Another 'bloody disgrace' at Yorkshire

Life is rarely boring at Yorkshire and whilst chairman Colin Graves will doubtless try and pass the buck, he has presided over a right royal mess over the last week.

The bizarre release of the immensely talented Ajmal Shahzad is puzzling. Whilst according to Graves, he is a bit of a loose cannon and has a high opinion of himself, Yorkshire can ill afford to lose a player of Shahzad's ability. To lose him to bitter rivals Lancashire is to put it frankly embarrassing. 

It would be harder to find stronger personalities than the likes of Fred Trueman, Brian Close, Raymond Illingworth and Geoff Boycott - one has to wonder if Graves could have coped with this famous quartet of Yorkshire greats.

If the Shahzad situation wasn't bad enough, his short term replacement Mitchell Starc has had to fly back to Australia after being deported due to a visa error, which meant he was unable to get past UK customs. Graves quickly tried to put the blame on Cricket Australia, but surely Yorkshire should have ensured that Starc's paperwork was correct before he was allowed to board his flight.

In the wake of Yorkshire's relegation last season, Graves launched a very public attack on his players where amongst other criticisms, he said the squad were a 'bloody disgrace'. We're sure that many Yorkshire fans are probably using those exact words to describe Graves after the events of the last week. As Chairman, he has to take responsibility.

A bewildered Starc tweeted "Well that's a first! Being deported from England.. Surely nothing else can go wrong can it?!?!". Given that he is about to join Yorkshire - seemingly run by the cricket equivalent of Blackburn's owners Venky's, he probably hasn't seen anything yet.

Where next?

Yorkshire chairman Colin Graves gets straight to the point

The mystery of Ajmal Shazad's sacking solved

County Championship XI of the week #5

If you like this, follow us on Twitter @thereversesweep

Comments

[Ian]

As with all inadequate managers, chairmen, chairwomen (and all those who are given reponsibility for the success of their operation) when things go wrong, their knee-jerk reaction is to blame the work-force. This is, of course, the unmistakable mark of their own incompetence - and their unwillingness to accept that they themselves have failed to live up to expectations goes with this desolate territory. Yorkshire through the years has contrived to find a rich seam of their special and vicious brand of chairmen that they continue to mine - and to the outsider, there is something of a Nineteeth Century class structure in the way the club has been, and still is run. Indeed, the chairmen would appear to be descendents of the worst type of mill-owners of a long-gone age: ruled by a hire-and-fire mentality. The great players listed above all had their fallings out with their suited bosses and, with one exception moved to more friendly counties.

Ajmal Shahzad, I'm sure, is a headstrong young man. He is also an exceptionally gifted cricketer who dearly wanted to play for the county of his birth. To get the best out of him - and others of his ilk - takes highly skilled management, a great deal of patience, a good dose of empathy (a rare commodity, admittedly) and then, when you have him on-side, he will surpass himself on the field and his loyalty to the cause will be unquestioned. Such an investment of these human qualities is clearly beyond the Yorkshire hierachy. I do not doubt that there will be other Yorkshire players looking for pastures new before the end of the year. Yorkshire, when it's not top of the tree, has shown itself to be in its historical default position: beset with in-fighting; unhappy and going nowhere.

[Ian]

And the Starc fiasco does no more than underscore the major point in my previous post - that it's never the chair's fault. This time Graves has blamed Cricket Australia! If it wasn't so sad, it'd make me smile. I hope that Starc enjoys his stay, but the portents don't look promising.

[Demrif Balthasarp]

I like this website very much, Its a very nice office to read and receive information. "...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." by Conan Doyle.

[Bkswxshw]

[url=http://www.mhkgeotec.com/]ugg[/url] Jl1$W [url=http://www.mhkgeotec.com/]uggs[/url] Gx3$C http://www.mhkgeotec.com/ Et4^Q

[ejurzsph]

[url=http://www.camalou31.com/]moncler[/url] Ca8#M [url=http://www.camalou31.com/]moncler pas cher[/url] Ub5&A http://www.camalou31.com Uh4$R

[Vrwuvlfp]

[url=http://doudounemonclerhiver2012.com/]doudoune moncler homme[/url] Lr5%C [url=http://doudounemonclerhiver2012.com/]moncler pas cher[/url] Af7#Z http://doudounemonclerhiver2012.com/ Ia1#K