Top stuff, KC from the past.

Organisations so often seem to suffer from ever increasing emphasis on one particular metric or other. Something easily measurable and comprehensible is identified as The Most Important Thing and then all the other stuff is compromised in pursuit of growth in this very specific area.

The curse of the KPI.

Indeed yes. In March 2020 I (along with everyone else in the world) had other things on my mind – not least the global pandemic unfolding before our eyes.

In October 2022 I have other, other things on my mind.

The phrase “anti-growth” has been doing the rounds a lot recently in the UK political/economic context, spat like an insult at people like me. People who are not anti-growth at all, but simply question whether growth-for-growth’s sake is a universally good thing and who question what exactly we mean by growth or exactly how we might measure it.

Cricket could do with similar deep thought. Growth in the coffers of a cricket administration monolith is not necessarily a good thing for the game. It is fair to argue that it is a bad thing if the inevitable consequence of focussing only on “size of cricket administration/management budget” measurement is that “size of cricket participating population” resultantly goes down.

Thanks for that. Sometimes it’s worth revisiting the same thing at a different time as you see it in a different context. This article (hopefully) and that interview both fall into that category.

I know the piece is making a global point, but KC readers who haven’t read Mike Atherton’s interview with Richard Gould last year might wish to read it, now that the latter has been appointed ECB Chief Executive. Interesting thoughts on tests & the Hundred:

https://www.skysports.com/cricket/news/12152/12312809/richard-gould-talks-surrey-crickets-challenges-and-the-hundred-as-he-prepares-to-leave-the-kia-oval

We might be in for a change of tack over the next few years, at least here in Blighty.

What a poetic final sentence.

Still needs a fiddle, at risk of Carry Onning myself.

Yeah, we miss that. That might be a ‘fiddling with the code’ thing.

This is exactly what everyone wants, plus the ability to pay for only this and not 345 Premier League football matches as well.