Wisden calls on ECB to return £2.1m bonus pot after ‘annus horribilis’

Wisden has suggested that the senior executives of the England and Wales Cricket Board who are due to share a £2.1m bonus pot should return or refuse to accept the money after an “annus horribilis” for English cricket.

Cricket’s annually published reference book says in its latest edition that the “ethics of the bonus scandal were as bad as the optics” amid job losses and a variety of sporting and administrative failures.

Elsewhere the English domestic game is labelled “tone-deaf” on racism, the nation’s attempt to win the Ashes is described as “hapless”, the players involved were “knackered”, and public optimism about the team’s prospects was “completely delusional”.

But the 159th edition of the Almanack, published on Thursday, will not be miserable reading for everyone involved in English cricket. There is some praise for the inaugural Hundred, said to have “changed the face of women’s cricket in England”, while despite the failures of the men’s Test team one of their players is named the leading cricketer in the world for the third successive year, with Joe Root following Ben Stokes, who received the accolade in both 2020 and 2021.

The Almanack’s 1,536 pages will be difficult reading for many at the ECB and beyond. “Can there ever have been a bigger gap between what English cricket hoped to be and what it was – between reality and fantasy?” Lawrence Booth, the Wisden editor, writes. “Early in 2022, a long-planned assault on the Ashes ended with all-out surrender. Before that, a racism scandal brought to light by the courage of Azeem Rafiq made the game look unwelcoming, and worse. There was little to cherish.”

The most savage criticism, however, is reserved for Tom Harrison, the ECB’s chief, and the other executives