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Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, has calmed speculation that England’s top players could be lured into the financially lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL).The IPL – which is officially sanctioned by the ICC, unlike the Indian Cricket League – has attracted some of the biggest names in world cricket. Dimitri Mascarenhas is the only Englishman to have signed up so far, largely due to the IPL clashing with the county season, but Clarke insists no player can be poached without the ECB’s consent.”We have a contract with BCCI,” Clarke told . “In that contract, they’re not allowed to take any English players of any kind to play in IPL if there is no ‘No Objection Certificate’ [NOC].”IPL will not play any player who has not received an NOC.”Clarke would be powerless to prevent the likes of Kevin Pietersen joining the non-sanctioned ICL, although any player who went down that path could be barred from playing Test or county cricket in the future. Two days ago, the ECB rejection the registration of five county players for their association with the ICL.”If they obtain a No Objection Certificate from their home board then we’re going to consider their cases,” Clarke said. “I don’t think we’re telling players they can’t earn a living. We’re saying here are the rules in our country. Our job is to nurture, to protect and to develop cricket in England and Wales. We make those judgements as to how we go about doing that. We do so with clarity, legally. If people from other countries have different views as to how we’re doing that, I’m sorry but they’re not in our country.”We’ll run the game according to our regulations and our rules and we expect them to comply. We have no interest in seeing rogue leagues in other countries develop. We have no interest in seeing rogue leagues in our country develop.”Some of England’s higher profile names, such as Pietersen and Alastair Cook, have poured water on the attraction of the IPL, committing their immediate future to England. Ali Brown, Surrey’s pugnacious batsman, also turned down an offer. However, earlier this month Lalit Modi, the Indian IPL commissioner, said the tournament’s second season could be moved in order to accommodate England players.

It may have been the `golden age of cricket’ but Edwardian professionals were treated as a lesser breed, their lives often ending in alcoholism and suicide, as Robert Palmer reveals…

“Smith EJ £1 weekly during winter if willing to work (or 10% weekly if no employment found): £2 weekly during summer and farm out at Leamington if possible, or elsewhere, failing which on ground staff.”Such was a minute in the Warwickshire CCC records for August 23, 1907, referring to the famous ‘Tiger’ Smith, who later became the club coach until his retirement at the age of 77. The minute reads as a very inhuman entry – especially ‘farm out’ – and reflects the undignified haggling which went on to obtain players as cheaply as possible.In the early years of the 1900s, these players were known as ‘professors’, the term possibly originating from their role as coaches at universities. The players may have felt that the term conferred upon them some status, but it certainly did not fill their pockets.Although the players were at liberty to work in the winter, opportunities were not abundant and many relied solely on their wage from the county. At best, this provided a hand-to-mouth existence. Even Willie Quaife, who was probably the highest paid player at Warwickshire at that time, earned only around £125 per year. This sum compared to the pay of a railwayman or a clerk but these professions carried a job for life and a pension at the end of it. A cricketer was usually finished when he was 35.In those clays, there was a huge gap between the income of a working man and those of the upper classes. As the Englishwomen’s Domestic Magazine stated, “A well bred young woman’s trousseau in the early 1900s for lingerie alone was expected to cost £100”. In other words, roughly Jim ‘Tiger’ Smith’s wage. Furthermore players were expected to buy their own kit and to pay their own hotel bills and rail fares. `Tiger’ recalled that “the return fare Birmingham- London then was 9s 7d and you could get dinner, bed and breakfast at the Adelphi in Adam Street for 7s 6d. We had nothing to grumble at”.Admittedly clubs like Warwickshire were not well off. For example, in 1902 there was a bill for the new pavilion of £1,374 to find. The profit for that year was a slender £60. Possibly this was why the players were invited to a dinner in 1902 with the touring Australians on the understanding that they paid for their own drinks. Contrast this with the conditions of today’s cosseted cricketer, with his generous salary, perhaps an England contract, lucrative sponsorship, book deal and six-figure benefit cheque. A Geoffrey Boycott speaking engagement would bring in more than a professor’s annual salary.

Of course the lucky player might expect a Benefit after 10 or 11 years as a capped player. Smith in fact had two Benefits: in 1922, he received £700; and in 1954, he had a testimonial worth £698. This, however, was a rarity. And very often much of a player’s benefit went on paying off debts. The Warwickshire player Johnnie Shilton earned £700 from his Benefit, but he was an undischarged bankrupt and most of the funds were already spoken for by various debtors. The committee was forced to have a discussion about his position, “he being in prison for debt”. Shilton died three years later, aged 37.It has been claimed that Shilton was 42 when he died but, having been unable to gain employment at Warwickshire because he was born a Yorkshireman, he used the birth certificate of his cousin John, who was born in Coventry five years before Shilton.

Cricket, generally, was not a long-lived profession in those days. A further hazard was the weather, which could destroy a player’s one chance of putting by a nest egg for his old age, or perhaps of buying a small shop. A player called Syd Santall, who had taken more than 1,000 wickets for Warwickshire, had his benefit in the match against Yorkshire spoilt by rain and he received only £400, which would be worth about £8,000 today. Scant reward indeed.It was not altogether surprising, therefore, that many players ended their days in penury. This was often due to their own failings, among which an addiction to drink ranked high. The players could not afford much to spend on drink. It was their admirers who were the danger, and clubs made appeals to the public not to treat professionals to a tipple. The impecunious Shilton, who was known as Lord Warwick because he was often seen riding around in a hansom cab, said: “Drink, sir, why I could swim in drink. I wish they wouldn’t give me drink. I wish they would give me the money.” Another said he could have drowned in drink.It was not unknown for players to take to the field the worse for drink. Another Warwickshire player, Frank Foster, who was an amateur but strongly inclined against those of his status, recalled that he had hardly tumbled into bed at seven o’clock in the morning after a night’s carousing than two team mates came into his room, stripped him, put him in the bath and for an hour “pummelled and punched” him. They then ordered him a beef steak and a pint of beer for his breakfast. He recalled that he could hardly crawl to the wicket when play began. Even so, he managed to catch Wilfred Rhodes in the first over. On another occasion he remembers leaving the card table for the breakfast table.These anecdotes are not meant to malign old cricketers as a breed. On the whole they were fine, hard-working, steady types, which made it even worse that they should be treated the way they were. We have all heard Lord Hawke’s dictum “Pray God no professional player is ever allowed to captain England”. The magical gift of leadership was felt to reside only in those who had been to a decent public school.Patsy Hendren, the old Middlesex and England player, spoke about the professionals not only having separate dressing-rooms to the amateurs, but also separate gates to the playing area at Lord’s. In one match it happened that 10 amateurs were in the side together with a solitary professional, Hendren. As a concession he was invited to use the amateur’s gate, but with his quirky sense of humour he insisted on using his own gate in solitary splendour.It was much less humorous for the professors when inferior amateurs, such as public school teachers on their summer holidays, took their places, which often led to them losing badly needed match fees. Also galling was the rule at many clubs that professors were not allowed in the pavilion except at meal times or when they were specially called for.

A particular indignity was the extraneous duties that the players were required to carry out. For example, the professors were expected to umpire club and ground games or to bowl to club members in the nets for a couple of hours. This latter chore was greatly resented, as evidenced by the experience of Shilton. After bowling his heart out at a corpulent member for an hour, he was rewarded with tuppence, the price of half a pint of ale. Legend has it that he threw the money at the member’s feet and shouted, “You must bloody need this more than me”.On another occasion Shilton told a member, a parson wearing a gaudy Free Foresters cap, to “get back to your pulpit where you’ll be more bloody use”. One can imagine the response of the great Fred Trueman to being asked to bowl to plump members wearing multi-coloured hats. ‘Dick’ Lilley and Sam Hargreave, who were both senior Warwickshire professionals, paid £15 apiece in order to secure their release from having to bowl at the members.For all the penury and the indignities, life for the old professors was largely enjoyable; glorious days, in retrospect anyway, of endless sun with springy turf beneath their feet, performing legendary feats in front of adoring crowds. The reality once they hung their boots up was grim. Many could not cope with life after cricket. Then the hangers-on quickly melted away. Presents and souvenirs went to the pawn shops. Suicide was not uncommon: even the great Arthur Shrewsbury, unable to face a summer in which he would not play cricket, shot himself.I once assumed that all cricketers found some congenial benefactor when they retired, someone who provided pleasant work somehow connected with cricket. Unfortunately there were many professors in the early 1900s who had to fend for themselves in the brutish world of the Edwardian underclass. With no marketable skills, many were forced to take ill-paid jobs: if they were lucky, a coaching appointment at a public school; if they were less lucky, working as an unskilled labourer.How surprised the old professors would be if they could come back and see the grounds of today: the ample accommodation, with no separate dressing-rooms, nor gates for amateurs: no amateurs full stop: free and plentiful equipment; a physiotherapist to minister to aches and pains; the indoor schools, the parking spaces for the sponsored cars. The old-timers only had their bicycles to ride.This article first appeared in The Cricketer in September 2002

Andrew Symonds says he will not tour Pakistan next year unless he is convinced the country has become more safe than in the days following the assassination of the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Symonds said while Australia’s visit had not been cancelled, he would be prepared to pull out if selected.”I’m not interested in going into a situation that’s dangerous, where people are getting killed and hurt,” Symonds told the . “There’s no point in that, in my opinion. I’m giving it some serious thought.”At the end of the day, it’s a game of cricket. I take my cricket very seriously and I love playing for Australia but I’m not going to put myself in a situation where I can be harmed. There’s no need, not for a game of cricket.”Australia are scheduled to tour Pakistan in March and they are unlikely to make a decision on whether the trip will go ahead until a Cricket Australia security delegation assesses the conditions in February. Symonds said he would also be monitoring news reports and would speak to people who had spent time in Pakistan to learn more about the situation.”You personally choose whether you want to play for Australia,” Symonds said. “If you’re selected, you can choose to decline the offer of going on a tour or playing a game. Unless CA hear otherwise, they assume you’re playing. At some point a decision needs to be made. We don’t know if things can get worse [in Pakistan].”As it stands, we’re still going. It is not a place you want to be right now, but there is some water to go under the bridge. The assassination of someone that important is not ideal is it?”Symonds said news of Bhutto’s death had left the Australian dressing-room in silence after the third day of the Melbourne Test as the implications began to sink in. “There is obviously huge concern,” he said. “After stumps we watched the television report in the dressing-room and the entire room stopped to listen to it.”Mitchell Johnson said the players trusted in Cricket Australia to make the right choice on whether to tour. “Security are going over to see what it’s like,” Johnson said. “The trip is a long way away and no decisions are being made at the moment.”The 2002-03 Pakistan-Australia series was held in Sharjah and Sri Lanka but the Pakistan Cricket Board said they were not interested in relocating this season’s games. If the tour goes ahead three Tests are expected to be played between March 17 and April 6, to be followed by five ODIs.

Scorecard
India Under-19s continued their good form with a seven-wicket win over South Africa, to take a 1-0 lead in the two-match series.India’s win was set up by their bowlers who restricted South Africa to less than 200 in both innings. Ravindra Jadeja, the left-arm spinner, took seven in the match including 5 for 32 in South Africa’s second innings.Bowling first, India put themselves in an excellent position after dismissing the hosts for a paltry 164. Only Riley Rossouw stood in their way with 83, and just two other batsmen reached double figures. Pradeep Sangwan took 3 for 37, while Harshad Khadiwale, Garikina Prasad and Jadeja bagged a couple each.Khadiwale then led India’s reply, putting on an unbeaten century stand with Abhinav Mukund at the close of the first day’s play. South Africa’s bowlers performed little better on the second, restricting India to a lead of 95. Khadiwale, Mukund and Virat Kohli, the captain, scored fifties for India, but the rest of the batsmen failed to drive home the advantage.South Africa’s top order then wiped clean the deficit, finishing day two on 116 for 1, leading by 21. However, India fought back on the final day to dismiss the hosts for 176, with Jadeja picking up five, leaving them a mere 82 to chase.India’s batsmen needed only 15.4 overs to complete an emphatic seven-wicket win. Tanmay Srivastava was unbeaten on 34, while Roy Adams picked up two wickets in his three overs.The second and final match of the series begins in Chatsworth on January 16.

The British Council, in conjunction with the Bangladesh Cricket Board, has launched a week-long Cricket Carnival at the at the BKSP Sports Academy near Dhaka. The event, it is hoped, will foster leadership qualities among the nation’s young cricketers, and heighten the communication and cultural exchanges between Britain and Bangladesh.”The event will build better relations between two organisations, who have been working together for three years,” Khondokar Jamiluddin, the vice-chairman of the BCB development committee, told The Daily Star. The British Council was represented by the director, Dr June Rollinson, who added that it was involved in similar sports programmes throughout the world, particularly in Africa.The Council has already helped the development of Bangladesh cricket by arranging for ten promising young players to take part in the Surrey League. In return, six young Englishmen from the MCC’s Young Cricketers’ Programme – Andrew Colquhoun, Steven Coleman, Simon Roberts, Paul Radley, Jonkheer van Bange and Shaun O’Brien -will also be taking part in the week’s festivities. They will each be joining one of the six divisional teams – Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Barisal and Sylhet – as well as experiencing life as a developing cricketer in Bangladesh.The teams, all including seven local players from the U-17 and U-19 development squads, have been picked by divisional coaches, but the cricketers will be on their own during the competition. “There will be no coaches to guide them and the players will be responsible for all their acts and decisions,” said BCB’s Sri Lankan official Carlton Bernadas. "They will even have to pick a substitute player in case a player is injured."When not taking part in matches, the cricketers will be involved in various community projects, from visiting a centre for the rehabilitation of the paralysed, and a junior clinic for girls’ cricket.

With Shane Warne’s Test spot suddenly left vacant, New South Wales leg spinner Stuart MacGill has today produced a perfect demonstration of his suitability as a replacement in the Pura Cup clash with Victoria in Melbourne. On another stop-start day at Punt Road, MacGill sensationally claimed three wickets in the space of ten balls midway through day three to help reduce the Victorians to a score of 6/140 by stumps in reply to the Blues’ 250.Just as this game appeared to be drifting along aimlessly in mid-afternoon, the fiery spinner re-ignited proceedings with a series of spectacular dismissals. At a scoreline of 2/57 in the thirtieth over, stodgy opener Jason Arnberger and number four Bradley Hodge appeared to be laying the foundations for the Bushrangers to claim first innings points. But, in the space of ten minutes, MacGill (3/34) changed all that completely, masterminding a dramatic collapse that saw the home team lose four wickets for five runs and crash to 6/62.Arnberger (20) was the first of MacGill’s three victims, losing his off stump after advancing a pace and playing over the top of a perfectly pitched top spinner. Ian Harvey (0) was the next to fall, succumbing to a fine reflex caught and bowled as he looped back a misplayed off drive. A driving Shawn Craig (0) illustrated no clearer clue of how to conquer the former international, gloriously beaten by the best ball of the match – a sharply spinning delivery which landed in footmarks outside the line of left hander’s off stump before shooting straight through the gate and into his stumps.To an extent, the classy Hodge (60*) and captain Paul Reiffel (34*) were able to rectify matters thereafter for the Victorians with a courageous unbroken stand of seventy-eight runs for the seventh wicket. But, with the injured Warne unlikely to bat, the havoc wreaked by MacGill served as a shattering blow to the Vics’ hopes of taking any points away from this rain-marred contest. It was indeed just as well for the locals that two comfortable-looking catches – the second a particularly costly miss as Reiffel had only twelve alongside his name at the time – were grassed by Michael Slater at point.Earlier in the day, a breezy half century from all-rounder Shane Lee (53) had helped the visitors clamber their way to what proved to be a competitive first innings total. Around some fine bowling from off spinner Colin Miller (4/71) that is similarly unlikely to have escaped the attention of the national selectors, there was also some positive strokeplay at times from tailenders Brett Lee (14), MacGill (13) and Don Nash (11).

Nottinghamshire 259 for 7 (Gallian 68, Franks 64) beat Somerset 225 (K Parsons 116*) by 34 runs
ScorecardNottinghamshire completed an impressive double by securing promotion from the second division of the totesport league, to match their return to the top flight of the Championship.Needing a win to leapfrog Yorkshire and nab the third promotion spot, Notts were indebted to Paul Franks, who emerged at No. 7 and proceeded to spank five fours and four sixes in a turbo-charged finish to the innings. He was eventually dismissed for 64 from 37 balls, which built on Jason Gallian’s 68 from 70 balls that had anchored the top of the order.Somerset, whose punishment for a bottom-four finish is an all first-class tie in the opening round of next year’s C&G Trophy, needed 260 to win, but that prospect looked bleak as Mark Ealham and Andrew Harris grabbed an early wicket apiece, before Greg Smith got in on the act with two rapid breakthroughs (71 for 4).Ian Blackwell didn’t last long either, but Keith Parsons wasn’t about to roll over and die. He counterattacked supremely in a thrilling century, finishing up on 116 not out from 114 balls. He was supported for a while by Aaron Laraman and Gareth Andrew, but the end – and Nottinghamshire’s promotion – came courtesy of a messy run-out.

The Australian cricket team has donated its $51,000 prize money for beating South Africa today to the Salvation Army’s bushfire relief fund.The Australian Cricket Board said it would match the $51,000, meaning a donation of $102,000 to help victims of the fires that have been burning around NSW fornearly two weeks.After accepting the winner’s cheque at the end of the third cricket Test against South Africa in Sydney, captain Steve Waugh said: “It’s been a great couple of weeks for the Australian team.”But while all this has been going on, the real heroes have been the firefighters saving lives and houses.”The Australian cricket team would like to donate all our prizemoney to the bushfire relief fund.”Earlier this week, Waugh said the team had been prepared to play a benefit match, but that wasn’t realistically possible given the crowded itinerary for the rest of the summer.He said the whole team agreed on the idea of donating the prize money.”We’ve been watching the news every night and quite a few of us have been affected by bushfires in the past.”It’s a small sacrifice from us, it’s not a large amount of money, but we thought it was the right way to go.”Prizemoney is usually divided among team members, which means today’s donation equates to about $4,000 for each of the 13 players who played in the series.

Players, coaches and administrators querying umpiring decisions will be slapped with a code of conduct charge under changes made to local rulings in the code by New Zealand Cricket for the season of 2003-04. As reported by Wisden CricInfo recently it is part of a crackdown after players abused a privilege extended by umpires.Martin Snedden, the chief executive of New Zealand Cricket, said the change tothe code was necessary because the questioning of umpires’ decisions hadbecome standard practice in recent seasons and this had been having anegative effect on the game. “Over the last few years a trend has come into the game at all levels inwhich captains, players and coaches demand explanations from umpires inrelation to decisions made after appeals.”This practice of demanding explanations from umpires is usedextensively by players to build pressure on umpires and to sway futuredecision making. It’s fair to say that some umpires have encouraged this practice byproviding explanations and, at times, do so without even being asked.”To some extent this development has occurred in the belief that ithelps with player-umpire relationships and communications. However, this is often not the case and these explanations havefrequently led to displays of dissent, disagreement or dissatisfaction.”We have the support of the CPA and the first-class coaches who agreethat it is a fundamental principle of the rules of cricket and theSpirit of Cricket that the umpire is the sole and final arbiter and thattheir decisions must be accepted without question. The next part of the process is for us to properly educate the umpiresand the players, which we will do through their coaches, so that theyare aware of the new expectations before the season starts,” he said.Snedden also said that the new law would be applicable at all levels ofthe game, particularly club cricket. We are aware that poor on-field treatment and by player abuse leadsdirectly to a number of umpires being lost to the game every year. We are determined that this trend will not continue at any level of thegame and we will be working with our major associations to ensure thatthe new expectations of on-field behaviour will be upheld at all levelsof the game.”

South Africa 337 and 99 for 2 lead England 425 (Strauss 126, Butcher 79) by 11 runs
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Three wickets from Makhaya Ntini helped South Africa fight back to end the third day at Port Elizabeth on even terms. That England got a decent first-innings lead was only down to spirited resistance from the tail after South Africa restricted England to 159 for the loss of seven wickets. In the final session, Graeme Smith and AB de Villiers got South Africa’s second innings off to a confident start, and by the close they led by 11 with eight wickets remaining.England’s innings was ripped apart by four wickets in 12 balls in the early afternoon just after they had overtaken South Africa’s 337, as Ntini bagged three in four. He was denied a hat-trick by Matthew Hoggard after he had removed Mark Butcher for 79, the dangerous Andrew Flintoff for 35 and Geraint Jones for 2.Butcher’s confident innings was brought to an unconfident close when Ntini’s innocuous delivery caught him in two minds and the impressive Thami Tsolekile took the feathered edge. Flintoff added a four before he too fell to Ntini, trying to replicate an earlier hooked six off Dale Steyn. But Flintoff came up short on the longer of the two leg-side boundaries, holing out to the perfectly-positioned Jacques Rudolph.

With the bit between his teeth, Ntini’s next ball surprised Geraint Jones with some steepling bounce, and an uncontrolled backfoot push was well held by a diving Boeta Dippennaar in the covers and England were reeling at 353 for 7. Next over, Andrew Hall removed Hoggard and England were facing the slenderest of first-innings leads.But they extended it to 88 runs after tea as South Africa made hard work of taking the last two wickets. Ashley Giles proved once more that he is no batting slouch, sharing a handy stand of 36 with Simon Jones before falling to Shaun Pollock for 26 (394 for 9). Steyn thought he had wrapped up the innings one run later as Steve Harmison skied one to Ntini at deep backward square leg. But Ntini dived over the ball, and England romped along in spirited style as, try as they seemingly might, they just could not give their last wicket away.The last pair were both nearly run out, while Jones edged over the slips and Harmison was caught by Tsolekile off Steyn, who was then no-balled for his troubles. To add insult, England scrambled a run as the keeper had thrown the ball away in misguided celebration. But, while Harmison and Jones provided amusement, they were adding a serious 31 runs before Steyn finally held a caught-and-bowled off Jones.Smith and de Villiers set about reversing the deficit in fine style, however, rattling up 26 from six overs before Hoggard took a superb return catch to dismiss de Villiers. Jacques Rudolph entered the fray, looking to match his sturdy 93 in the first innings. But Giles, eager to exploit the cracks after Smith had extracted turn earlier, sent him back on 28 after he edged to Marcus Trescothick at first slip. Giles’ turn had the batsmen in all sorts of trouble, particularly the lefthander Smith. But Smith remained unbeaten at the end of the day.

In the morning, South Africa struck vital early blows before Butcher and Flintoff stabilised the innings. Andrew Strauss added just six to his overnight 120 before spanking Pollock to de Villiers in the covers (238 for 2). Michael Vaughan’s recent good form wasn’t in evidence, and Hall’s first ball on target trapped him in his crease, prodding defensively at a good-length ball which took a firm edge to Smith at first slip (249 for 3).Then Smith brought himself on against Butcher and Thorpe, and Butcher, in particular, struggled initially with the turn. The captain kept himself on, and so delayed taking the new ball: a decision vindicated when he bowled Thorpe, who was attempting an ambitious sweep, around his legs for 4.The heat was on as England slipped to 277 for 4. Butcher was in superb form and his mounting confidence was tangible as he stroked successive boundaries off Pollock. Flintoff was more subdued, giving the occasional bad ball short shrift, as England’s run rate limped to just above three an over.But then came Ntini’s spell which nipped the recovery in the bud and ensured that the fourth day began with all to play for.Jenny Thompson is assistant editor of Cricinfo.