Best of SPIN 5: MCC chief exec Keith Bradshaw goes on the record

First published in SPIN magazine, February 2010 issue

When Keith Bradshaw was announced as the new secretary of the MCC in 2006, it caused a bit of a stir. Bradshaw, after all, was Australian and, at 42, half a generation younger than most of his predecessors. What was he doing as the public face of one of England’s most conservative institutions? Now we know: Bradshaw is on his way to turning the MCC – previously a byword for staunch tradition – into a forward-thinking body, turning out maverick proposals – pink balls, floodlight Tests, franchise T20 events – on a regular  and unprecedented basis.

Formally, cricket’s power has moved East, away from the private members club in St Johns Wood. The ICC, once administered by MCC, is now based in Dubai. But the MCC has looked to re-assert its position at cricket’s top table since Bradshaw took over. Not just in the world game, but within England. Bradshaw’s blueprint for a nine-team franchise-based English Twenty20 tournament was voted down by county chairmen in 2008, as English cricket explored its post-IPL options.

But the independent thinking just kept coming: at the end of 2009, the MCC was in the papers for funding Middlesex’s T20 signing of Adam Gilchrist and Sachin Tendulkar; there were reports, unconfirmed, that MCC’s views on TV rights at the ‘Crown Jewels’ enquiry had opposed the ECB’s;  then there was the talk of playing the traditional MCC-v-champion county curtain-raiser under floodlights in Dubai (true) and reports that Bradshaw was considering renaming Lord’s after a sponsor (absolutely not, he says – though there will be residential blocks at the Nursery End and an underground Academy).

Meanwhile, the MCC’s all-star, self-funded World Cricket Committee was urging the ICC to consider a formal World Test Championship in a bid to re-invigorate the five-day game.

Things are changing in St John’s Wood. But many of the details an motivations have, until now, been misreported. In a full and wide-ranging interview, Keith Bradshaw helped clear up exactly where the MCC – and more importantly, cricket as a whole, is heading in the new decade.

SPIN: If we’d interviewed the secretary of the MCC five years ago, we’d have talked about the past. Today, we’re talking about the future. Is that change down to you personally or to changes in MCC as a whole?

Keith Bradshaw: I think it’s a combination.I think history and tradition is very important and we need to preserve that. It’s one of our strengths. So it’s not about change for change’s sake. I think we can change our image without changing our values. The game is changing and I think as a club we need to embrace that change and in some instances lead it – but at the same time respect our history and traditions.

I think we are probably the only organisation in the world of cricket that is free from conflict… we’re almost the conscience of the game and that’s a really important role.

Was all this innovation a part  of your brief when you took over as CEO?

When I did my interview they asked me to do a presentation on my objectives for the first 12 months – I said I didn’t have any, that I wanted to go in and listen and understand and see what issues the MCC was facing and then decide in which direction we should head.

I felt the MCC’s image – in terms of it being crusty or stuffy – I felt it was unfair to a degree. It was probably an impression I had had too, but when I arrived I found that the members were passionate about their cricket, there were a lot of people who were very forward-thinking and could see that the club had to keep pace with the times. For me, it was important to be very open and transparent. There were things we needed to change…. I think Lord’s as a destination, as the home of cricket, is here for everybody.

You compare MCC to the brand of the All England Club and Wimbledon. Is there no conflict between this kind of talk and the members with more traditional views?

I think they can work together. The brand isn’t just about the logo it’s about the way we do things and the way people are treated when they come to the ground.

You may argue that cricketing bodies at the moment are very dependent on broadcasting revenue – part of my challenge is to make sure we diversify. I’m not looking to plaster an MCC logo on every product in the high street… It needs to be appropriate. It’s the same with our sponsors. It’s about the right partners and the right merchandise. One of the concepts we’re looking at is our cricket academies. We’re rebranding the Lord’s indoor school next year as a cricket academy and we think there’s the potential to take MCC cricket academies around the world.

Let’s talk about hosting the Durham-MCC game in Abu Dhabi this season. What’s the reason behind that – is it purely financial?

No, it’s not financial. We received notification of the date of the champion county game from the ECB – 3 April –  and we happened to be in Abu Dhabi at the time. We said, ‘Gee, that’s early’ and last year we lost a lot of play to rain anyway. And we’d just finished our World Cricket Committee meeting where we’d been discussing pink balls and day-night Tests. We’re not saying every Test should be day-night but we were saying that Test cricket needs to be invigorated – not so much in London or in England but elsewhere – and how could we do that? And one of the ideas was day-night Test cricket. And for that you need to get a ball that works – and we think the pink ball is worthy of a trial.

We tried to get a trial at the end of last season but we couldn’t get a county match to stage one so here was an opportunity to have a four-day match with a pink ball in harsher conditions than early season at Lord’s – on a harder pitch, the ball will scuff more. So we thought let’s do it under lights as well. We’re trying to make a contribution to the world game and until this trial happens it won’t progresss. So we thought that for the greater good, for this year, we should go ahead with the trial.

We don’t see it as long-term. We will play more matches in Abu Dhabi but in terms of the traditional season opener, this – Lord’s – is where it should be. This is a one-off for the good of the game. There may not be the need for another trial in any case….

But you do have a long-term arrangement with Abu Dhabi…

We’ve signed a partnership with them.

So it could be a site for one of your academies?

Correct – and we’ll also send our young cricketers out there for pre-season and we have a reciprocal arrangement for members of both clubs and we have usage of their grounds. So it’s mutually beneficial…

It’s been reported that the MCC’s submission to the government’s ‘Crown Jewels’ sport-on-TV committee opposed the ECB line. Is that right?

I don’t think it was significantly different to be honest, though I know it’s been reported that way. We made a few points – we talked about the number of packages that go out to tender from the ECB: was that the right set of packages? Could some modifications be made? I think there was a feeling from our members that they would like to see some Test cricket on terrestrial television. We talked about that but the over-arching message is that it’s not terrestrial at any cost. I think that’s been lost in some of the coverage.

So if you were asked, ‘Should the Lord’s Ashes Test be shown live and in full on terrestrial television’… what would you say?

The response would be… it’s not that simple. You’d have to say, ‘What are the implications for the game?’

But the MCC would be keener to have cricket on terrestrial TV than the ECB?

I think the honest answer to that is that we would be keen to have cricket on terrestrial television if it could be shown that it wasn’t to the detriment of the game in England.

This all plays into the wider issue that Lord’s is not guaranteed a Test match every year from the ECB…

When I first arrived I was staggered to hear that: Lord’s is an icon, it’s a national treasure, why would you not have two Tests here? It seemed preposterous to me that you would shift a Test to another ground. It would be like moving Wimbledon to Eastbourne.

So you are competing on a level playing field with the Rose Bowl and Cardiff and all the newer international venues?

Yes, we all bid in a competitive closed tender situation and tenders are allocated based on the quality of the submissions the grounds make and there’s a scorecard which takes into account 1) how much you are prepared to bid, but also hospitality, geography – so being close to the Oval means that geographic spread counts against us all the time….

The Oval has a long-term agreement – it’s guaranteed Tests every year. That must be grieving for Lord’s…

Well, we see a long -term staging agreement of our own as vitally important for us – for the development of the ground.

You’re hosting one of the Pakistan-Australia Tests this summer – you were, personally, a prime mover for neutral venue Tests even before they became ‘essential’, weren’t you?

I always said whatever we can do to promote Test cricket as a  whole we should be doing and neutral Tests was one of those things. We bid fairly aggressively to get this year’s Test. We saw it as a good thing to assist Pakistan cricket, because Pakistan are not able to play at home at the moment. Commercially, it might not be a great success, given that it starts on a Tuesday and other factors count against it, but we saw it as more important to do whatever we could to have it next year – so we have three Tests here this year.

Will Pakistan be playing here again after this summer?

Yes, to me it seems logical – although there’s been no talks – but if India are playing here in 2011 and Pakistan are looking to play neutral Tests, I would hope there’d be an India-Pakistan Test here next year.

How close have you come to hosting other big neutral-venue games before?

We hosted the Rajasthan Royals [British Asian Trust] game here last summer. It wasn’t about profitability. We made a contribution, we managed to get 22,000 people into the ground with just three weeks for marketing and that proved to us that there is a future for those sort of matches. It was a Monday evening, we bought some Bollywood entertainment in, trying to make it an event. And next summer, we have four Thursday-night Twenty20s here and we want to make that the thing to do on a Thursday night – come to Lords and watch Twenty20 cricket.

It’s about creating an experience that people want. So for Test cricket, we’re not looking to have horns and fancy dress or music. If you want that you can go somewhere else; that’s almost a unique selling point for us. But Twenty20 is a completely separate beast – we want to create the ultimate experience for people to come and watch it. It’s not about sitting down and eating your sandwiches. It’s poles-apart experiences – but we feel we need to embrace both and respect both.

How close has Lord’s come to hosting an actual IPL game?

We’ve had a lot of interest from IPL teams. We’re certainly keen to do it… and I think it’s inevitable that we’ll see IPL matches here in the future. It’s a case of wanting to respect the ECB and their role. It’s a case of working together to bring the IPL here without damaging the local product. But it’s going to happen, no matter what.

Eighteen months ago, myself and [Surrey chairman] David Stewart put forward our proposal to the ECB for a franchise-based Twenty20 competition – one of the arguments for that was that it would compete financially and in terms of attracting the world’s elite players on a par with the IPL.

I have great admiration for the IPL. But you do need competition in any environment and we thought that a nine-team franchise competition would pay the players the same sort of money as the IPL and create a lot of interest here. So, for me, the IPL now has no competition and we’re going to see it continue to grow…

Your new alliance with Middlesex – signing Adam Gilchrist and possibly Sachin Tendulkar for the  T20 – seems almost unilaterally trying to go down that franchise-style route…

Well, we’re moving closer to it. We have a great relationship  with Middlesex and I guess we’ve just become closer and closer over the years. So, for 2010, we sat down and said Middlesex are playing these games at Lord’s – how can we fill the ground? We said okay – we need to have the best players in the world playing.

Is it a partnership in kind, is money changing hands, or can’t you say?

I’m happy to say – we have a profit-sharing arrangement whereby Middlesex get the biggest share. But I guess when we’re talking about paying costs for Tendulkar and Gilchrist, that comes out of a pot….

So you’re underwriting the project…

Yes, effectively that’s how it works.

Is that as far as the deal goes?

Erm… I think there’s the potential to do more with Middlesex though at the moment there’s no plans to take it further.

Does English cricket need 18 counties?

The thing that was very disappointing to David and I was that our Twenty20 nine-team document was leaked to the press. It was an internal discussion document. For instance, the nine teams would each see two counties getting equity and profit share. The way that was then portrayed in the press spooked a lot of counties who felt it would mean they went out of business. The message didn’t get through.

The reality is that the standard of an 18-team competition isn’t going to be as great  as if you have a reduced number playing. Then again,the flip side is the history and the tradition – its not all about finances. I’m not someone that’s advocating fewer counties – let’s put it that way.

But if you were in charge of T20 in England…

I would certainly promote a nine-team franchise competition because I thought that was the way to go and it probably still is. But I’m a big believer of ‘You are where you are.’ Which is why we’re trying to get Gilchrist and Tendulkar. And I hear now that Warney may be coming to a county which – if it’s true – is terrific because it’s rasing the bar.

With the ICC moving to Dubai in 2005, was there a feeling that MCC was becoming a secondary organisation? You’ve certainly increased your ‘profile’ again in the last year or so…

I’m pleased to hear that because I think it’s important we do have a profile. We won’t always be popular for the things we say but the game is moving so quickly I think we have a contribution to make. As an independent voice and as a conscience, we need to make sure we are heard.

And we are the guardians of the laws of the game – that’s a very understated role. For us it’s about balancing the contest between bat and ball: if bats go too far does it change the nature of the game?

Like golf’s graphite shafts and titanium heads – if technology reduces the gap between the elite player and the club player, is that good for the game? In a lot of instances, it’s not.

The MCC World Cricket Committee – is that just the MCC putting itself forward? It’s not formally commissioned by ICC…

It was the brainchild of [former England captain and BBC commentator] Tony Lewis. He felt that world cricket could do with a body of the good and the great. I sit in the meetings and hear those guys talk – Steve Waugh , Barry Richards, Mike Brearley, Geoffrey Boycott, Shaun Pollock… They are there to advise us. It’s funded by us entirely; they make recommendations to us, give us a direction on where they think research should be done – pink balls are high on the list.

We were looking to see what we could
do to promote Test cricket. And the idea
of a World Test Championship came out
of that – there was a phenomenal response in the research on that. People said it
would definitely make a difference to their inerest in Test cricket.

But we just provide research and hopefully the ICC take it into consideration.

But is Test cricket commercially viable beyond the top four or five teams?

Well, that’s the challenge. I think we’re seeing different audiences. Twenty20 has brought a new audience to the game – women, children. People who didn’t realise cricket was so much fun. Our challenge then is to get that group of people interested in Test cricket. I think there’s things we can do around Tests in terms of the experience they have when they’re in the ground.

When you tell the ECB you’re putting down 100s of millions to improve Lord’s, it must be disappointing that they don’t bite your hand off for a long-term staging agreement?
It is a process that’s taking probably longer than I expected. The reality is that a lot of the developments here have been paid for by MCC – the magnificent draining system, the floodlights. We don’t get any grant money for those things – which other grounds do get. Am I disappointed? Well, I’ll be very disappointed if they don’t agree to a long-term staging agreement. We’ve had discussions over the last few months and so far they’ve been positive, so we’re hopeful.

World cricket used to be run from this office; now it’s run from Lalit Modi’s office. How do you read that situation?

Well, once again, we are where we are. It’s important to have good relationships. We have an extremely good relationship with India and India has a great passion for and respect for Lord’s. Our relationships since I’ve been here have been nothing less than fruitful, energising and exciting – so it’s a case of accepting the reality and moving with it.