*302 Greig and Others v Insole and Others 1977 G. No. 22461977 J ...

[1978] 1 W.L.R. 302 Page 42
[1978] 1 W.L.R. 302 [1978] 3 All E.R. 449 (1978) 122 S.J. 162 [1978] 1 W.L.R. 302 [1978] 3 All E.R. 449 (1978)
122 S.J. 162
(Cite as: [1978] 1 W.L.R. 302)
from time to time issues have been ventilated which
proved to have only the most marginal relevance. I
shall now attempt to extract those matters which
seem to me most material in the present context.
(4)
Some pleaded justifications for the ICC ban
I shall first examine the reasonableness or otherwise
of the ICC ban. The first premise on which
Mr. Kempster founded his final submissions on this
point on behalf of the defendants was that World
Series Cricket constitutes a very grave threat to the
economic viability of cricket throughout the world.
Test Match cricket, he submitted, is essential to the
successful continuance of the game economically at
all levels. World Series Cricket, he submitted, will
diminish the income from Test cricket and thus
threaten the game as a whole. These points are well
and succinctly put in one or two extracts from the
further and better particulars of the defences in the
two actions. There, it is alleged that the players'
contracts with World Series Cricket are calculated
to diminish the interest, prestige and attraction of
touring and Test Matches in and between various
countries, the income to be derived from their promotion
and attendance and the benefit in terms of
experience, fame and improvement of skills to be
enjoyed by their participants. Diminution of income
from touring and Test Matches, it is pleaded, will
adversely affect the playing and provision of cricket
at all levels.
In another passage, relating to cricket in
the United Kingdom, the further and better particulars
continue:
“Cricket at first class and Test level are linked and
inter-dependent; … The maintenance of high standards
in, and the welfare and prosperity of, first class
cricket in the United Kingdom are substantially dependent
upon the participation of those players,
who are available to play and/or have played for
their countries in touring and Test Matches and are
therefore or in any event a popular attraction and in
the training and/or development of whom counties
have incurred substantial expense. Furthermore a
substantial proportion of the cost of county cricket
is met from income derived from touring and Test
Matches. Diminution of such income is likely to affect
the remuneration of cricketers, result in fewer
cricketers being recruited and employed, and cause
less money to be available for the coaching and development
of young players ….”
The further and better particulars of the defences
repeat the particulars relating to the United Kingdom,
which I have just read, so as to refer them to
the other five Test-playing countries and state that
in each such country: “… the money available for
cricket generally is principally derived from Test
Matches and otherwise from first class matches.”
Mr. Bailey eloquently made much the
same point, when, under cross examination, it was
put to him that the sole reason why the bans at Test
and county level were proposed was “as part of the
opposition to Mr. Packer.” He replied:
“I would say that possibly the opposition
to Mr. Packer formed a part of their thinking;
much wider than that were the inherent dangers of
somebody like Mr. Packer promoting cricket, possibly
for commercial gain — possibly even for philanthropy,
but doing it in direct *349
opposition to the heart of the finances
of the game, in almost deliberate opposition, in fact
deliberate opposition, with the players who had
been nurtured by that game, with the players who
had made their name through county cricket and
Test cricket and who, by their opposition to established
Test cricket, stood in very strong danger of
destroying not only the game at Test level but the
game which Test level provided the funds for,
which was county cricket and beyond that, cricket
in schools, cricket throughout the world at all
levels.”
I have considerable sympathy with this point of
view. Under present circumstances, there is much
force in Mr. Kempster's description of the World
Series Cricket organisation as being “parasitic.” For
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