Cricket: MacLaurin: Give the young selective attention

Stephen Fay hears a reformist's calls for action on management flaws

SELECTORS WHO obstructed Lord MacLaurin's long-term plans for English cricket had to go. "We've got to almost crisis-manage the international side at the moment," the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board says.

The problem was that not enough young cricketers were being given a chance. At selectors' meetings yesterday and last Thursday, the principal topic was a strategy for the next two years. "It's important that we have a blend of the established stars, and young players," MacLaurin says.

Last Sunday's dinner which led to the Defenestration of Old Trafford, when Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting were tipped out of the window, had been planned for some time, but the script changed as the months went by. "This summer's been disastrous internationally. Absolutely disastrous," MacLaurin says. He and the ECB had thought of the Tests against New Zealand as a development series. "We wanted to take the opportunity to bring young people through, so that we would have an idea who to take to South Africa." He wanted young players to be able to prove themselves: "You can't be a one or two Test wonder. You can't prove anything in that time."

But familiar old faces were making final appearances as regularly as Dame Nellie Melba. MacLaurin cloaks his impatience, but it is not hard to detect: "We haven't been happy with the way things are going. It seemed to us in our discussions that we want responsibility to end with the people who are actually running the team."

That means the reign of the new coach, Duncan Fletcher, begins early, and it will be austere. From now on the England teams belongs to Nasser Hussain and Fletcher, with David Graveney, as chairman of selectors, doing the talent-spotting, and sifting advice from old professionals.

Ray Illingworth got rid of mobile phones and the team chaplain; Fletcher has more far-reaching plans. "When we interviewed him," MacLaurin recalls, "Duncan Fletcher said, `The captain and I will run things. I don't want coaches in the dressing room. I don't want sports psychologists or fitness trainers. I want only my team, my captain and the physio'."

MacLaurin is a frustrated man. His job is to secure the financial future of the game, and to reform the management, yet he is judged by England's unfathomable performances. "What I can't do is make the players perform to their best on a regular basis. Why aren't these people really up and motivated? Is it the selection policy? Has the chairman of selectors said, `You're very important to our side for the next couple of years?' If they get that job security, provided they perform, I think that will help."

A nucleus of England players will soon be contracted to the English Cricket Board rather than their counties - if MacLaurin gets the agreement of the 18 counties when the First Class Forum meets on 23 August. The elite squad will be smaller, however, than the 26 contracted to the Australian Cricket Board. "My view is that we need to protect people like Darren Gough," he says.

What he would like to concentrate on is remodelling the management of English cricket. "In business terms, the management of the game is badly flawed." Presently, the ECB's management board must consult all 18 counties before dotting i's and crossing t's. "What I hope we will do before my time ends in 18 months is to have a management board which is charged with running the game." He envisages a board of 16 in which a number of county chairmen or chief executives are elected on a rotational basis, like the board of a plc.

There is a low buzz on the county circuit that the ECB would like to reduce the number of counties. MacLaurin shies away from it. "If you were to start from scratch now, you'd have 12 first-class counties. I think at the end of the day those discussions will take place, but it would be ridiculous to start talking about it now. For the moment, it's absolutely sacrosanct that 18 counties are there, and for the present there will be no talk about counties amalgamating." The message is clear, but count the number of qualifications.

Lord MacLaurin and the ECB have been taking heavy flak recently: the criticism is that the ECB is overmanned, bureaucratic, too business-like, not business-like enough. It does not cause him to regret taking the job, though he clearly does not like reading the criticism: "If you mark us out of 100, you would give us about 60, which shows there is a hell of a way to go. Everyone focuses on the national side, and, at the end of the day, we'll be judged by its success. That's fair enough, but we've got more youngsters playing cricket than ever before. We're weaning kids from Kwik cricket to the hard-ball game. We've got six centres of excellence, and club cricket has done well. People shouldn't run away with the idea that everything's absolutely bloody awful. It's not all gloom and doom."