Welcome back to the TFT. I hope you had a marvellous weekend. There are a few subjects I’d like to touch on today so I’ve gone for a bit of a mishmash approach.

The first thing we should talk about is the appointment of Ian Watmore as the ECB’s new chairman. This one rather took me by surprise. In fact, I’d never heard of the bloke last week. At first I thought they’d appointed Dav Whatmore – which would’ve been rather odd. However, at least old Dav actually has some Cricket experience.

So what do we know about our next Lord and Master who will take the reins when Darth Graves hangs up his red lightsaber later this year? Well, not a fat lot to be honest. I know he was briefly FA chairman a few years ago, but as I don’t really follow football as closely as I used to I’m afraid I can’t add much insight. All I’ve read is that he resigned in a hurry because he got frustrated with the pace of change at the organisation. Why a job at the ECB appeals is therefore something of a mystery.

Other than his stint at the FA, we know that Watmore was also a big wig at consultancy firm Accenture for several years; therefore he should find the ECB’s corporate bullshit tone of voice easy to embrace. Who knows, maybe he’ll be able to add a few more management cliche’s to the lexicon? We can all look forward to that.

Significantly Watmore was also a senior civil servant for years. This means he should find navigating the ECB’s political mazes a cinch too. In fact, I can already imagine him talking to Tom Harrison like Sir Humphrey from Yes Minister. Although I doubt he has Nigel Hawthorne’s exquisite timing.

As with all these things, time will tell what kind of ECB chairman Watmore becomes. I remember being delighted when Giles Clarke stepped down because I didn’t think anyone could be as odious. Obviously I had no idea at the time that Colin Graves would turn out to be just as divisive. Let’s hope that Watmore ends up being a change for the better rather than a “what … more?” of the same candidate.

The next item on the agenda are the interesting rumours that Rugby union is about to follow in the same foolish footsteps as cricket by hiding one of its showpiece events behind a paywall. These rumours are unconfirmed – although apparently all options are on the table.

Whilst domestic rugby has been shown on Sky and then BT Sport for a number of years now, union’s saving grace was that the Six Nations and World Cup remained very accessible on terrestrial TV. This balanced seemed to work fairly well. The Premiership isn’t a massive league (attendances are generally between the 8k to 18k mark depending on the size of the club) so the cash injection from the pay broadcasters was welcome.

The big sellers (a bit like cricket I suppose) have always been the international fixtures. England, for example, always sell out the 80k Twickenham stadium during the Six Nations, so these games plus the Autumn Internationals tend to be the RFU’s money spinners.

It will be interesting to see what effect any move to satellite has on rugby participation levels. Cricket participation declined significantly after the move to Sky in 2006 so one can probably expect a similar decline. The good news for rugby, however, is that I assume the World Cup will still be shown on free-to-air television.

Sometimes I find the world of professional sport bewildering. Why do sports always seem to shoot themselves in the foot so willingly? Golf made the move a couple of years ago and now rugby. It’s all very sad.

So what can we expect if the game’s profile does gradually diminish? Presumably we’ll get some some bizarre attempt to breathe new life into the sport by attracting a new audience who love meat pies and Guinness. As they already have 7s in rugby (which is somewhat akin to T20 in terms of relative length and points scored) perhaps the RFU will invent a new ‘super 5s’ tournament.

I can see it now – five players per team, five minutes per half, extra cheerleaders, and some new franchises. Wasps will become the Coventry Hornets, London Irish the Reading Bare Knuckle Boxers, and Saracens the Barnet Bastards. It’s bound to be a winner.

The final thing I’d like to mention is India’s demise in New Zealand. A couple of weeks ago Kohli’s team had a real opportunity to cement themselves as the undisputed No.1 Test team in the world. But it’s all unravelled very quickly indeed. In fact, one wonders whether India’s batsmen did this deliberately just to make Friday’s article about the Kookaburra ball producing high-scoring borefests a tad ridiculous. Yeah thanks for that, Virat.

Although it’s nice to see everyone’s second favourite Test side beat India and recover some pride after that shellacking in Australia, the dominance of home sides in Test cricket is getting a little tedious now.

What can we do to make things more interesting? Although some people have suggested that the away side should automatically ‘win the toss’ and decide whether to bat or bowl first, it’s worth pointing out that the ECB plan to abandon uncontested tosses in the county championship. Meanwhile, others argue that it’s a positive thing for the game that winning away from home is so difficult.

Would you make a change yourself or do you think things are fine as they are? I suppose we should remember that winning overseas IS possible if you play well. England won against Sri Lanka last year and we’ve just beaten South Africa too – although both these sides were clearly in a state of flux and transition at the time.

James Morgan

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