I had intended that my next post would be about Bazball, what worked from it and what didn’t. Then Yorkshire CCC’s ‘punishments’ were announced and that really needs an immediate response.
For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, the Cricket Discipline Commission (the ECB’s semi-autonomous body used for disciplinary issues) published their sentencing for Yorkshire CCC yesterday. Having plead guilty to four charges of bringing the game and the ECB into disrepute, their punishment was:
- A 48 point deduction in the County Championship
- A 4 point deduction in the T20 Blast
- A £400,000 fine
These are large numbers, a historic punishment when looking at the headlines, but there is a catch: In practice, they are all virtually worthless. Both of the points penalties, whilst potentially large in impact, apply to the 2023 season only. Yorkshire CCC are already in Division 2 of the County Championship, and were in 6th place (out of 8) before the deduction. The difference between finishing 6th or 8th in Division 2, with no possibility of demotion, is practically nothing. £300,000 of the £400,000 fine is suspended for two years and, barring a “further serious breach of cricketing regulations”, will not have to be paid at all. This means that what Yorkshire CCC will actually have to hand over is £100,000.
By far the most laughable part of the sentencing was the deduction of four points from the 2023 T20 Blast. A competition which finished two weeks ago, and in which Yorkshire CCC had already failed to qualify for the playoffs. It’s like if the Welsh men’s football team were to be given a retroactive punishment of a million points in World Cup qualifying between 1962 and 2018. Aside from forcing media companies to update a league table for an already finished tournament (so far the BBC has updated their table for the Blast, but ESPNcricinfo hasn’t), it makes literally no difference to anyone’s lives.
In effect, the only meaningful aspect of the punishment handed to Yorkshire CCC yesterday was a £100,000 fine.
One thing that many have questioned is whether this punishment is fair. There are two principles behind this question: Retribution and proportionality. Retribution is a simple concept, people have an almost visceral desire to see the wicked suffer and the righteous prosper. Being given a fine which amounts to 0.7% of their 2022 turnover, even if their massive debts mean that this might still feel like a significant sum to them, seems insubstantial to the general public. Given that Yorkshire CCC’s mishandling of racism complaints has caused this issue to overshadow much of the last three years in English cricket, and cost the ECB and its clubs many millions in the process, there was certainly an appetite from many for a severe penalty to be applied in this case.
Proportionality also relates to humanity’s sense of natural justice. There is an instinctual understanding that murder is worse than assault, which is worse than verbally abuse, which is worse than littering, and that the level of punishment should reflect this. If a person is given a more lenient sentence than someone perceived to have have committed a less serious offense, then that will likely be seen as unfair and unjust.
This is why the CDC’s previous rulings regarding counties are being compared to Yorkshire’s punishment. Here are a selection of counties’ penalties from recent years:
- 2019 – Somerset CCC receive a 12 point penalty in next season’s County Championship (which ended up being in 2021 due to COVID-19) due to uneven bounce in a match at Taunton.
- 2022 – Essex CCC receive a £35,000 fine (0.7% of their 2020 revenue) for failing to properly investigate an racist phrase allegedly used during a 2017 board meeting.
- 2022 – Leicestershire CCC receive a 2 point penalty in the T20 Blast for an accumulation of minor offences during matches, which knocks them out of the quarter finals.
- 2022 – Durham CCC receive a 10 point penalty in the 2022 County Championship for a player using a slightly oversized bat.
All of these transgressions feel far less serious than what Yorkshire CCC were found guilty of. The four charges which the CDC upheld said that Yorkshire failed to act following clear evidence of racism within the 2021 racism report, attempted to cover up their wrongdoing through the intentional destruction of evidence, and failed to adequately respond to complaints of racism (not just from their own players) over a span of at least seven years.
All of these counties, and perhaps several more I haven’t mentioned, might feel hard done by today. Not only were Essex CCC fined a similar proportion of their annual turnover to Yorkshire CCC for just a single mishandled complaint, but only 30% of their fine was suspended compared to 75% for Yorkshire. Leicestershire CCC were literally knocked out of a competition, ironically allowing Yorkshire to qualify for the playoffs in their place, through their points deduction, because of a send off and a bowler accidentally doing two full tosses. Somerset’s points deduction being applied to the following year rather than the season the offence took place in (and which had already been completed) clearly has a greater impact on the team and its players.
You will have probably noticed that I didn’t include the most egregious punishment that a county has received: Durham CCC in 2016. The simple reason is that this was exclusively done by the ECB board and not the Cricket Discipline Commisssion. Not unlike when the ECB withdrew and then reinstated international matches at Headingley in the winter before the 2022 season, there was no pretense of being an independent or quasi-legal process. The ECB’s executive saw something they did not like, a county asking them for financial help, and acted with impunity. The total list of sanctions applied to Durham were:
- Summary demotion from Division 1 of the County Championship, having finished 45 points clear in fourth place.
- A 48 point deduction from the following season’s County Championship.
- A 4 point deduction from the following season’s T20 Blast.
- A 2 point deduction from the following season’s One Day Cup.
- A strict salary cap to reduce team costs from 2017-2020.
- The loss of Test match status in exchange for a £2m one-off payment.
It should be said that the CDC does not have the authority to enact many of these. In terms of cricket clubs, they only have three punishments available: Points deductions, fines, and reprimands. The loss of England matches, salary caps or any other restrictions are beyond their purview currently, although a broadening of possible sanctions is recommended in the ICEC report. Even so, Durham were clearly punished far more severely and over a much longer period of time for what almost everyone would consider a far less serious matter.
Beyond the perception of fairness, any justice system also has to consider the effect of any sentence going forward: Is the guilty party likely to re-offend, and will the punishment deter others from taking the same path?
You could certainly make the argument that Yorkshire CCC are a very different organisation now than they were two years ago. Different personnel, different philosophies, and different policies have made Yorkshire a more welcoming and proactive club. It is very unlikely that an issue of similar scale will occur there in the near future. A cynical person might point out that these changes only began after sponsors began deserting the club, and could perhaps be watered down once they are in a stronger financial position. Hopefully not, but time will tell.
The most damaging part of Yorkshire CCC’s sentencing yesterday is the absolute lack of deterrence it provides. Other counties, and clubs around the country, will look at this punishment and decide it is probably worth the risk trying to ignore, minimise, and destroy evidence of discrimination and mismanagement. If they succeed, then they suffer no bad consequences at all to their reputation and can go on as they did before. If they fail and are caught red-handed, they can pay a negligible fine and make a few changes. It will not instil any sense of urgency or importance to dealing with these issues in club executives and chairs across England and Wales.
Whilst the punishment of Durham CCC in 2016 has been almost universally criticised for the past seven years due to its severity, you could argue that it worked. Every other county knuckled down and did everything they could to ensure that they did not share the same fate as Durham. (It also, perhaps coincidentally, likely made the sales pitch for The Hundred easier as it was sold to the counties as an extra source of income for them.) Deterrence does work.
So what now? The ECB does have the ability to appeal the sentence to the CDC and argue for a more severe sentence. Alternatively, the ECB board is free to impose any punishment they like as they did with Durham in the past. However, it seems more likely that everyone in the higher echelons of English cricket is pretty happy with the outcome. For the ECB, the disciplinary process is finally over and so they can suggest that they followed their procedure correctly whilst drawing a line under the matter. Yorkshire CCC will be ecstatic to have received such a slight slap on the wrist. The other counties certainly don’t want the precedent set of severe penalties for things they may have done in the past, or risk doing in the future. All in all, everyone wins.
Except for anyone discriminated against within English cricket, of course.
Thanks for reading my post. If you have anything to add about it, the Ashes, or anything else then please do so below.
