Paul Downton getting the sack?

[Arthur Crabtree]

I posted facetiously at first. But appointing Downton was a serious balls up. The restructuring, might be to cover the back of whoever appointed him.

No to Strauss. We need to get away from those in charge in the calamitous years post 2011. And Strauss' tv swearing doesn't do his reputation any good as fair minded decision maker.

[Making_Splinters]

I posted facetiously at first. But appointing Downton was a serious balls up. The restructuring, might be to cover the back of whoever appointed him.

No to Strauss. We need to get away from those in charge in the calamitous years post 2011. And Strauss' tv swearing doesn't do his reputation any good as fair minded decision maker.

England really need someone who has had no prior involvement in English cricket.

[bigfluffylemon]

One down, and we get rid of Clarke in May. Huzzah.

[sussexpob]

Ironically, the way they have sacked him after he was no doubt involved to a degree in planning an on going tour, and validating the selector and coach who are responsible for the team, reeks of more poor management from the ECB. Surely, if these changes were in mind, he and others who might join him on the unemployed list should have been nowhere near the tour to the Windies. After all, this is surely a performance related failure that lead to his sacking, and once those performance indicators were judged to have been failed (after the world cup) the sacking should of occurred 24 hours after. Do the ECB not have goals or indicators?

[sussexpob]

As for the future, I expect Andy Flower to reappear, which confirms my suspicions that it was the plan all along to hide him away until water has passed under the bridge. Rumours are he is about to walk out of his current role as it is not deemed to be good enough for his tastes.

I am also pretty suspicious of the difference between "managing director of the England team" and "Director of England team"..... can we ask, what the hell is the difference? Again, its typical of the ECB to bathe the most easy of points in management speak. I doubt there is any difference apart from the names, so why represent simple change of personnel in such terms?

Vaughan seems touted to come into the fold according to the press, but that instantly put me off when he described himself as wanting a role that matches his ability as a creative visionary of cricket...... Vaughan is outspoken and critical in the press, which is not the tonic for a fractured dressing room that already has problems with ego's rubbing themselves up the wrong way... adding a fire bomb into the mix is hardly constructive. If he wants a coaching role, he has to quit the press and spend time not making negative remarks about people he wants to work with.

Personally, I would strip Whitaker of a job and replace him with a couple of county scouts that report directly to the coach, who makes all decisions with his captain on selection. Add a Director if you want, but only in the capacity of looking after the logistics of the team. The coach should have final say on all personnel.

[Dr Cricket]

Terrible article by newman.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricke ... d-Cup.html
I know people don't click on mail articles so he basically attacks Graves for making Downton job untenable, Attack KP and saying his sacking was justified but again no reason why.
Then he mentions that all 3 key decision Downton got wrong could be seen has being right in future.
in his words "It will be easy to deride Downton but he was not afraid to make brave calls and none of his big calls could yet be called a failure.

Pietersen was sacked for valid reasons and remains a long way from an England recall, Moores may yet prove to be 'the outstanding coach of his generation' as Downton called him and Cook had endured a terrible one-day run even though his successor in Eoin Morgan fared even worse than Cook."

only good thing about his article is his praise for Hussain and Atherton to get the job.

it is incredible how deluded some people in the press have become, every single day ECB is becoming like PCB and WICB and the media is certainly acting like BCCI paid personnel probably even worse considering they write and speak about the matters and clearly write lies or not the full truth whereas at least the BCCI paid people be quiet about controversial matters or selections issues and people don't generally hear or read what happening in public.

Newman, selvey and the rest really need to drop the KP issue stop talking about it, stop writing digs at him.
When they stop doing that maybe people will stop calling them names on twitter.
They should just do their job instead of showing their egos in their writing, Newman already showing an agenda against Graves.

Crazy how bad the standard of writing has become lately 2-3 years all these writers were very good or one of the best now they all moan, sound bitter about something.

[Dr Cricket]

As for the future, I expect Andy Flower to reappear, which confirms my suspicions that it was the plan all along to hide him away until water has passed under the bridge. Rumours are he is about to walk out of his current role as it is not deemed to be good enough for his tastes.

I am also pretty suspicious of the difference between "managing director of the England team" and "Director of England team"..... can we ask, what the hell is the difference? Again, its typical of the ECB to bathe the most easy of points in management speak. I doubt there is any difference apart from the names, so why represent simple change of personnel in such terms?

Vaughan seems touted to come into the fold according to the press, but that instantly put me off when he described himself as wanting a role that matches his ability as a creative visionary of cricket...... Vaughan is outspoken and critical in the press, which is not the tonic for a fractured dressing room that already has problems with ego's rubbing themselves up the wrong way... adding a fire bomb into the mix is hardly constructive. If he wants a coaching role, he has to quit the press and spend time not making negative remarks about people he wants to work with.

Personally, I would strip Whitaker of a job and replace him with a couple of county scouts that report directly to the coach, who makes all decisions with his captain on selection. Add a Director if you want, but only in the capacity of looking after the logistics of the team. The coach should have final say on all personnel.

Apparently no change between the old role and new role apart from qualification requirements they dropping the need for business skills or whatever they needed, this is because in the last round only Downton had the business skills and some sort of international or cricketing background as well so they didn't exactly have many options to choose from and with Downton being sacked they obviously needed to reduce the criteria for the role.

I believe the changes are the dropping of the business qualification and the person being head of everything including Women, disabled, County, Under 19 and he will be accountable for performance of every England team.

TBH not sure what the director of cricket or managing director even does since they either help the coaches with the management and the non cricketing staff needs (hugh Morris) or they basically take all the heat so the coach can do their job without any pressure and handles the media but in reality probably doesn't do much with the team apart from help with the tactics or Strategy ( Ravi Shastri)

from the job Title and requirements Directior of Cricket or managing director for ECB is the hardest job in the world you are literally in charge of everything not sure any other country has a similar type of job, they all have someone with the same job tite but they don't really do the same job.
not sure Pat Howard or Ravi Shastri even do quarter of the job of what ECB expects from that person.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Will parts of Whitaker and Downton's jobs be combined? The DT has said the chief selector is about to follow Downton.

Selvey is complaining about KP's part in making PD look bad, with his clever PR! He calls KP a mercenary, who wouldn't have dropped a better IPL contract to play for Surrey (he is donating his Surrey fee to charity)!

[sussexpob]

Selvey is complaining about KP's part in making PD look bad, with his clever PR! He calls KP a mercenary, who wouldn't have dropped a better IPL contract to play for Surrey (he is donating his Surrey fee to charity)!

I particularly enjoyed the point he made about Graves having to learn that being in the ECB means he cant be an autocrat like in his personal business, and that he has to watch what he says with more care.... two paragraphs after he suggested that the previous ECB press handling was "beaten black and blue" by KPs press related people and legal eagles.... wasnt Downton a lawyer brought in to handle public affairs? Yet he didnt fail because he had to deal with lawyers and press agencies who were disruptive? Sure he just contradicted everything he said again?

The lesson he teaches us? The Chief Executive should be more caring when his understudy tries to be underhandedly insubordinate by telling the press his new bosses wishes will be ignored?

[Alviro Patterson]

Will parts of Whitaker and Downton's jobs be combined? The DT has said the chief selector is about to follow Downton.

Possibly, it's what Graves did at Yorkshire as the Batting and Bowling coach positions were made redundant in 2011.

[sussexpob]

I believe the changes are the dropping of the business qualification and the person being head of everything including Women, disabled, County, Under 19 and he will be accountable for performance of every England team.

The disability team just won in Australia, and the women made the final of the World T20..... proof that none of his role had none of these as key responsibilities. Do you buy the fact that Downton spent anytime or thought about these teams? If it was a mixture, then surely he couldnt be sacked?

[m@tt]

Terrible article by newman.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricke ... d-Cup.html

Downton has been so incompetent that he's been removed after just 14 months. Yet Newman only had praise for him. Delusional. See also Selvey and Hughes.

[Dr Cricket]

I believe the changes are the dropping of the business qualification and the person being head of everything including Women, disabled, County, Under 19 and he will be accountable for performance of every England team.

The disability team just won in Australia, and the women made the final of the World T20..... proof that none of his role had none of these as key responsibilities. Do you buy the fact that Downton spent any time or thought about these teams? If it was a mixture, then surely he couldnt be sacked?

TBH it sounds like they want the new guy to be in the background and oversee everything like Hugh morris did and not be in the spotlight like Downton did in the Ashes, KP saga, Cook ODI and captaincy issue.

Also ECB have Goals and targets for everything.
Goals are to win Ashes and World cup Fail
Goals are to win Women world cups fail, lost to india in a test. fail
Goals are to win under 19 world cup fail.

so not sure the other england teams did enough to save his job.

Guessing Downton got sacked of what he said and the decision he made that is causing ECB to be a laughing stock in cricket.

[Dr Cricket]

Terrible article by newman.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricke ... d-Cup.html

Downton has been so incompetent that he's been removed after just 14 months. Yet Newman only had praise for him. Delusional. See also Selvey and Hughes.

these type of articles make my blood boil.

[greyblazer]

I said this on Twitter as well. More than KP and Co. winning the PR battle, it was a case of Paul Downton and ECB being worse at it. Even though, KP was the highest run-getter in the Ashes 2013-14, the general perception at that time was he should be dropped. All the selectors had to do was to say they dropped KP from Tests on poor form and selected him for the World T20. Once they sacked a high profile player without any valid reasons, they were in trouble. You don't need some fancy degree for this, but just common sense.