Earlier this month the Club held its annual End of Season Members’ Forum in the Thomas Lord Suite at Lord’s.
A top table of Middlesex Senior representatives comprised, Chair, Richard Sykes, CEO, Andrew Cornish, CFO, Illa Sharma, Director of Cricket, Alan Coleman, and First Team Coach Richard Johnson, and all were in attendance to bring members up to speed with the latest developments at the Club and to answer any questions posed to the panel by the members in attendance.
The following is a summarised transcript of the Forum, covering all items discussed:
The forum began with an address from Chair Richard Sykes, who opened by welcoming all members to the meeting and introducing himself to those members who had yet to meet him, with him having recently been appointed as the Club’s new Chair.
He explained that the meeting was being audio recorded and that a summary of the meeting would be provided to members which would be available to read on the Club’s website in the members’ hub area of the website in due course.
Sykes continued by acknowledging the challenges the Club were currently facing and had faced in recent times, and offered some reassurance that the Club were focussing on resolving all the challenges it faces and that the Club was looking forward to getting back on a more secure footing moving forwards.
In recent weeks and months members will have become aware of a number of these challenges through article published in the press, and he began by discussing the outcome of the ECB investigation that had been conducted and subsequently covered in the media. A compliance agreement had been reached with the ECB that puts certain requirements on the Club moving forward, which were the result of an investigation into historic off-field governance matters and historic financial mismanagement at the Club. An compromise agreement was reached with the ECB that drew a line under the process, which was conducted in a relatively short period of time by the ECB, which was a preferred route for the Club to take, rather than electing to go down a regulatory process, which would draw the matter out, potentially taking between 18 and 24 months to complete, with no guarantees what the outcome would be.
The resulting Compliance Agreement that has been reached with the ECB has been agreed by both parties, and effectively means that the Club have agreed to accept that historically there were significant shortcomings in governance and that financial governance could have been more robust. The outcome of the Agreement is that the Club has a financial penalty of £50,000 to settle with the ECB, which will be done over a period of ten months, which has already been factored into the Club’s cashflow projections, and a number of additional suspended financial penalties and sanctions, including suspended points deductions, were imposed that will only be triggered and imposed if the Club fails to meet the terms of the Compliance Agreement. In short, Sykes explained that everything the ECB were asking of the Club moving forwards was manageable and the Club were confident would be met in the process of delivering the Business Plan that we will be agreeing with the ECB, which will take the Club forward on a more solid financial footing over the next two years. Furthermore, Illa Sharma is confident that the Club’s end of year financial results will see the Club showing an operating profit for the first time in many years this year.
Another significant part of the Compliance Agreement reached with the ECB was that the Club have to run a governance review, which is a process which will be led by Sykes himself, so that we and the ECB can build a firm understanding of where the Club went wrong over the previous few years and to ensure that moving forwards the Club has the right level of governance in place to ensure we are fit for purpose in the future. Sykes explained that as the Club’s new Chair, he would be looking to strengthen the calibre of people on the Club’s governance committees and Board, and welcomed any members to put themselves forward if they felt they had something to offer.
Aside of these issues to focus on, there were one or two other areas we had to satisfy the ECB on which formed part of the Compliance Agreement, with the ECB maintaining the right to attend Board meetings in an observer capacity to ensure we were on track to meet the objectives outlined in our Business Plan. Again, Sykes reassured members that he was confident the Club would meet all its requirements and could work with the constraints put in place by the ECB and was confident that none of the suspended sanctions would be imposed.
The next issue Sykes covered was the issue of his own appointment as Chair, and the reported circumstances around the process that led to his appointment. He explained that after the Club had initially conducted its own search for a replacement Chair, no successful or suitable applicant was found, and whilst Sykes initially was involved in that recruitment process as the Club’s Senior Independent Director, he removed himself from the process completely at the time he declared his own interest in applying for the post. When no successful applicant was found, the Club subsequently appointed the services of Executive Search specialist Perrett Laver, who then independently conducted a second search, which Sykes applied for. After this extensive independent search and recruitment process was conducted, Sykes was proposed as Chair unanimously, as the standout candidate for the role, which was voted for unanimously by the independent panel.
The next issue that Richard Sykes addressed was the misreporting by the Daily Mail of the situation around Andrew Cornish’s annual salary and claims that he had awarded his own pay rise. He confirmed that Cornish had no influence whatsoever over his own salary payments and merely sat on the Remunerations Committee to oversee and advise on the salary payments of the staff of the Club. He further confirmed that Cornish had not received the pay rise that the Daily Mail had falsely claimed and confirmed that the Club had no knowledge of any investigation the FCA had apparently launched, and had not even been contacted by the FCA, as again was reported by the Daily Mail. The article was littered with false claims and there is no truth to the claims made.
The final issue that has been in the press of late is in relation to the ongoing dispute between the Club and its former Chief Executive Officer, Richard Goatley. Sykes confirmed that the Club had been pressed into making a statement on this, following the release of the Daily Mail article, which confirmed that they would be pursuing monies from the former CEO through legal means, however stressed that due to this being an ongoing legal matter, the Club would not be drawn into issuing any further information on the matter in light of the Club not wishing to influence the legal process, under the instruction of the Club’s lawyers.
Sykes confirmed that for the last two years the Club had been trying to amicably resolve its dispute with Richard Goatley, however having failed to do so, the matter had now been placed in the hands of lawyers.
Sykes concluded his introduction by saying that these challenges had put the Club under enormous pressure in recent times, however he wished to continue the Club’s desire to be open and honest with members on matters like this, to ensure transparency, however this has to come with an understanding that when lawyers are involved there will obviously be constraints to that policy.
Having concluded his round up on all off-field matters, Sykes then passed the microphone to CEO, Andrew Cornish, to offer further comments on the off-field issues.
Cornish continued by reaffirming Sykes’ comments about the Club wanting to be open and honest with its members in relation to matters of this nature, rather than leaving members to be influenced by reports in the press, which have proven to be wholly misleading in recent months. He expanded that certain member of the press had behaved without much integrity and in his thirty-year career, in some very high profile roles, he had rarely seen such manipulation of the facts by the press and he thanked those members who had personally reached out to the Club to already offer their support.
He expanded on the appointment of Richard Sykes, reaffirming that after the process run by Perrett Laver, that Sykes, whilst himself being modest, was by far the standout candidate and was definitely the right person for the Chair’s role.
Sykes then thanked the members for their ongoing support throughout a challenging period and also personally wished to thank Angus Fraser for stepping into the Interim Chair’s role prior to Sykes’ own appointment, and he stressed that the Club should be extremely grateful to Angus for his commitment to the role throughout what was undoubtedly a challenging period for the Club.
Sykes then welcomed questions from the floor, about off field matters, before saying that after this question-and-answer session he would hand over to Coleman and Johnson to cover all on-field matters.
Question 1
According to reports in the press, it appears that the financial allegations the ECB made were mostly around diverting money from recreational cricket to the professional game. Is that a fair characterisation?
Richard Sykes confirmed that this was one of the allegations made by the ECB, which was strongly refuted by the Club and was not proven by the ECB in their investigation. He explained that this was an allegation that the Club has defended, however acknowledged that looking back, the Club could have been more transparent on the financial transactions between the two entities of Middlesex County Cricket Club and the Middlesex Cricket Board. As mentioned earlier, the Club could have gone down a regulatory process route to defend against these allegations, however, with a desire to put this historical governance issues behind us, and ensure that moving forward there was more robust governance around the finances, the Club reached the compromise agreement with the ECB, with guarantees that a more transparent process would be operated moving forwards. To clarify, and close, the Club does not accept these claims that were reported in the press.
Question 2
I've got just two questions that relate to an article written by George Dobell on the Cricketer website last week, and they're about Richard Goatley. Firstly, are you able to assure us that when he left the Club he was treated in line with the values of the club? And secondly, the article by George Dobell states he's still very unwell and his family are in some hardship. What is the Club doing that you think will help him and his family through what sounds like a very distressing time for everyone?
Richard Sykes answered by thanking the member for raising the questions and explained that the Club’s former Chair, Mike O’Farrell went out of his way to make sure that Richard and his family were looked after, especially after Richard was first taken ill and then left the Club. Mike and others, but Mike in particular, went out of his way to look after Richard as we attempted to resolve matters amicably. Undoubtedly this has been a difficult time for all involved, there’s no getting away from that, and disappointingly having failed to resolve matters amicable our relationships in recent months with Richard have largely been lawyer to lawyer. The reason this has taken so long to resolve is that an awful lot of time was spent trying to make sure that the Middlesex values were applied appropriately in how we were treating Richard.
Question 3
We understand has done a great job in controlling expenses, which you can't keep doing for five years. I guess in the five-year plan what do you have that's going to enhance the revenues which is the only way we're going to increase our reserves?
Richard Sykes advised that it will be a two-year Business Plan, however alongside this we will be refreshing and updating the Club’s long-term strategy. He explained that the Board of Directors were holding a strategy day in November which would help shape the future of the Club which for the first two years would work alongside the Club’s two-year Business Plan agreed with the ECB.
Revenue streams the Club relies on are presently the ECB revenue, the MCC revenue from our partnership, our membership revenue and commercial revenue, and the new strategy the Club will build will look closely at all these areas and look at how we can increase these revenue streams. It will look to embrace the changes influencing the wider game, which the Hundred sits at the heart of, as does London Spirit, and we need to look at how we incorporate all the changes that will come at us into our own strategy. Strengthening our relationships with the ECB and MCC remain pivotal to our growth moving forwards and we need to work more strategically with our partners to grow the business. No one knows where the game is heading, with talk of external investment, however we need to ensure we are aligned to this and feel that this will only reflect positively on the Club. We need to look at how we can turn our 7,000 membership into a 15,000 membership, we need to look at how we can increase our sponsorship and hospitality revenue, and we need to look at how we can maximise our revenue from our partnership with MCC. We’ll be looking at everything very closely moving forwards, and this will all form part of our long-term strategy and two-year Business Plan.
Question 4
I think both the Club’s on field and off field problems really revolve around the lack of resource. One of the things that struck me having kind of worked, albeit in a peripheral way, is that the Club lacks executive resource. I'm amazed that Illa and Andrew haven't sunk under the table with the weight of responsibility, and I personally wouldn't have either of their jobs for all the tea in Chin – but it’s clear to me that there is a bottleneck at executive level. So, my question is, what can be done in the short term? Maybe the answer is you that you as Chair increase the bandwidth at an Executive and Senior Executive level, because now I think the two guys to your left have got too much on. And the second thing is what is your take on an approach in terms of external investment and bringing external investment in? Because I think you know, no matter how you cut the cake, we need external revenue, so what is your take on that?
Richard Sykes stated that he agreed entirely with what was said about the resources and workload issues, and that he had asked Andrew and Illa to factor in how we can look to improve the executive structure to make sure that they don't get completely dragged under with workload and then see what that means from a financial point of view. The situation has been exacerbated since last November, when the ECB investigation kicked in, and the pressure on the organisation has increased significantly in workload as a result, often to an unmanageable level, so yes, external investment may be the answer.
Sykes said that he felt that the game cannot continue to rely largely on the ECB revenues and whilst that remains a hugely important revenue stream, we can’t be dependent on that as our lifeline. He added that Cornish was flying to Asia to explore some possibilities as to potential new revenue streams, so yes, in short, the Club is receptive to looking at alternative revenue sources externally in the future, especially if that takes the Middlesex brand to a wider audience.
Question 5
It's as always around this time of the year the rumour mill starts and the rumour going round was Eskinazi going to Essex. I don't know what his contract is, whether it's up or whatever, any truth or not?
Richard Sykes denied hearing that specific rumour and suggested that this would be a perfect segway into cricketing matters, so passed the microphone to Alan Coleman, who would offer an introduction and round-up of all on-field matters and would then, with Richard Johnson, take questions on this topic.
Coleman began with an introduction and welcomed all members to the forum. He said he’d cover off the Eskinazi question at the end of his introduction.
He said that having spent most of the mid-season forum discussing the white-ball competitions, he wanted to focus more on the red-ball performances here but would welcome any questions on our white-ball performances.
He openly apologised for the season’s on-field performances and acknowledged that they’d not been up to the standard we expected and was grateful for the membership’s ongoing support and commitment.
He began by assessing an extremely disappointing Championship cricket campaign and acknowledged that the standard in Division One had moved on significantly from when the Club last competed in the top-flight in 2017. He felt that we had got what we deserved, and that relegation was the outcome of a season where we just weren’t consistent enough.
A total of five batting points and 39 bowling points told its own story and whilst at times we stood up to the test of character, the test of our cricket, and the test of our culture, there were times when we fell well a long-way short of what we should be expecting.
He acknowledged that many of the opposition elevens we played against included over a third of players who had been recruited since 2019, and this showed that the top Division was becoming far more heavily based on recruitment now than before, whereas in the past, when you look at sides like Yorkshire in 2017 who won the title, they did it largely with a home grown team of players. Middlesex conversely have been bucking that trend, with the vast majority of our eleven being home grown players, so moving forwards, in much the same way as Sykes had acknowledged that the game is moving on off the field, it is on the field too, and this is something we will need to consider moving forwards.
In regard to the Eskinazi rumour, this he felt was symptomatic of the way the Division is being run, whilst there is no truth in this specific rumour, and Eskinazi had three more years to run on his contract, the nature of player movement made rumours like this more commonplace, whether they were right or not – in this instance not!
He then welcomed questions from the floor relating to on-field matters.
Question 6
I would like to ask why you chose to bring in a bowler for the last two games rather than a batsman, which we dearly needed, particularly since Malan had gone back to South Africa? It didn't make any sense to me, and Yadav didn’t make that much of an impression in the games that he did play.
Alan Coleman explained that first and foremost, the biggest challenge with recruiting overseas players is availability – who is available and when? In September, with the Asia Cup going on, this took out most players from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan and the CPL was also still going on. Add to that the fact that England still had two international series to play, which removed the loan market, and Australia and South Africa had pulled their players back to prepare for their domestic seasons, then you can start to see the problem.
You’ve then got to look at who is available at what price? And the final piece of the puzzle is what do we need tactically to add to our existing squad?
He acknowledged that yes, we certainly needed a batter, but with no one meeting the criteria we wanted at the price we could afford to pay we had to weigh up our options. We felt that with the last four games being where they were, when we knew we’d be playing at Chelmsford, at Lord’s on a used wicket, at Old Trafford which traditionally takes spin and then at Trent Bridge on another used wicket, we felt that a spin option would add the best solution for us. When you look at the fact that over half of our wickets were taken by spin in the last four games of the season, I’d argue that this wasn’t a bad call. He acknowledged that it wasn’t a perfect signing by any means, but given who was available, the Club felt that this provided us with the best possible solution.
Richard Johnston added that sides had been preparing wickets at away games that nullified our threat with the seam attack and weren’t preparing green tops that would give us any initiative, so we felt that spin was the way to go. With Josh De Caires improving all the time, the work he was able to do with Yadav was massive, and we feel that the learning curve that Josh has been through, with Jayant’s help, can help him push to potentially be the Club’s number one spinner moving forwards.
Question 7
I'm just wondering, how sensible was it to appoint a Championship captain who didn't play every game, or wasn't likely to because of his injury problems in the past? Wouldn't it have been better to appoint somebody like Mark Stoneman, who was going to play every game?
Richard Johnston answered that the Club knew at the start of the season that Toby wouldn't play every game, so we put Stephen Eskinazi and Mark Stoneman in place as Vice-Captains. We felt Toby is a massive leader on and off the pitch. He's huge in our changing room. He drives the culture, he drives the training, he drives the way we practice, so for us he was the perfect candidate to be that person leading the team and we knew that we had other good characters to back him up if he didn't play and we needed to rest him or if he got injured.
Question 8
You mentioned that we didn't get enough bonus points. If we'd actually got some draw points rather than losing them, we wouldn't have got relegated. I came to every day the Warwickshire match. On the last day we seemed to lack strategy. Sam and Ryan did amazingly well on that last morning to get us back into the game, but at the end of the day we all knew it going to rain and then we would be fine as we knew there would only be about half an hour's play after 4pm, yet our last six wickets were just thrown away, it seemed so passive. If we'd only got another thirty runs or batted for another 20 minutes or so, we would have got the draw points. And I think that showed a lack of strategy and lack of focus. We all know there is a lack of finance and a lack of resources available, but It felt like we just went down into Division Two with more of a whimper than a bang.
Alan Coleman thanked the member for his points and apologised if the member felt that way, but Coleman felt strongly that there was no lack of strategy or focus, The goal was clear in everyone’s mind, everyone knew what was needed, it rather spoke to the difficulty in setting out your stall to bat for a draw, when the quality of the opposition bowlers is so high.
When you look back at Division Two, our style of cricket, and how we got promoted from the Division, we won games and drew games through our bowlers hitting the opposition batters’ knee rolls consistently and our batters waiting for the bad ball to put away, In Division one that proved nowhere near as successful as the bowlers don’t let up at all and the bad balls don’t come, and the batters are more assertive.
To your point, I think we need to adopt a style of play next season when back in Division Two that can get us promoted, but which is also transferable into Division One in coming seasons. Lack of finance and resources of course play a factor, but they can’t be used as an excuse for us not achieving our goals, which we can. Adding the likes of Ryan Higgins and from next season Leus Du Plooy will help us get there, as they are high quality multi-format players, and we can’t now afford to get highly paid one format players. We need to learn from this year, take it into next, and that would be the most significant strategic thing we can do, learning from not only the Warwickshire game, but from all the other games too.
Question 9
You talk about strategy for next year and the year after. I think there's a lot of our contracted players out of contract this time next year and whilst it's early days, can you give us some thoughts as to what you're looking at? And secondly, in case I don't get back on again, are we looking to get a new batting coach?
Alan Coleman responded by explaining that we can’t obviously speak about individual players’ contracts but confirmed that about 60% of the playing budget is out of contract at the end of next year. What you will see, as I said, is a shift towards multi format players, so those who have the most value to us are those that can play in more than one of the white, pink and blue kits in years to come. We also all know that there is a group of players who are now 34 or over, and this year we’ve already seen one of the Club’s legends retire, so there are going to have to be some tricky decisions to make coming up, as we simply cannot afford to have one format specialist on high wages. We’ve seen the impact that a player like Ryan Higgins can have across all formats, so this is the direction we need to be heading in as the impact of bringing in multi-format high quality cricketers is clear to see.
Richard Johnston added that from a coaching perspective, we’ve used a number of specialist consultants in recent seasons, and we as a Club need to look across the board, at how we keep moving forwards and how we keep improving.
When you look at someone like Ramps, he wors tirelessly with the players, he’s always throwing and he’s so good with the players. Technically, I am a great believer that we must do all we can to set these guys up with the best support we can, with the best people around them, and create the right culture and environment, but ultimately, if we’re doing that, then there is then a responsibility on the players to go out there and perform on the field. You’ve got to have pride, passion, and it can’t be about everybody else, you need to take personal responsibility for your own performances. We can’t be making any kneejerk reactions here, we need to look at everything closely and doing so, all we can do is provide the players with everything they need to go out thee and succeed. We’ll be looking at every single avenue, as we know we need to improve, and we know we need to get better.
Question 10
All that you’ve said so far, it doesn't seem to me to suggest you have any ambition to get back in into the First Division. Everything seems so downbeat.
Alan Coleman asked the member to refer to his previous answers, in which he explained that we need to find a stye of play that will get us quickly promoted to Division One, and make sure we’re then ready to play Division One cricket.
Question 11
It wasn't so long ago that we got rid of Stuart Law for failing to bring out the best in a group of players. The discrepancy between bowling and batting points says something is fairly wrong and fundamental with our batting and our approach. If we are to have accountability and responsibility for this and in the light of what happened to Stuart Law, why are we not going to look for a new batting coach?
Alan Coleman repeated much of what Richard Johnson commented on in his previous answer and suggested that it would be remiss and harsh to look at this one factor in isolation. Coleman suggested that there were many more factors to consider and went on to say that if you asked the batters whether they would pin this all on the batting coach, they would say no, this is on me - none of our batters are sitting pointing fingers at one man for a lack of performance. Let's also not forget that this is the team that in Division Two last year recorded one of the highest amounts of batting points in that division, with the same batting coach and a similar groups of players.
I think the thing that we need to do is learn pretty quickly, as I said, about what Division One cricket means. And that's where we've fallen short this year, which is in our learning of how we can compete in Division One. Take Sam Robson for example, as a former England Test opener – he hasn’t played in Division One since 2017 and it took him three months to get up to speed. He then scored 100 against Northants at MTS and then he got subsequent runs at the back end of the season. He’s averaged 37, done very, very well. But you look at his run of scores in the first six weeks, and they were very average. So, players have and will continue to take responsibility. But as Jono said, we're looking at everything with the cricket committee. We will sit and we will review everything. And from my perspective, and this is not kneejerk, I've asked the staff to go away and we're going to come back in the first week of November to review all of these things and the cricket committee are meeting in and around that time as well. So sometimes step back and look at the whole picture I think is a healthy thing to do, but what I can hopefully offer you a bit of reassurance with is that we are looking at everything.
Question 12
Just to say out of all the doom and gloom that has happened this season, there's been two good things to come out of it. Ryan Higgins for me. Player of the season without a doubt, and just to say, well, what a pleasure it's been to watch Tim Murtagh. All he's done for Middlesex - he just always seems to be there, does the job, gets on with it and I just think he's been a real asset to Middlesex over the years and just hope he has a very good retirement.
Richard Sykes agreed with the member’s view and said that he wanted to build on what Alan was saying and acknowledge the role of the Board in terms of overseeing cricket. Because at the heart of where we’ve gone wrong this season, in both red and white ball cricket, is the amount of times we have some very close to getting over the line, yet falling at the last hurdle and not getting the job done.
Interestingly, one group that has stood out this year is the Boys under 16’s, who won the ECB National Competition again for Middlesex, and they’ve managed to get over the line and win a trophy.
I think one of the challenges Alan and Richard face is how over the winter months they review the season, with a view to learning lessons from those close games and what can we do differently next time to grasp the moment and win those matches.
I see it as all about learning. What could we have done differently and focus on how we can bring this to bear moving forwards. We need to recognise that this must have had an impact on the culture in the dressing room. The players will probably say that it didn’t affect them, however subconsciously it certainly can’t have helped when there are so many issues going on off the field.
I think creating the right culture for the whole of the playing staff moving forwards is a critical part of the jigsaw, as understanding the cultural leadership aspect of it is an important part of succeeding, and on the surface, it won’t take much to turn those narrow losses into wins, and the whole picture starts to look very different then.
Question 13
There's no question in my mind that the route to recruiting more members isto have a successful white-ball side, which sits at odds with the fact that the cupboard is bare. So do we intend to try and recruit an overseas player for our white-ball cricket next year and if not what is the strategy to mitigate that?
Alan Coleman answered and thanked the member for his question. He said that from a direct overseas recruitment perspective it would be a lovely thing to be in a financial position to be able to do that. Our strategy currently however, with where our salary cap is, is that for the long-term, sustainable development of our squad we've got is the focus, whilst getting our domestic signings right, which is the Higgins and the Du Plooy model. Because even if we get the gun overseas player one year, we may not get them back next year and therefore our squad has improved briefly but not so in the long-term. There is money available for us to creatively work with, but we aren’t in the position anymore where we can pull in an AB de Villiers for six games, but there are plans to do that we can. I would love to be able to go to Jono and Steve Eskinazi, our white ball captain, with a high quality overseas player that's just going to make our side better because we saw what someone like Jason Behrendorff and Chris Green can do for us in 2022, however realistically we need to work creatively with our budget to ensure that whoever we bring in are obviously the right ones for the group. I do however agree, that if our white-ball team can be more successful, then the memberships should follow.
Richard Johnston added that he had spoken a few times about how in the last fifteen years we had only reached the quarter final stages twice, and averaged four wins per season over that time, and that was with bringing in some very high quality and experienced T20 specialists, which is obviously not a good enough record for a Club of this stature.
We went about things differently this year, as we wanted to change our approach to the way we play the game. We felt we had a lot of catching up to do with the other counties, but we wanted to go better than that. We want to try and find a way to compete with these guys without any overseas players and see whether we can push ourselves to the limits. If you look at the way we approached our batting last year, I think it was five times we got over 200, couple of times we chased over 200, obviously culminating in that great game against Surrey at The Oval. We chased 250 plus and we’d never done that before. We've only maybe got 200 once in the last couple of years. Our run rates have gone through the roof against pace and spin. Our batting, our boundary percentages have gone through the roof. We've got five players striking at over 140. We've only ever had one player over 140, so we’ve really moved on. I think that batting really positively showed in the last four games where we won three times. Our bowling needs improvement and needs work. There's no doubt as Coley has said, that last year we had two overseas bowlers come in and do a really good job for us. So we've got younger players trying to do a senior players’ job in a way and probably people bowling in the wrong parts of the game because we don't have the sort of firepower of an overseas fast bowler for example, or an international quality spinner.
We know that with Leus du Plooy coming it will add massively to our batting which makes us hopefully even stronger on that side and then I've got to work obviously with Coley and Illa and Andrew to try and find another overseas player if we can. Bowling wise I'm getting daggers already, but that's definitely an area where we feel we're quite excited by what we're seeing in our T20 side, and there’s plenty of promise there, we just need to keep improving on that. If you can get your core of the team right with young players that have come through the system. I think if you look at the Surrey game, I think we had nine Academy players in that team and the two guys that weren't Academy players joined the club at the age of sixteen, so I think winning against a very talented and experienced side we took a huge amount of confidence from that and carried it forward. We want to build on that massively for next year. We’ve just got to get that bowling bit right and continue the batting as we have done.
Alan Coleman added one other point, which was the fact that next June, when the T20 is being players, the ICC T20 World Cup is also taking place, with 24 nations in it, so the best sixteen players from all those countries, are likely to be unavailable in that period. So again, we already now see that the challenges of getting the right people in. It's not like the 50 over World Cup which is in October, where a few of the nations haven't made it and their players would be available, so that’ll be a really tricky challenge that we definitely want to overcome.
Question 14
You just touched on the bowling in the in white ball. Could you go through our squad with regards to the Championship bowlers? Because I'm a bit worried that, with Murtagh’s retirement, we won't have much incisiveness to get 20 wickets in Championship games.
Richard Johnston answered by starting by saying that losing a bowler of Tim’s quality is obviously difficult, however we are confident that we have the players to still perform. We’re looking at potential domestic recruitment, to make us a competitive side on all types of wickets.
We are hopeful that Blake Cullen will come through next season well, after a difficult year for him this year, so we have high hopes for him, and with Tom Helm and Ethan Bamber at their best we’re in a good place. We’ve got a couple of youngsters coming through too, with Ishaan Kaushal coming along nicely, so we’re looking ok, and with the addition of another domestic fast bowler, which we’re hoping to secure, if budgets allow, then we’ll be ready for what the season throws at us.
Question 15
Can I just return to finance question if I may? I totally understand and support the need for more investment and looking at all alternative revenue streams, I'm concerned that we don't go down the route that some football clubs have done with some fairly dodgy investments. Can you assure us that any investment that we bring in is going to align with Middlesex values ethically and environmentally?
Andrew Cornish gave his complete assurance that the Club belongs to its members and they will of course be consulted on any external investment that is considered moving forwards. It is a 100% members’ owned Club, so any decision like that will be made by the membership. In response to the issues of the values of the Club Cornish expanded on this and said that over the past couple of years the Club has been severely challenging for all involved at the Club and that upholding those values and strong ethical principles was vitally important, which makes all that’s happened off the field in recent years all the more difficult to take and that it will have hurt so many people in the room. .
Question 16
Continuing again with the finances. The way I see it, at present, is that unless the Club finds a ‘sugar daddy’ for want of a better expression, it’s going to be hard to reenergise the Club. The way that the ECB appear to be looking at the future is that every county will have a stake in the Hundred, or whatever it's going to be called, which would be split three ways between the county, the outside investor, and the ECB. That puts us presumably in a very difficult position because we're not really an independent county are we? I mean we are in the sense that we are the county of Middlesex, but we don't have our own ground, we've got no hope of getting our own ground, and would this force us down the route of us becoming MCC Cricket?
Richard Sykes answered by saying it was really far too soon to answer that question. Until we know the substance of the discussions that the ECB kicking around, it’s very difficult to know what that's going to mean for cricket as a whole and specifically for Middlesex. But you're right, in that all 18 counties have got that challenge, just some will be more complex than others.
We've got the additional challenge of obviously working with or being alongside the MCC, who have also got an interest in the Hundred. So our relationship with MCC from a strategic point of view becomes even more important than it ever has been.
We will have a much better understanding of the ECB’s views on this at the end of October, as Andrew and I will be at meetings about this then, to start to get some clarity on their thinking.
Strategically we'll be looking at it and we're in discussions with the MCC about exactly understanding the potential for working more closely together, and who knows where it will go, but it is all part of the overall scenario that may develop.
I think the one critical thing is that there is huge potential to reinforce the fact that Middlesex Cricket is the elite cricket side that plays at Lord’s, so I’m looking at it from a relatively positive perspective strategically. If that doesn't develop, then obviously we have to look at other options and it would be great to get a second ground, etc, but I think that interestingly the Hundred and everything that goes with it potentially gives us the opportunity to get into a much stronger position with MCC for the good of Middlesex Cricket.
I think the fairest thing I can say is that the strategy we’re looking at developing from November with the Board, I think will be ready to talk through with members in a forum in the New Year, in January or February, to discuss our thinking around all these issues. We will certainly have a much clearer picture on how this impacts us and what opportunities it presents at that time.
Question 17
Going back to your earlier remarks about the press. If the media, or the press, have misinformed, are they not required to apologise and rectify because there's adverse reputational risk in this?
Andrew Cornish answered by stating that we’ve all seen the apologies that the likes of the Daily Mail will print when these things happen, which will be buried deep into the paper on around page 85 with minimal impact or effect.
Again, to focus on the resource issue, what they’re printing is largely tomorrow’s chip paper, and the response to articles published has been very minimal. If you continue to have those battles with the media it can become all consuming, drags on, ties you up, and ultimately you rarely get the apology you rightly deserve.
I think to be honest, it's just time to move on now. Not everyone will agree with that, but my inclination is we've got other things to do, more proactive things to do, and we’ve got better things to focus our time on.
Richard Sykes added that in building on that, what the members won’t be aware of, is the huge amount of work that has already been done by Fletch and Andrew in trying to reduce the impact of any articles that do appear in the press, as the stories that were originally put to the media were sensationalised and exaggerated, and what has ultimately been printed, whilst not always factually accurate, were far less damaging than they could have been.
Many journalists on contacting the Club and having had the facts explained to them clearly, have elected not to publish anything, given the claims being false in nature and the journalists not trusting the reliability of their sources, so a huge amount of work has already gone into this by Fletch and Andrew, and that in the vast majority of cases, the media have elected to not print at all when the facts were presented to them by the Club. The Daily Mail, by contrast, just went with their own story, despite lengthy correspondence with the Club to correct their inaccuracies.
By way of reassurance, relationships with the cricket media and the Club are in a strong place, and they are respecting our point of view.
Question 18
Back to Cricket. What’s going on with Thilan Walallawita? We’ve hired a spin bowler at the end of the season, but as someone who has watched a lot of second eleven cricket in recent years, I thought he had bowled well enough to force himself into the side. I’ve also noticed that there’s hardly been any second eleven cricket this year, and whilst the weather is partly to blame, we seem to be playing less second eleven cricket than other counties, like Lancashire and Yorkshire for example. Surely playing more would give someone like Thilan the chance to prove himself, as we’ve not seen much of him this year?
Alan Coleman began by saying that this was an issue currently being discussed by the Directors of Cricket across all counties. There was acknowledgement that there was less second eleven cricket being played, largely since the fifty over List-A competition has started to include more second eleven players.
From Middlesex’s perspective we have facilities challenges. Yorkshire for example play thirteen second eleven matches, with seven of those at home. The number of grounds that can host four-day second eleven cricket within Middlesex is extremely limited, in terms of the facilities, the quality of pitches that are produced and the availability of the ground. You’re left with a handful of recreational Clubs who meet this criteria, and you then need to weigh up the club’s desire to host the matches, which reduces your pool further, because the impact of hosting four days of a second eleven game are many, as the Club are unable to hold Youth matches on a Tuesday night, Women’s training on a Wednesday night, first eleven nets on a Thursday for example, so the desire is not always there to host us.
Combine this with the fact that in the old days you could invite trialists to play for your second eleven by just covering their expenses, however nowadays you have to pay players to play, even if they’re not contracted, so add this up over the course of a season and it can equate to thousands of pounds. Counties, as a result, are drifting away and there is less appetite for it across the game, aside of those with bigger infrastructures. It’s a challenge as well when we play the games, as you want to be playing youngsters, University and Academy players, and playing the majority of your four day second eleven matches at the start of the season doesn’t work with this plan. It’s becoming a challenge and is one that is getting lots of discussion at present in the meetings we’re having.
In regard to Thilan, he’s had a difficult twelve months, and the likes of Josh De Caires, Luke Hollman and Nathan Fernandes have gone above him, not only because of how they’re bowling, but in terms of the other disciplines they offer too, and unless you are a true world-class spinner, you have be to be offering more in the other departments too.
Richard Johnson added backed up what Coleman said, concluding that unless you are an exceptional spinner with the ball, especially early in the season, you have to offer more with the bat, as you’re not going to get in at number 10 or 11. Someone like Josh De Caires or Luke Hollman offers you a lot more with the bat as well as with the ball, and towards the end of the season Josh showed us what he is capable of.
Question 19
I wanted to follow up on Richard Sykes’ comments about the Hundred and a franchise in the MCC. With Mark Nicholas starting his new term as President of the MCC he was directly quoted as saying that he had some big ideas and wants to examine the feasibility of an MCC team featuring in the Hundred, and says that the members would have a team to support and that there is interest in MCC doing this from the ECB. He further said that he doubted MCC would link with Middlesex on this venture and said it was easier to start a franchise from nothing, but that other counties such as Essex might want to be involved too.
Richard Sykes replied that this just reinforces the importance of the relationship Middlesex has with MCC. He explained that he was speaking with the MCC’s Chair, Bruce Carnegie Brown last week and that they had discussed the opportunities that could potentially exist. Sykes said he Mark Nicholas’ views weren’t chiming with what he had heard, but this simply underpins the importance of the strategic discussions we are having with the MCC, as there are risks with any new developments, and the more closely we are working with MCC, the better position we will be in..
Question 20
Just two quick questions, one on the commercial side. So have we gone away from Nike for next year to a different brand? And if so, is that going to generate more money based on the sales and is this going to make a big difference?
Illa Sharma commented that the Nike kit contract was always going to be over this year and we are moving over to a new supplier next year.
We are moving to a brand that has become many of the counties’ main kit providers, which doesn’t make much difference to the Club financially as the kit provider is not like a traditional sponsor that injects funds into the Club.
Question 21
It was nice to have more games at Merchant Taylors last year in the T20 format. How do you choose which out-grounds you play at? Is it just the availability between Radlett and Merchant Taylors and are they going to be have more 50-pver cricket back at Lords again? Because it was nice to have that back.
Alan Coleman commented that it was almost inevitable that a question would crop up about out-grounds, as it always does, and it’s always a topic for debate, as everyone has their favourite grounds – often the ones closest to where they live, which is understandable.
The way we choose which grounds we play at follows a hierarchy really. Firstly, how many can we play at Lord’s, as this is our preferred option, when we establish which games we can’t play at Lord’s we turns to our out-grounds. Which are available and when. The grounds/Clubs need to meet a criterion for us to play there, and our preferred grounds are Radlett and Merchant Taylors School – they’re venues that a lot of our players are experienced at playing at, which should give us some kind of home from home advantage if we aren’t at Lord’s. If you’re under the age of 30 ad have come through our age-group or academy and second eleven, there’s a high likelihood that you’ll have played at either of these venues more than you would have at Lord’s. Obviously, MTS is only available to us in School holidays for first eleven cricket, so that’s a consideration, and if available in the May half-term break we’d see how much we can slot into MTS, then we look at Radlett’s availability.
With that being the last question posed, Richard Sykes then brought the forum to a close, thanking all for attending the evening and inviting everyone to join us for a post form drink at the bar.
He re-stated his intention of inviting members to a members’ forum of some sort in the new year to update them and discuss the Club’s future strategy and stressed his desire to provide some feedback after his first few months in the Chair’s role.
He finished by praising the progress made by the Sunrisers this year under a new Head Coach, who ended the season brilliantly, and stressed how important it was that we not only strive to have a successful men’s side, but also to ensure we are doing all we can to thrive in the Women’s game too.
The forum then closed and adjourned to the bar.
