Michael Vaughan has laid the blame for England’s woeful World Cup campaign squarely at the door of the ECB’s handling of the allocation of the central contracts from 2023 onwards, calling it “a complete and utter distraction”.
England, the defending champions and one of the pre-tournament favorites, have won 1 and lost 5 of their first 6 matches, and although they are not mathematically out of the semi-finals, they already have 129 points. It is over. It is a cone-shaped object located almost above India.
Team management has failed to explain the team’s difficulties as England’s international and domestic fixture list and preparations come under scrutiny. However, Bourne made another connection, pointing out that the ECB’s announcement of central contracts from 2023 during the tournament derailed the tournament.
This year, the central contract system has changed. Multi-year contracts were introduced for the first time to avoid the threat of franchise cricket. Significantly, Test captain Ben Stokes turned down a multi-year contract and instead accepted a 12-month offer. Captain Jos Buttler has also reportedly opted for a shorter contract than originally offered. Of all the players who played for England at the World Cup, David Willey was the only one not to sign a contract. Speaking on Club Prairie Fire‘s podcast, Vaughan believes the confusion has affected England and should have been resolved before or after the World Cup.
“If the contract isn’t right and the numbers are in terms of three years, two years, one year, we’re going to have a discussion at the breakfast table… They’re going to say there wasn’t a discussion,” He said. “The conversation about these contracts every day is, ‘Who has what?’ What do you have? How much do you get?” ” This is a complete distraction and should have been cleared up beforehand. If it wasn’t cleaned up before, it will have to be left until after the World Cup. ”
Bourne admitted that England might not have been one of the top teams anyway, but added that his contract situation prevented him from “scaring” teams.
“You can’t sign contracts during the World Cup, especially in some parts of the world…We don’t have all the skills to be really competitive in India. We don’t have it. “But we have enough power to scare teams and the way we played we didn’t scare anyone.” , I’ll forgive you for the cursing, “Nonsense, Vorney, that’s rubbish”, but I’m going to say it’s because of the contract situation that England are playing like this. It never helps in a contract situation. ”
To bet on the World Cup with our Match Centre Partners bet365 head here.
