The England
and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has appointed former test wicket keeper Paul
Downton as the Managing Director of the England Cricket and James Whitaker as
the national selector. These appointments have come as a bit of surprise among
the cricketing fraternity of England.
There are reasons for being surprised as well.
First of all Paul Downton is totally cutoff from cricket for
last more than two decades. Till now he was working in the City with HSBC, JP
Morgan and Cazenove as the successor for Hugh Morris, who is rejoining as the
Chief Executive and Director of Cricket for Glamorgan, his former county. He
was forced to retire from playing in the year 1991 because of an injury which
sustained when he was struck in the eye by a bail during the previous summer.
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Former English wicketkeeper Paul Downton is the new MD of
ECB
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JamesWhitaker on the other hand will replace Geoff Miller
as the head of the selection panel from 1st January 2014. He is a
part-time selector till now. Whitaker had played only one test and two ODIs for
England
in the mid-1980s.
The Chief Executive of the ECB Mr. David Collier said,
“Geoff Miller has been an exceptional national selector presiding over
selection during the most successful periods in the history of English Cricket.
In return English Cricket owes a great debt and gratitude to Geoff for an
outstanding contribution he has provided to the game and to the fortunes of our
national team.”
The current Middlesex director of cricket and former England seamer Angus Fraser too was thought for
the job but he decided to stay with the Middlesex County.
Two more former English batsmen Nick Knight and Nasser Hussain too were
considered for the job but they were more interested in their lucrative
broadcasting job and since their retirements from all kinds of cricket have
rarely shown any interest in any kind of cricketing management.
