Howards Way - Will It Be Plain Saling For The Aussies

With due apologies to all our readers in Wales who probably don’t want to think about rugby right now, there was a story related the oval ball that our eyes here at Football Business last week.

Pat Howard, the former Leicester Tigers player and coach was appointed as General Manager of Cricket Australia.

Australia, you probably don’t need reminding – but lets do it anyway because its fun – have slip down the Test Match rankings and sit now amongst the also-rans. In the wake of the Ashes disaster in the winter Cricket Australia have conducted a review of how they intend to get back to the top of the world. And the man they choose to help them implement their vision for that is Howard.

Reaction to the appointment is mixed. A quick look at the Cricinfo website and you will soon see comments that are typical: “Would Rugby appoint a cricketer?” Says one. “When baking bread we appoint bakers to the job, you should consider the same approach. I think for Rugby Union he would be great,” reasons another.

And that, generally, is the attitude of most sports people too as well as the public. That we don’t understand because we haven’t played the game – or in Howard’s case the right game.

The man himself was unequivocal in his excitement: “It is a great opportunity for anyone in sports leadership,” he commented. And surely it’s the last two words in this sentence that are the key.

It’s not like they have appointed a bloke off the street to do the job. It’s not like they have come up to me and said: “go on then, have a go.” Pat Howard has been a superb coach, he has played top level sport and he is steeped in experience. Are we really, in sport, so insular that we don’t believe skills can be transferable?

To take the argument down to a really simple level, I drive a Ford Focus. That doesn’t mean, though, that I am unable to drive any other sorts of car. The beauty of experience is that those experiences can be used elsewhere. For example, in Football Business we have franchisees from many different walks of life. Some ran businesses before, some did not. Some are young, some are, shall we say, more mature – its not like we say that people are precluded or can’t run a business because they haven’t before and to judge Pat Howard before he has had the chance to do anything is bizarre.

There is a saying that “if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you’ve always got.” So credit Cricket Australia for thinking outside the box.

As an English cricket fan I would be lying if I said I wished him well, however. Bitterness is also a transferable skill.