‘Should England cricketers be banned from using Twitter?’ and other readers’ questions for David Lloyd
Extracted from the full interview in the November issue of SPIN magazine
Should England players be banned from tweeting? Stuart Lewin
David Lloyd: No. Definitely not. I’d be quite the other way. Engage with the fans. Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson are very clever with it. They tell you if they’ve had a bad day – but don’t go into any details – but there’s also little nice snippets… Swanny’s a card, he’ll have some fun, but they don’t go into anything in-depth that they shouldn’t do. It’s vital. In any sport, players are so isolated from the public – particularly soccer – you just never see them about now.
When you retired as a player, did you think you would be an umpire for the rest of your career? Daniel Mitchell
David Lloyd: No. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a good time in my life. But I probably knew I would go into coaching because I’d done lots of coaching badges. But when I was an umpire my ambition was to be an international umpire – and if I’d got that far, I would maybe still have been doing that, I don’t know.
Do you think you should you have played more times for England? Catherine Watson
David Lloyd: [Emphatically] No! I came back [into the one-day side] in 1980 and I should never have been picked. Botham was captain and you know how bad a captain he was – he chose me to play in that game. He must have been mad. I couldn’t see for a start. I mean, I could see alright for county cricket but he brought me back against the West Indies. And there was no chance of seeing them.
Has anyone been as frightening to watch or play against as Jeff Thomson was on that 1974/75 Ashes tour? Gordon Foulds
David Lloyd: One I played with who was ferocious was Colin Croft – and against, Sylvester Clarke [of Surrey]. He was frightening. Both nasty on the field. They didn’t like cricket, I think basically. They thought the faster we can get this bloke out or kill him, the quicker I can get off. [SPIN: Did Croft go out to hurt people?] Well, I hope all fast bowlers go out to hurt people. That’s part of the make-up: ‘I’m gonna hurt you, you’re not going to bat’. Having a ruthless streak is part of it. We had Malcolm Marshall come to Lancashire as a specialist bowling coach once and he said to the fast bowlers: ‘The first thing you do is break the spin bowlers’ hands.’
Is it true that being given a Fall CD changed your musical taste for good? Who gave you the CD and what were you listening to before? Simon Waite
David Lloyd: Paul King, who is executive producer of Sky cricket, gave me the Fall CD. And he said you’ll either get this or you won’t – and I got it immediately. But I’m still into the Rolling Stones. You’re either the Stones or the Beatles… and I’m the Stones. I mean I like the Sinatra, I think he’s terrific, but I’m a bit more punk rock.
Was the ’74/’75 Ashes tour England’s nadir during your whole time following of being involved with or following the England team? Alex Everitt
David Lloyd: The result was terrible, but as a tour it was enjoyable… I’d never been out of England before. I come from a rough area. We didn’t go abroad. I didn’t come from Weybridge or Maidenhead, I came from Accrington! And there were plenty more on the trip who’d never been out of England. I know Ken Shuttleworth who went in 1971 had never been out of England…
Who is the funniest man in cricket? Alex Kemp
David Lloyd: The man who I think is fantastic – in fact, he’s on my ringtone – is Bill Lawry. “Got him!” I think he’s fabulous. Just the enthusiasm… he’s well into his 70s and his patriotism, his love of the game and his enthusiasm is fantastic. He was a dour player, a very dour player. But as a commentator he brings it all alive. But my all-time broadcasting hero is Fred Trueman. He was the first northern voice on commentary, as far as I can remember. The first one who didn’t speak like Mr Cholmondeley-Warner.
Who is the best player you’ve seen who never made it at the highest level? Kevin Shortley
David Lloyd: Don Shepherd of Glamorgan. Spin bowler. Just check his record: 2000-plus wickets! [2200 wickets at 21 each, between 1950 and 1972]. I played against him, he was playing into the 1970s and he’s still totally involved in the game now, at 80-odd. He overlapped Jim Laker a little bit and Fred Titmus and Ray Illingworth so he never got a chance with England. But he was a wonderful bowler. The lad who’s missed out right now is Glen Chapple. It’s just never quite happened for him: wrong place, wrong time… he’s been in that many squads and missed out.
Do you find it odd that we don’t have a 50-over domestic competition in England, when international cricket is still 50 overs? Russell Hanson
Yeah. I think you’ve got to try and mirror international cricket. The 18 counties rule the roost because they are the ECB. But my mild criticism is that I’m not sure they put the England team on the pedastal I think it should be. Everything should be geared towards the England team and I’m not sure all the counties take that onboard. I’d like the distribution of wealth to be a bit more thought out. Not to give 18 counties £1.5m every year and let them spend it on what they want.
It’s unbelievable that so many of them are struggling, on those terms.
I like the Australian model. Take the WACA: the money goes to the Western Australia Cricket Association and the state teams gets money from the WACA but there’s a lot of money goes on grass roots. And – just in my opinion – the English game is awash with money, awash with it, and I’m not sure the money gets to grass roots the way it should do.
David Lloyd’s Start The Car tour takes in Buxton, Norwich, Derby, Malvern and Salford, between October 29 and November 17. See local theatre websites for full ticket details
Extracted from the full interview in the November issue of SPIN magazine
Beware the quiet man
August 21, 2010 by Duncan Steer
Filed under Features, Reviews
SOMETHING ODD has happened over the years to the reputation of Michael Holding and the invincible 1970s and 1980s West Indians. Holding is now regarded as one of the all-time greats of the game; he is a fixture in the Sky box, his opinion sought by the ICC and the WICB alike. Other pundits, meanwhile, lament the decline of West Indies cricket and look back wistfully to the golden age of Holding’s playing days.
But Holding has spotted revisionism at work. The West Indies side that lost just one Test series between 1975 and 1995 was not regarded at the time with any great affection, outside the Caribbean. Quite the reverse: their fearsome all-pace attacks, led by Holding and Andy Roberts, were often seen as unsporting and likely to kill off the game. “It isn’t good for the game was a regular cry,” Holding recalls
of the Windies heyday.
“I believe the criticism
of our approach was based on jealousy, pure and simple.”
Holding thinks, frankly, that plenty of observers are actually glad that West Indies cricket is now at a low ebb and quotes with a raised eyebrow a series of critical articles by former Wisden editor David Frith, one suggesting, extraordinarily, that the ’70s Windians game plan was founded on “vengeance and violence… fringed by arrogance.”
Just as you’d want, Holding also gives the notion that the Waugh/Ponting Australia team was in any way better than his legendary Windies side remarkably short shrift. There’s passion and insight here and some of the same kind of righteous anger that we have seen previously in memoirs from Nasser Hussain and Mark Ramprakash , though with more substantial, even political, grievances at its root.
Holding’s memoir goes off into lengthy column-style critiques of aspects of the modern game – but his passion and status makes these chapters must-read material. Who will provide, for instance, a better insider’s view of Sir Allen Stanford’s work within West Indies cricket? Holding’s initial suspicions of Stanford related to the latter’s newbie’s obsession with Twenty20 – a form of the game Holding professes to have little interest in.But Holding eventually spends 10 months on the Stanford Board of Legends and his rather testy account of the episode provides a fresh perspective on the affair from someone who both knows West Indies cricket intimately and has its best interests at heart. “Both Stanford and Bush were rich men from Texas,” he concludes, “and further proof that no amount of money can buy class.”
As for the reasons behind the West Indies declining fortunes, Holding thinks the old notion that American sports have somehow superceded cricket in the affections of Caribbean teenagers is entirely false. He outlines his own reasons and solutions, though intriguingly, he seems to put the original decline in Test performances partly down to the sacking of one particular coach: he maintains the catalyst for the West Indies’ ’80s invincibility was the chance appointment of Aussie physio Dennis Waight to look after them during Kerry Packer’s rebel World Series Cricket series. Waight, coming from a rugby league background, put the West Indies fast bowlers on an unprecedented regime; his departure, after 23 years, in 2000 is put down to player power from a new squad not prepared to put in the hard yards.
Holding has strong, well-expressed views, but for one of the greats of the game, he comes across as unassuming, even humble: picked for his first overseas tour in 1975, he is more concerned at missing the family Christmas in Jamaica than elated at the chance of going to Australia (possibly correctly: the Windies lost 5-1, Holding was reduced to tears of frustration and considered packing it in.)
There’s another humble moment when, on the back of the Windies ramming Tony Greig’s ‘grovel’ comments back down his throat in 1976, Greig offers Holding a £10,000 contract at Sussex for 1977. At the time, West Indies players were making around £100 a match from Tests, but Holding turned down this lucrative contract, he says, because, “I did not see myself as a professional cricketer. “
In fact, Holding held his job in computers with the Jamaican government right up until 1981. Finally enticed into county cricket, Holding notes the overly comfy culture in county cricket, with plenty of batters happy to take an early bath against himself or Joel Garner and fill their boots against a mediocre attack the following week.
Happily, all those years of sitting next to Bob Willis for Sky seem to have rubbed off on Holding when it comes to assessing his time with Derbyshire. “The only disappointing aspect of playing for Derby,” he laments, “was the fact that our team wasn’t all that good.” Duncan Steer
Cricket and free-to-air TV – the full story
May 5, 2010 by Duncan Steer
Filed under News
From the May issue of SPIN magazine, the UK’s only independent cricket title and, not being owned by Sky like the Wisden Cricketer, the only one able to offer an independent view of the major issues facing the game. For special offers on subscriptions, click this link.
When it comes to cricket’s TV rights debate, there is one key observation that is barely ever expressed, even by ECB chairman Giles Clarke himself. Jamie Clifford, chief executive of Kent, spent seven years working for the Kent Cricket Board, administering those famous grass roots of the game. He believes many discussions of the subject are missing something: “It’s not true that simply showing the game on TV is the best or only marketing tool cricket has,” says Clifford. “It’s a nonsense. You have to go out and explain the game and encourage kids to play it. Kids have to be taught and to have facilities to play it: simply being exposed to it doesn’t develop a love of playing it at all. Yes, some kids will copy what they see on the television but because cricket is a bit more complicated, that’s only half the battle.”
Another county chief executive, KD Smith of Leicestershire, puts more meat on the bones of the ECB’s opposition to government intervention in the TV rights bidding process, as proposed by the recent report by David Davies. “It would be a disaster for English cricket if home Ashes Tests had to be broadcast free-to-view,” Smith tells SPIN. “I’ve seen a few dumb cricketers saying how wonderful it would be, but they won’t think like that if their salaries halve. The amount of money Sky put into the game is huge. It really is a good deal for cricket. In the longer term the hope is that ESPN will challenge for the TV rights and ensure that Sky have someone to bid against. The BBC don’t seem to want cricket. They can’t afford it and they can’t schedule it.
“Cricket at all levels would be hit: women’s cricket; disability cricket; kids’ cricket and first-class cricket. I reckon that about 30 per cent of recreational clubs would disappear. If the Tories get in at the election, the issue will disappear. They’ve bigger fish to fry. My worry is what happens if there is a hung parliament. But even if the report is accepted initially – and I don’t think it will be – there will be an appeal. It almost beggars belief that there was no economic impact report and the ECB – quite rightly – will appeal on those grounds if Labour try and force anything through before the election.”
ECB chairman Giles Clarke’s claims that the grass roots of the game will wither without Sky’s money, however, seem alarmist to many. One high-profile sceptic is Scyld Berry, editor of the Wisden Cricketers Almanack and one of the most authoritative voices in the game. “It needn’t be disastrous for the grass roots or for England teams,” says Berry. “It’s question of how the cake is cut. There’s two main issues. The first is the ECB propaganda: the weeping and lamentation over the prospect of the Sky contract being cancelled, the suggestion that no-one will ever play cricket again: women will never play again, no-one blind will ever touch a ball again… the consequences will be more catastrophic than global warming, if you believe the ECB. I seriously object to that campaign.
“The ECB implies that the first thing to be cut would be development. But there’s no reason why that should be. The ECB spends over twice as much on the professional county game as on the amateur game. If you look at the numbers, it is possible to cut the cake so that the grass roots and the England team aren’t affected and only county cricket is affected. But that debate is yet to be had because the ECB has stopped rational debate over whether county cricket should be so heavily subsidised. Maybe it should be. But let’s have that debate honestly.
For those who are sceptical of the ECB’s warnings of disaster, a key argument is this: if, as the ECB implies, English cricket only survives thanks to Sky money – how did it survive all the way up until Sky came on board in 2006? “By cobbling it together,” says Jamie Clifford. “The cricket-playing population dipped into a very low trough, late ’80s, early 90s: you can see it in the trend for volunteers at clubs: those people in their 30s and 40s who would now, traditionally, be running clubs, don’t exist – they weren’t exposed to the game as teenagers in the ’80s and ’90s. Lots of smaller clubs folded during that period. The game was suffering a slow death through lack of investment.
“But the ECB’s commitment to funding development properly by putting TV money into the grass roots changed everything.
I was involved through that whole transition period. It completely changed the way in which cricket was developed right across the country. Cricket in Kent is unrecognisable now, even compared to 10 years ago, in terms of proper engagement, proper marketing.”
Berry agrees that ECB development money has been beneficial to the amateur game but, when it comes to the crunch, believes role models are more important to the future of the game than new facilities and qualified coaches. “You can always find somewhere to play cricket, with a tennis ball and a piece of wood. That’s the worldwide experience of the game. All that street cricket played in Pakistan and India – is there an ECB development officer in charge of them?
“It’s about role models. Cricket has never been so healthy as it was post-Botham in 1981 or in 2005 during and immediately after the Ashes. So when the ECB say that having as few people as possible watching the game is the healthiest thing for the game because then we get lots of money to go into participation… the polite word for that is ‘counter-intuitive’.”
The ECB’s estimates suggest that 45 per cent of the value of a four-year TV deal is based on Sky being able to show exclusive live coverage of the Ashes: almost as much as the rest of the rights – seven international Test series, all the one-day internationals and T20s and all the domestic tournaments – put together. Based on this calculation, the ECB would lose £34m of income a year. ECB chief executive David Collier says that 40 per cent of professional cricketers would lose their jobs. Chairman Giles Clarke says it would be “absolutely devastating” for grassroots funding. “We’re coaching 10,000 coaches in the next four years… we wouldn’t have a hope of coaching them in the future.”
But opponents of the ECB view argue that Clarke and Collier have set up a false debate; that rather than rely on inflated TV incomes to support 18 counties and 400 full-time professionals, English cricket needs to tighten up the way it does business.
“I don’t accept the ECB’s figure that 137m will go out of the game, or anything like that,” says Berry. “But you could easily reduce the annual handout to counties by half and still make it work: reduce the fixture list, get rid of 40-over cricket, play fewer Twenty20 games and reduce staff and salaries – there’s too many journeymen earning six-figures. The sums can be made to add up. Franchises might be a more radical solution – but why not try and make the 18-county system work before considering other alternatives?”
At the root of the debate is one unanswered question: what is county cricket for? Are counties there primarily to provide players for England? Or primarily to compete in tournaments that stand alone as crowd-pleasers and revenue-raisers in themselves? Of course, the answer is ‘both’ – but no-one is clear on how the two jigsaw together.
“If our chairman says publicly that we’re here to produce England players, he’ll get shot down in flames by the members and supporters,” says Jamie Clifford. “Which is fair. The supporters aren’t here to develop England players – that’s the last thing they want – they want Kent players to play for us!
“We’re there to compete, to win things. Members, supporters and sponsors want to be associated with success.”
The wages of county players have risen over the last decade to the point where the economic viability of the average county wage bill is questionable. Yet that rise has not been wholly driven by the Sky money: counties were already receiving as much as £1.3m a year each from the ECB a decade ago.
Which isn’t to say that the counties shouldn’t keep their own house in better order and become less reliant on that central handout. Wage bills have nearly doubled over the last decade and there is
no doubt that counties could become
leaner operations. For most counties, the ECB handout represents somewhere between 33 and 50 per cent of their annual income; roughly speaking, it tends largely to go straight back out of the door on
player salaries. County wage bills start at £800,000 (Northants, Derbyshire) and go up
to £1.8m (Durham) – and the pinnacle of £2.2m (Surrey). Kent – No 8 on the list – spent £1.5m in 2008. Kent spend 33 per cent of their income on player and coach salaries; Surrey and Glamorgan – Test grounds –
just 9 per cent.
“There should be a wholesale drop in player salaries,” says one insider. “The gap between a star player who tops the run lists for a county and the salary for a squad player who only plays a handful of first-team games is not as great as people would expect. Can the English game afford fringe squad players even at small counties to be taking £50,000 a year out of the game in wages alone?”
So, when David Collier says 40 per cent of professionals would lose their jobs, critics may ask 1) how secure the future of the game can be when it is so reliant not just on one source of income, TV money, but one particular partner within that sector. And 2) Would it necessarily be a bad thing for the game if there were 40 per cent fewer professionals? Australia, after all, only has six professional teams, closely integrated with a very competitive amateur game. And if county cricket in its current form is so valued, why are there little over 100,000 county members across all 18 clubs?
“The argument is about the fabric of the game and what you need to constitute a meaningful sport,” says Jamie Clifford. “You don’t want to become like hockey: it’s played to a high level, but you’d barely know about it and that’s the danger for cricket. Six professional teams? I don’t think it would work in this country: I think we’re quite regional, even parochial. I think you need a critical mass of the game at a professional level to ensure that the game is taken seriously.”
Could the money the ECB says is needed to underwrite the future of the game come from sources other than Sky? Some already does. Over the period 2009-2013, English cricket will receive £37.3m basic funding from Sport England – or £7.5m per year. This is more than any other sport receives. The ECB itself gives £1m a year to Chance to Shine but the rest of the campaign’s £4m annual spend comes from a mix of private fundraising and government support.
To complicate the debate further, Lottery funding tends to be dependent on a sport that already has its house in order, grass roots wise. It is no coincidence that cricket should receive more money than other sports: from NatWest Cricketforce to Asda Kwik Cricket to the Sky Sports Coach Education Programme, the ECB has put in place a series of big, high profile, sponsored schemes designed to improve the grass roots of the game – not to mention that £1m that goes to Chance to Shine.
Sky’s money is not the sole provider for cricket development. But, in a declining market in which fundraising has become harder, would the ECB not be foolish to willingly give up a partner happy to put down serious money? The TV deal starting in 2010 is, after all, worth 27 per cent more than the one that started in 2006.
The ECB is hopeful that ESPN might even jolly Sky along when the rights come to be renegotiated: the American network established a ‘Classic’ channel in 2006, featuring archive BBC cricket footage and has, this season, been paying £2m a game for live Premiership football rights. ESPN already do business with the ECB, as they own the rights to show England games in Asia. Whatever happens with the Ashes terrestrial debate, there is a chance that pay TV rights will be a competitive market.
English cricket was reportedly offered a 16.66 per cent stake in the Indian-run Champions League. Scyld Berry thinks that’s a red herring – “I wouldn’t criticise the ECB for not getting into bed with the BCCI or the IPL: their sums don’t seem to add up,” he says. Nonetheless, the collapse of the Stanford deal, struck up in place of a liaison with the BCCI, has, by the ECB’s account, left many of English cricket’s eggs in Sky’s – or at least pay TV’s – basket. This month the ECB’s top brass are locked in talks with the government, talks in which they insist that the vast majority of the British public should not have the right to see their sport on free-to-air television and that such exposure would indeed ruin the sport for good. It’s an unhappy and complex situation. The result of the general election, at least, may make the path ahead clearer.
From the May issue of SPIN magazine, the UK’s only independent cricket title and, not being owned by Sky like the Wisden Cricketer, the only one able to offer an independent view of the major issues facing the game. For special offers on subscriptions, click this link.
ICC World T20 highlights on terrestrial TV in UK
May 31, 2009 by SPIN
Filed under ICC World Twenty20, News
The BBC has signed a deal to broadcast daily TV highlights of the ICC World Twenty20.
BBC2 will show highlights of the England-Netherlands game – the tournament curtain-raiser – at 11.35 on Friday, with daily highlights at a similar time throughout the tournament. The tournament is to be screened live on Sky Sports in the UK.
The BBC attracted widespread criticism for its failure to bid for live cricket in the last round of rights negotiations last summer. ECB sources suggested that the BBC had, simply, decided to focus its budget and airtime on its new Formula 1 coverage rather than to take on Sky in a cricket-rights battle.
However, the Corporation belatedly pitched in for rights to the 17-day tournament – but has declined to publicise the fact widely, allowing information to sneak out in a weirdly lowkey fashion.
It will be the first time Twenty20 has been shown on terrestrial television in the UK.
Details of the coverage are unconfirmed, though it is likely that the BBC would go with the same presenting team as it used in its last foray into televised cricket, during the 2006/07 Ashes/World Cup winter. Main presenter Manish Bhasin and roving reporter Richi Persad attracted criticism for their informal style – not least from our own TV critic the Third Umpire – but it seems that they may be given another chance, with extra input from some of the BBC Five Live commentators and summarisers.
The ire brigade: Bob Willis v Nasser Hussain
April 6, 2009 by The Third Umpire
Filed under Features, Opinion
Ire, readers. That’s what I look for: ire. I want my broadcast pundits to sound like they mean it. The sight of Big Bob Willis haranguing Charles Colvile, voice cracking with raw rage has made England’s hapless post-2005 progress easier to bear. But is Willis running out of steam? Is it time for a younger, angrier man to step in? In this month of fiasco, the Pope of Mope went head-to-head with the chippy challenger Hussain…
Willis on England’s 51 all out
England’s third lowest all-out score in Test history? Willis seems initially resigned to their failure. But it’s not long before he gets the old chainsaw going: “What’s the effect going to be on Andrew Strauss?!” he sneers gleefully. “It must be the shortest honeymoon period in history for any England captain!”
Soon, he’s in full flow: “There’s a lot of work still to be done. I think it needs to be done in the head. They’re MENTALLY WEAK,” he rants. Not just are England hopeless – there’s no-one to replace them. Willis dismisses the Test claims of Rob Key and Joe Denly and moves on to rubbish the county game generally. Joined-up moaning. Not as easy as it looks
“Do they need to clear out the back-room staff?” host Ian Ward asks Willis. It’s a dolly. Willis responds as if ‘clearing out’ would be too good for England’s coaches and nothing short of public flogging would do. “There are more backroom staff than players now!” he points out. “Which I think is an absurd situation. The players don’t need all this pampering and molly-coddling. When you’re out in the searchlight in the middle… it’s down to you, mate.”
Willis warms to his theme. “Batting coaches! Bowling coaches! Fielding coaches!” he intones, as aghast as if England had taken lion-tamers and jugglers on tour with them. It’s not quite the Full Bob, but he’s grinding it out. Harmy? “I want to see him out of the side!” KP’s 97? “It isn’t good enough!”
“I call this batting unit ‘The untouchables’,” says Bob sadly of England’s cosy top six, before naming his XI for the next Test: “Well, I’m not going to pussyfoot around, Ian; you wouldn’t expect me to,” he promises, thrillingly (to me, anyway). “I want to make a clear statement here. I’m putting the Dumbslog Millionaire up to No 3; Bell carrying the drinks… and as for Steve Harmison,” he concludes, magnificently. “I’m afraid it’s back to the dartboard in the Ashington Working Men’s Club.”
Hussain on TV referrals
The best introduction to the Hussain ire oeuvre is his autobiography, in which he devotes whole chapters to the injustices of being short-changed in Spar 20 years ago. So when the TV referral system flopped in Barbados, it was, naturally, Hussain that sprinted down to the outfield to accost match referee Alan Hurst…
Hussain’s initial questions are brisk, efficient, even military. He sounds like he has well polished shoes. Question 3 – “I’ve got two pages of regulations on this. Why can’t the question be: ‘Listen, Daryl: is that out or not out” – sees him get mildly chippy; and his ire builds further with questions 4 and 5, about the ICC’s refusal to use the available technology.
But seasoned Hussain observers will spot question 6 as his cracking point: “I know you don’t to talk too much about specific decisions,” says Hussain, adding brilliantly: “But can you explain how Chanderpaul was given out?”
He should just leave it there. But no. He does a little finger-jabbing-at-lapel monologue. “Not by the on-field umpire by an off-field umpire who has technology available to him, who sees a new ball hit a batsman above knee-roll on a Barbados pitch. How can he, with all the time he has available, give that out?”
Hurst says the third umpire doesn’t give the batsman out.
Hussain asks the same question again, twice. Hurst tells him again that the third umpire doesn’t have the final say. He talks as if playing for time. He knows it’s all hopeless: the system is hopeless, Harper is hopeless. He probably doesn’t even have the cricket on his little TV; he’s probably watching the darts.
“The saddest thing about that decision was that a very good on-field umpire was overruled by a man off the field,” asserts Hussain, wrongly. He really is like the sports version of Mr Shake-hands man: he just asks the same question over and over until the interviewee decides he’s a lunatic and walks off. Hurst doesn’t walk off, but he does tell Hussain for the third time that the third umpire doesn’t have the final say.
Hussain’s microphone – which is all we can see of him – starts to shake with rage. “Finally,” he says, voice cracking triumphantly with ire. “Do you believe that Daryl Harper is competent enough to be third umpire in these situations?
Hurst refuses to comment.
Conclusion
It’s horses for courses. Hussain is the man you’d send round to the ask the neighbours to turn down their music (repeatedly). Willis is plainly the man to succeed Wogan on Eurovision. (“Nul points! And they were lucky to get nul, Charles!”). As England’s year of fiasco progresses, this could be the most fascinating contest of all.
