bolster their performance by using performanceenhancing drugs,” he says “Having said that, with T20 coming to the fore, we recognise that potentially it could become a bigger risk going forward. Slowly and surely, you’ll see the volume of tests that we conduct increasing.”