Adams Warns Clarke Against Confrontation Without Consultation

Giles Clarke, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, has been told to seek advice from leading business figures to avoid a major split in the game. Chris Adams, who has led Sussex to three championships in five summers, said yesterday: "A wind of change is blowing a gale through the global game and it is essential the ECB gets this one right. I'm afraid the board and all the counties have been caught cold by what has happened."

On Monday Clarke made confrontational noises, sounding inflexible in his opposition to leading England players taking part in the Indian Premier League even though Kevin Pietersen had expressed an interest in the new Twenty20 tournament.

Adams said: "Giles Clarke is not there to represent his own personal view and, if he is, he needs to go now. This can't be one man's view. If you are going to take on these privileged roles, you have to act on behalf of all parties. If Clarke gets this wrong, he can just walk away and go back to what he does because he's not accountable in the long run. But the game is accountable. And this is a problem that won't go away.

"We will now find out how good the main men at the ECB, Clarke, David Collier [chief executive] and Mike Gatting [managing director of cricket partnerships], really are. They have to act on behalf of all parties. If I was one of the main men on the ECB, I would go to the kings of commerce and ask them what they would do."

Adams, who played the last of five Tests in 2000, said that, if he were a centrally contracted player today, he would be interested in going to India. "If you're, say, Andrew Symonds and can earn big money in a few weeks, see more of your family and not have to go through a grueling county season for six months, it would be very tempting."

Clarke won support from an unlikely quarter, though, in Tony Greig, the most famous rebel of all when, as England captain in the mid-70s, he joined World Series Cricket. And his infamy seemed as strong as ever when he was named by Clarke at Lord's on Monday as an example of how rebellion was a high-risk game. Along came Ian Botham, said Clarke, and Greig's England career was over in a shot.

Greig termed Clarke's view of history "absolutely ridiculous", recalling that he had picked Botham, who was already on the road to stardom. "We [England players] were being seriously ripped off by Clarke's ECB predecessors who didn't give a damn about the plight of county and Test cricketers, especially where their remuneration was concerned. Thanks to WSC they were forced to change their attitude."

But he went on to back Clarke's tactics. "The situation now is very different because players are being well-paid and have the security of the contract system. Clarke is on the right track. All he has to do now is form the England Twenty20 Cricket League and play it some time during the English summer when players from around the world will be available."

Clarke's stance was nevertheless undermined yesterday when Jeremy Snape joined Rajasthan Royals as performance coach and will miss the first month of the season with Leicestershire's full backing.

Snape played for England in last year's World Twenty20 and was on the backroom staff for the 2007 World Cup as a psychology coach. His input seemed a little unconventional: he was fined for late drinking in the same bar favored by Andrew Flintoff the night he fell off a pedalo.

The ECB's woes are piling up. Surrey's chief executive, Paul Sheldon, admits The Oval's redevelopment will not be completed by next summer's World Twenty20 because of health and safety issues over the gasometers.