Without a huge sweetener, they reasoned, small doses would probably be easier to swallow.For the most part they were right and the counties unanimously accepted all the party’s recommendations over the set-up and selection of its three sub-committees, with one exception: the chairman of selectors’ right to withdraw players from county matches. The youngsters were there – when an ill-behaved rabble of a crowd allowed them – to better their game, an ambition that could not safely be concluded of the first-class counties, who make up the bulk of the TCCB, and around whom the majority of cricketing decisions – if any are actually made – more or less revolve. Their reticence, once again, to take any of the bold choices on offer had more to do with them pulling on their customary blinkers than the impending creation of the new England Cricket Board.
Apart from tabling a few preliminary ideas over how the new ECB might work – a constitution that will not be ratified until the findings of David Morgan’s working party have been discussed at yet another meeting scheduled for 24 September – they had gathered yesterday mainly to consider the recommendations of the Acfield working party, a report that was set up to take England to the forefront of world cricket and presumably into the 20th century by looking at how England teams are to be selected, managed and coached.Fortunately for Acfield and his advisors, who have spent the best part of two months putting their report together, they tabled it as a series of packages rather than as a whole. Those sides may have an unexpected overseas player in their ranks over the next 19 months or so..

Lord’s was awash with noise and cheer yesterday, a state of affairs that had everything to do with the final of the Lombard Under-15 World Challenge between India and Pakistan, and virtually nothing to do with the summer meeting of the Test and County Cricket Board. Before being driven away, Giddins, who has 14 days in which to appeal, muttered: “I have absolutely nothing to say. I wish I could.”His older brother Charles, a golf professional at a municipal course in Hastings said last night: “He’s going to be hurting inside Cricket is his life It seems a bit harsh and it is such a shame. It looked as if his career had just taken off, with him going on last winter’s England ‘A’ tour. Things were going well for him.”Giddins’s captain on that tour to Pakistan was the Essex and England batsman Nasser Hussain. He said yesterday: “There aren’t that many quick bowlers around It’s disappointing. He will be missed.”The Sussex secretary, Nigel Bett, who said Giddins was rendered speechless when the sentence was pronounced, did not condone the player’s actions, but having known him since his debut for the county in 1991, insisted: “There is no evidence that he has done this before or since I think he’s been misguided on this one occasion.

I think anyone with the talent that Ed has is a great loss to the game.”He has taken 231 first-class wickets at an average of 30. The last 33 came with the hearing hanging over his head following the drug test in May.An extrovert, Giddins numbers among a list of various previous jobs being a topless waiter in Australia. His entry in the Cricketers’ Who’s Who under “Overseas teams played for” includes Discovery Bay Hotel, Barbados and Bondi Surf, Sydney. The committee was sure the public would rightly demand nothing less.”Giddins, nicknamed “Geezer”, who sat through more than four hours of the hearing on Monday before it was adjourned until yesterday, left the TCCB offices after 25 minutes via a side door in an effort to escape the waiting media. Four years ago, the TCCB accepted the explanation by the then Worcestershire, now Yorkshire, left-arm bowler Richard Stemp that his drink had been spiked with amphetamines.

He went unpunished.There are no hard and fast rules for sport’s governing bodies to follow when meting out punishment. Although the Sports Council runs the drug testing scheme, which costs pounds 200 per test, they leave the punishment to the respective governing body. A spokesperson for the Sports Council said of the ban on Giddins: “It is nothing to do with us, but in principle the Sports Council supports strong action against people who take drugs, because we regard them as cheating.”The TCCB underlined their attitude by insisting that they wanted to send out the following message: “[That] Cricket, its players and administrators, would not tolerate in its ranks those who indulge in the use of a prohibited drug. Jennifer Capriati, the tennis player, was arrested for possession of drugs and spent a year in a rehabilitation centre, but she was never punished by the game’s authorities for her misdemeanour.The most celebrated “confessor” is the former England all-rounder Ian Botham, who was banned for two months in 1986 after admitting smoking cannabis. In November 1994, Arsenal’s Paul Merson confessed to alcohol and gambling addiction and to having taken cocaine, and the Football Association suspended him while he attended clinics for treatment; he was allowed to return to the game last February. The ban is certain to become worldwide since the TCCB will be informing the boards of all the other countries in the International Cricket Council and will be looking for them to support it.The severity of the punishment for what is regarded as a social drug, rather than a performance enhancer, contrasts sharply with the fate of others in sport who have either failed the Sports Council-run random test or admitted their guilt. To that end the England ‘A’ bowler had his registration terminated with immediate effect and he is suspended from playing in any match under the jurisdiction of the TCCB until 1 April 1998.