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England cricket chiefs on Friday defended their decision to play the West Indies in early May despite the two-Test series being greeted with a resounding thumbs-down from fans.
Since moving to regularly having seven Tests in an English season in 2000, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has often hosted a two-match series in the early part of the summer.
This month’s campaign against the West Indies saw the earliest start to an English Test season in history and the crowd for the series opener at Lord’s, which England won by 10 wickets inside three days, was not what you would expect at the ‘home of cricket’.
Thursday saw an extremely low first-day attendances for a Test in England – where crowds for the five-day game unlike many other leading cricket nations are generally good – with only 3,000 tickets sold in advance.
Then the whole of Friday’s second day was washed out with England due to resume on 2-302.
That abandonment came just 48 hours after West Indies captain Chris Gayle had caused controversy by stating his preference for lucrative Twenty20 events such as the Indian Premier League over Test cricket.
But David Collier, the ECB chief executive, said the reason why England were playing the West Indies now, ahead of a year which also includes the World Twenty20, a one-day series against Australia, the Champions Trophy and a tour of South Africa, was to prepare for the home Ashes series which starts in July.
“I think that it would have been wrong not to have Test matches, prior to us playing in an Ashes series,” said Collier.
“I think people would have questioned why are we giving Australians an advantage when we have played no Test match cricket and no four-day cricket immediately prior to that.”
Collier insisted: “Normally in the first part of the season when we play a two-match series we have either been playing Bangladesh or Zimbabwe so we have not had full houses at that time of the year.”
The ECB are contracted to provide live coverage of seven Tests and 10 one-day internationals each season to Sky Television, which runs until 2013, having only signed a new deal last year.
“We had broadcasting contracts in place anyway that we would either have to re-negotiate or breach in some way, shape or form,” replied Collier, when asked if England could reduce their programme.
“I feel for (hosts) Durham in that they have not had luck with the weather. I think that is always the danger of an English summer. It can happen at the end of the season or in the middle of the season.”
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