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Leicestershire have been docked a T20 Blast point and seam bowler Ben Mike banned for two games after he damaged the pitch against Northants in June.
The incident was not seen by the umpires but video showed that Mike used his studs to "agitate the surface of the pitch", an inquiry heard.
He was subsequently not picked for one game and will also miss one in 2022.
Leicestershire, meanwhile, have been given a suspended points deduction for disciplinary offences by six players.
They were given fixed penalty notices for a variety of offences in 2020 and 2021, including throwing the ball "at a player, umpire or another person in an inappropriate and dangerous manner", bowling a "dangerous and unfair short-pitched delivery and/or accidental non-pitching delivery that resulted in the bowler being disallowed from bowling any further in that innings" and showing dissent.
The players involved were Dieter Klein, Naveen-ul-Haq, Mike, Scott Steele and Arron Lilley - and Colin Ackermann captained the side on each occasion.
If any further fixed penalty breaches occur in the next 12 months, the club will be docked 12 Championship points, or two points in the T20 Blast or One-Day Cup.
And Ackermann will serve a one-match ban if a player breaches the disciplinary code in any match in which he is captain.
The various matters were heard by a three-member disciplinary panel and Leicestershire have a right of appeal within 14 days.
Totally unrelated, but Marcus Harris as decided to leave earlier than initially planned and won't play again for the Foxes this season. I repeat, totally unrelated.
Stokes’ withdrawal may be first of many amid cricket’s relentless schedule.
Simon Wilde.
The Times.
Sunday, 1 August 2021.
PTG 3594-17756.
England player Ben Stokes’ withdrawal from cricket for an indefinite period comes as a shock because this is a cricketer with a justified reputation for never showing pain, fear or taking a backward step, but his case may prove to be only the first of several from the top end of the men’s game (PTG 3593-17750, 31 July 2021). Those close to the England team, who are fulfilling by far the busiest schedule of any international side, have been warning about the issue of mental health ever since the sport became the first to resume at international level after the outbreak of the pandemic.
The rotation policy may not have been implemented perfectly, but it was very much necessary if the most in-demand players were not to be broken on the anvil of a relentless program of matches designed to keep the game’s essential revenues flowing. Stokes’s situation is particularly complex, making it easy for those who want to doubt his priorities to do so. He has certainly not been the most heavily worked England player of the past 14 months, appearing in 22 of the 49 Tests, ODIs and T20s the national side have played during Covid. This places him joint seventh on England’s list, a fair way behind Jonny Bairstow, the most called-upon, on 36.
But Stokes had to endure the tragedy of his father’s death last year which took him away from the game for many weeks and added another layer of unimaginable stress to the challenges already posed by spending long periods in bio-secure bubbles and locked away in hotel rooms. The serious finger injury he picked up early on in the IPL has not helped.
Even so, in extremis, England called on him to act as emergency captain for three One Day Internationals against Pakistan following a Covid outbreak (PTG 3566-17628, 7 July 2021), matches he said he would not have played in normal circumstances given the pain he was in. He was also under pressure to then play in the early rounds of The Hundred as an icon player. This is a player, remember, on whom more is expected than any other cricketer in the land.
But this is not simply about what has happened in the recent past, but what looms in the near future. For Stokes, this meant — before his withdrawal — five Tests against India, followed swiftly by two events English cricket has placed ahead of all others — the World Twenty20 and the Ashes. He may reason that if he sits out the India Tests, he may yet be ready to give his considerable all in helping England scale these twin peaks.
More broadly, Stokes’s decision to take a step back from the game will only further fuel debate about whether the Ashes tour should even go ahead. Before his announcement, the number of Australia voices critical of the idea — vocalised principally by Michael Vaughan — that England should not tour under the existing draconian Covid restrictions in place in that country were growing (PTG 3590-17737, 28 July 2021). Even Greg Chappell, a respected former Test captain, said: “If I don’t feel overly sympathetic to the players, please forgive me . . . the Ashes has to happen”.
They argue that Australia toured England last northern summer and it is now time to return the favour (PTG 3591-17741, 29 July 2021). But that was a short tour and one of the few assignments Australia have undertaken during the pandemic. Remarkably, they have played just four Test matches since it began, all at home. Their current white-ball tour of West Indies and Bangladesh is missing many senior players. Indeed under Covid, Steve Smith has played just three matches for Australia outside his own country (all in Southampton last September).
Those on the outside can only guess at what state of mind top international sportspeople who are enduring these conditions are really in. In cricket, we just get glimpses and clues. Last year, Jos Buttler, who has a young family and whose wife is expecting another child in September, was given time out of the England bubble. Moeen Ali was also given time off, only to then contract Covid en route to Sri Lanka in January (PTG 3380-16762, 5 January 2021).
Chris Woakes, in quarantine on his return from the Indian Premier League, was given the option to play in the second Test against New Zealand and declined. He clearly did not feel ready to go back into another bubble, relatively short though it would have been. The England players to a man have supported the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (EWCB) handling of the Covid crisis. They understand the need for rest and rotation and it goes beyond the crass interpretation that they are being paid to put their feet up.
Only two weeks ago Tom Harrison, the EWCB chief executive, gave a blunt assessment of the situation: “Players are just fed up with bio-security and bubbles. It’s had such a detrimental impact on mental health for players. They’ve got lives too and, in some cases, young families that they have been pulled apart from for very long periods. We don’t want to be closeting players in such a way that it feels like the only role they play in their lives is to bat and bowl for whatever team they play for . . . I’m afraid there comes a point where it’s no longer an acceptable answer ‘once more into the breach my friends’” (PTG 3576-17672, 16 July 2021).
And last October, Professor Nick Peirce, EwCB chief medical officer, reflecting on the first English summer of intense bio-secure bubbles, said: “We saw there was a ceiling probably of three to four weeks, and [then] you need time out” (PTG 3285-16262, 7 October 2020). How on earth then does that sit with multi-format players — English and Australian — going straight through a World T20 and then the Ashes, more than three months in all? Some things need to give, or more players may walk.
Ground intruder dead-ball situation leads to bonus six.
PTG Editor.
Friday, 30 July 2021.
PTG 3593-17750.
Playing for the Trent Rockets in the seventh match of the men’s Hundred on Monday, batsman Alex Hales’ struck a bonus six after a delivery he scored one run off was called dead and had to be rebowled. In somewhat of an irony given what happened in the World Cup final two years ago, the original delivery was declared dead by umpires Russell Warren and Tim Robinson after Northern Superchargers captain Ben Stokes remonstrated with them.
The situation evolved on the 77th ball of the Rockets’ innings which Hales worked for a single to mid-off to give up the strike, but Stokes remonstrated at length with Warren and Robinson, pointing out that there was an intruder on the field of play. After the ball was eventually called dead, Hales lost the single he scored but was sent back to the striker’s end to face Adil Rashid's rebowled ball.
He then, with a full-blooded drive down the ground to long-off, dispatched the ball towards the boundary, where Stokes, right back on the rope, spilled the chance and the ball dropped over the boundary for six. Hales batted through the innings which his side won by two wickets with six balls to spare.
On Friday in an unrelated move, it was announced that Stokes is taking an indefinite break from all cricket with immediate effect “to prioritise his mental wellbeing”. The 30-year-old all-rounder will play no part in the forthcoming Test series against India in an attempt also to rest his injured left index finger, which has not fully healed since his return to competitive cricket this month.
The managing director of England men’s cricket, Ashley Giles, said: “Ben has shown tremendous courage to open up about his feelings and wellbeing. Our primary focus has always been and will continue to be the mental health and welfare of all of our people. The demands on our athletes to prepare and play elite sport are relentless in a typical environment, but the ongoing pandemic has acutely compounded this”.
Ashes boycott threats ‘unhelpful’ to families request.
Malcolm Conn.
Sydney Morning Herald.
Saturday, 31 July 2021.
PTG 3593-17754.
A public campaign by England’s cricketers demanding their families are allowed to tour Australia this coming summer, in the face of ongoing border restrictions ‘Down Under’ due to Covid-19, is in danger of backfiring. There have been ongoing claims in the UK media this week that some players had threatened to pull out of the much-awaited Ashes tour if their families are not given permission by the Australian government to also enter the country.
That morphed into suggestions of the entire squad not touring on Friday when the London Daily Telegraph reported England’s senior cricketers are pressing the England and Wales Cricket Board (EWCB) to issue an ultimatum to Cricket Australia (CA) and, by extension, the federal government, by saying that the side will not contest the Ashes if their players cannot take families (PTG 3592-17748, 30 July 2021).
Though unwilling to comment publicly on the ongoing negotiations, multiple sources in Australian cricket and the federal government say that the English campaign is “counterproductive”, “unhelpful” and “tone deaf”. One official said: “This is certainly not from the best practice handbook of government negotiations. We’re fully aware of the situation”.
There are numerous factors for the Australian government to consider regarding exemptions for any inbound travellers, not least the the fact that 11,000 Australians are currently stranded in the UK attempting to get home. The Telegraph report claimed CA is due to update the EWCB in the next week about the protocols the Australian government will want in place for the Ashes. A column in the same newspaper by former Ashes-winning England captain Michael Vaughan a day earlier claimed if England could not take it’s best team to Australia this summer, the Ashes should be postponed (PTG 3590-17737, 28 July 2021).
A CA spokeswoman said it "continues to work closely with the ECB and government authorities in Australia regarding the upcoming Ashes series, which will be the centrepiece for one of the biggest summers of cricket on record. With the Ashes four months away, we are currently planning the operational requirements of this tour and working with the ECB on the proposed make-up of the England touring party. As was the case last season, CA will work constructively and in partnership with government to deliver the summer of cricket, while ensuring the health, wellbeing and safety of the community”.
The EWCB and the UK Professional Cricketers’ Association issued a joint statement late on Friday that mentions "several meetings” it held over the past week with England Men’s players and the Team England Player Partnership "to discuss provisional plans for the tour of Australia later in the year”. All parties are said to be "collaborating and will continue to work together to understand protocols around bubble environments, family provision and quarantine rules that will be in place for the tour during the current Covid-19 pandemic”. “Player welfare” is said to be the key issue behind the discussions,
There were long and winding negotiations last year before approval was given for India’s cricketers to be joined by their families. This was made more difficult by the fluctuating Covid situation in various states throughout the tour and sudden or threatened border closures.
Simon Wilde.
The Times.
Sunday, 1 August 2021.
PTG 3594-17756.
England player Ben Stokes’ withdrawal from cricket for an indefinite period comes as a shock because this is a cricketer with a justified reputation for never showing pain, fear or taking a backward step, but his case may prove to be only the first of several from the top end of the men’s game (PTG 3593-17750, 31 July 2021). Those close to the England team, who are fulfilling by far the busiest schedule of any international side, have been warning about the issue of mental health ever since the sport became the first to resume at international level after the outbreak of the pandemic.
The rotation policy may not have been implemented perfectly, but it was very much necessary if the most in-demand players were not to be broken on the anvil of a relentless program of matches designed to keep the game’s essential revenues flowing. Stokes’s situation is particularly complex, making it easy for those who want to doubt his priorities to do so. He has certainly not been the most heavily worked England player of the past 14 months, appearing in 22 of the 49 Tests, ODIs and T20s the national side have played during Covid. This places him joint seventh on England’s list, a fair way behind Jonny Bairstow, the most called-upon, on 36.
But Stokes had to endure the tragedy of his father’s death last year which took him away from the game for many weeks and added another layer of unimaginable stress to the challenges already posed by spending long periods in bio-secure bubbles and locked away in hotel rooms. The serious finger injury he picked up early on in the IPL has not helped.
Even so, in extremis, England called on him to act as emergency captain for three One Day Internationals against Pakistan following a Covid outbreak (PTG 3566-17628, 7 July 2021), matches he said he would not have played in normal circumstances given the pain he was in. He was also under pressure to then play in the early rounds of The Hundred as an icon player. This is a player, remember, on whom more is expected than any other cricketer in the land.
But this is not simply about what has happened in the recent past, but what looms in the near future. For Stokes, this meant — before his withdrawal — five Tests against India, followed swiftly by two events English cricket has placed ahead of all others — the World Twenty20 and the Ashes. He may reason that if he sits out the India Tests, he may yet be ready to give his considerable all in helping England scale these twin peaks.
More broadly, Stokes’s decision to take a step back from the game will only further fuel debate about whether the Ashes tour should even go ahead. Before his announcement, the number of Australia voices critical of the idea — vocalised principally by Michael Vaughan — that England should not tour under the existing draconian Covid restrictions in place in that country were growing (PTG 3590-17737, 28 July 2021). Even Greg Chappell, a respected former Test captain, said: “If I don’t feel overly sympathetic to the players, please forgive me . . . the Ashes has to happen”.
They argue that Australia toured England last northern summer and it is now time to return the favour (PTG 3591-17741, 29 July 2021). But that was a short tour and one of the few assignments Australia have undertaken during the pandemic. Remarkably, they have played just four Test matches since it began, all at home. Their current white-ball tour of West Indies and Bangladesh is missing many senior players. Indeed under Covid, Steve Smith has played just three matches for Australia outside his own country (all in Southampton last September).
Those on the outside can only guess at what state of mind top international sportspeople who are enduring these conditions are really in. In cricket, we just get glimpses and clues. Last year, Jos Buttler, who has a young family and whose wife is expecting another child in September, was given time out of the England bubble. Moeen Ali was also given time off, only to then contract Covid en route to Sri Lanka in January (PTG 3380-16762, 5 January 2021).
Chris Woakes, in quarantine on his return from the Indian Premier League, was given the option to play in the second Test against New Zealand and declined. He clearly did not feel ready to go back into another bubble, relatively short though it would have been. The England players to a man have supported the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (EWCB) handling of the Covid crisis. They understand the need for rest and rotation and it goes beyond the crass interpretation that they are being paid to put their feet up.
Only two weeks ago Tom Harrison, the EWCB chief executive, gave a blunt assessment of the situation: “Players are just fed up with bio-security and bubbles. It’s had such a detrimental impact on mental health for players. They’ve got lives too and, in some cases, young families that they have been pulled apart from for very long periods. We don’t want to be closeting players in such a way that it feels like the only role they play in their lives is to bat and bowl for whatever team they play for . . . I’m afraid there comes a point where it’s no longer an acceptable answer ‘once more into the breach my friends’” (PTG 3576-17672, 16 July 2021).
And last October, Professor Nick Peirce, EwCB chief medical officer, reflecting on the first English summer of intense bio-secure bubbles, said: “We saw there was a ceiling probably of three to four weeks, and [then] you need time out” (PTG 3285-16262, 7 October 2020). How on earth then does that sit with multi-format players — English and Australian — going straight through a World T20 and then the Ashes, more than three months in all? Some things need to give, or more players may walk.
PTG Editor.
Friday, 30 July 2021.
PTG 3593-17750.
Playing for the Trent Rockets in the seventh match of the men’s Hundred on Monday, batsman Alex Hales’ struck a bonus six after a delivery he scored one run off was called dead and had to be rebowled. In somewhat of an irony given what happened in the World Cup final two years ago, the original delivery was declared dead by umpires Russell Warren and Tim Robinson after Northern Superchargers captain Ben Stokes remonstrated with them.
The situation evolved on the 77th ball of the Rockets’ innings which Hales worked for a single to mid-off to give up the strike, but Stokes remonstrated at length with Warren and Robinson, pointing out that there was an intruder on the field of play. After the ball was eventually called dead, Hales lost the single he scored but was sent back to the striker’s end to face Adil Rashid's rebowled ball.
He then, with a full-blooded drive down the ground to long-off, dispatched the ball towards the boundary, where Stokes, right back on the rope, spilled the chance and the ball dropped over the boundary for six. Hales batted through the innings which his side won by two wickets with six balls to spare.
On Friday in an unrelated move, it was announced that Stokes is taking an indefinite break from all cricket with immediate effect “to prioritise his mental wellbeing”. The 30-year-old all-rounder will play no part in the forthcoming Test series against India in an attempt also to rest his injured left index finger, which has not fully healed since his return to competitive cricket this month.
The managing director of England men’s cricket, Ashley Giles, said: “Ben has shown tremendous courage to open up about his feelings and wellbeing. Our primary focus has always been and will continue to be the mental health and welfare of all of our people. The demands on our athletes to prepare and play elite sport are relentless in a typical environment, but the ongoing pandemic has acutely compounded this”.
Malcolm Conn.
Sydney Morning Herald.
Saturday, 31 July 2021.
PTG 3593-17754.
A public campaign by England’s cricketers demanding their families are allowed to tour Australia this coming summer, in the face of ongoing border restrictions ‘Down Under’ due to Covid-19, is in danger of backfiring. There have been ongoing claims in the UK media this week that some players had threatened to pull out of the much-awaited Ashes tour if their families are not given permission by the Australian government to also enter the country.
That morphed into suggestions of the entire squad not touring on Friday when the London Daily Telegraph reported England’s senior cricketers are pressing the England and Wales Cricket Board (EWCB) to issue an ultimatum to Cricket Australia (CA) and, by extension, the federal government, by saying that the side will not contest the Ashes if their players cannot take families (PTG 3592-17748, 30 July 2021).
Though unwilling to comment publicly on the ongoing negotiations, multiple sources in Australian cricket and the federal government say that the English campaign is “counterproductive”, “unhelpful” and “tone deaf”. One official said: “This is certainly not from the best practice handbook of government negotiations. We’re fully aware of the situation”.
There are numerous factors for the Australian government to consider regarding exemptions for any inbound travellers, not least the the fact that 11,000 Australians are currently stranded in the UK attempting to get home. The Telegraph report claimed CA is due to update the EWCB in the next week about the protocols the Australian government will want in place for the Ashes. A column in the same newspaper by former Ashes-winning England captain Michael Vaughan a day earlier claimed if England could not take it’s best team to Australia this summer, the Ashes should be postponed (PTG 3590-17737, 28 July 2021).
A CA spokeswoman said it "continues to work closely with the ECB and government authorities in Australia regarding the upcoming Ashes series, which will be the centrepiece for one of the biggest summers of cricket on record. With the Ashes four months away, we are currently planning the operational requirements of this tour and working with the ECB on the proposed make-up of the England touring party. As was the case last season, CA will work constructively and in partnership with government to deliver the summer of cricket, while ensuring the health, wellbeing and safety of the community”.
The EWCB and the UK Professional Cricketers’ Association issued a joint statement late on Friday that mentions "several meetings” it held over the past week with England Men’s players and the Team England Player Partnership "to discuss provisional plans for the tour of Australia later in the year”. All parties are said to be "collaborating and will continue to work together to understand protocols around bubble environments, family provision and quarantine rules that will be in place for the tour during the current Covid-19 pandemic”. “Player welfare” is said to be the key issue behind the discussions,
There were long and winding negotiations last year before approval was given for India’s cricketers to be joined by their families. This was made more difficult by the fluctuating Covid situation in various states throughout the tour and sudden or threatened border closures.
Thanks MAG for posting these very interesting ( and sobering) articles up on here.
ReplyDeleteSurely its obvious to everyone that the England team (s) are playing far too much cricket across the various formats.Its devaluing the game with too much going on and it will dilute interest