A series of fine misjudgements, unhappy resignations and bungled denials concluded with a “secret” meeting at a London hotel on Thursday – which only 100 or so journalists found out about, blocking a narrow street near Marble Arch with their cameras and tape recorders. The combination of sex, pomposity and farce was like a Carry On film.There were strong rumours of the FA board being unable to remove Eriksson, even for football reasons, due to the bank-breaking compensation implications of his contract – the one the FA had given him only a few months before, in order to, er, make him stay.What silly-season stuff, and so beautifully timed with the football season which began this weekend. Another is that the counties whom it was supposed to save in a last desperate gamble ­ and appears to have succeeded admirably in so doing ­ voted for it by only 11 votes to seven.From that dodgy start the counties and the players, spurred on by large crowds eager for big hitting, have embraced it. For the first time in two generations county grounds have been full. In their understandable urge to expand the game the authorities should be careful to remember where it started.

If it has not exactly saved county cricket it has helped a large section of the public either to learn of or to remember its existence.. One view of the saga of Sven Goran Eriksson is that it’s been a fuss about nothing. So what if he had a relationship with a secretary at the Football Association, the organisation that employs him? No marriage was broken up No one got slapped around These are grown-up people after all. When Maddy was out in the sixth over they were already on 62. Hodge played the leading role this time and his fifty came from only 25 balls The real trick about Twenty20 is that it is not new at all.

It is exactly the sort of cricket that most people who play the game have always played on midweek summer evenings They can identify with it One wonder, therefore, is that it took so long to think of. For a diffident, nervous type of character, Maddy sure hits a cricket ball hard.He and Hodge gave their team a cracking start in the final. Leicester, the least fancied of the four teams on the day, had cruised past Glamorgan in the semi-final, led by their captain Darren Maddy’s rapid 74. It could have been much worse.Leicester began their assault on the target with a frenetic display.