In the Daily Telegraph Simon Hughes digests Giles Clarke’s bullish media fightback earlier this week. Referring to Clarke’s prediction five years ago that by 2008 "everyone will have digital TV or get live cricket via their mobiles or computers so the terrestrial versus satellite issue will be irrelevant" Hughes notes:
He has a pathological ability to believe what he says. But it hasn't happened. TV audiences for cricket are at best a third of what they were. No one that I know watches Tests on a computer or a mobile.
He does have drive and he does have ideas. That is to be applauded. But too much of it is whimsical and he has a habit of alienating people.
The conclusion will not go down well within the halls of the ECB.
Like most entrepreneurs, Clarke sees material things like product, he doesn't see human aspects like soul. Deals excite him. English cricket has been tossed about on the waves of financiers' egos. The whole Stanford deal was really Clarke blowing a big raspberry to Lalit Modi, the founder of the IPL, and an attempt to curry favour with his own players. Can he now really expect Andrew Flintoff not to play in the IPL when he is busy selling the game to the highest bidders?
All the while he has been building the (unpaid) chairman's role into something so powerful and consuming that few others would have the time or scope to do it. Getting back in was a fait accompli. So the game will continue to dance to his rhythm. After last week's humiliation, perhaps the beat will be less erratic from now on. But don't bank on it.
But, as Clarke himself said of his critics: “I discard those people”.
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