Last month, the Cricketer magazine published what it termed a power list of English cricket, as decided by its editorial team. In case youre curious and you missed it at the time, ECB chairman Colin Graves topped the list. Managing director Andrew Strauss came in at No. 2. Current players Joe Root and Alastair Cook both appeared in the top ten. Several commentators and cricket correspondents - Michael Vaughan (7), Mike Atherton (11), Jonathan Agnew (15) - also featured.How was such a list decided upon? The Cricketers editor, Simon Hughes, had this to say: We asked, who makes the decisions and drives initiatives and sways opinion? Who sets the agendas? Who persuades broadcasters and sponsors to part with their money? Which players, or ex-players, are the most important? Who really influences the publics view of the game?We took into account status, authority, credibility, reputation, skill and, where appropriate, social media reach.Essentially, then, this was a list of the top 50 movers and shakers in English cricket.Two women made the list. No. 23: Delia Bushell, head of BT Sport. No. 24: Clare Connor, ECB director of womens cricket.Of those in the country considered to have cricketing status, authority, credibility and skill, 48 are men; of those who make the key decisions in our sport, 96% are male. There were no current female players, no female coaches, umpires, journalists or editors on the list.None.Note: this was not a power list of English mens cricket. This was a power list of English cricket, full stop. One sport: mens and womens. One game, so says the ECB. One power list.One game, in fact, since 1998, when the ECB took over responsibility for womens cricket, and the Womens Cricket Association (WCA) - the governing body of the sport since 1926 - dissolved itself. Since that time, money and resources have gradually poured into the womens game as the ECB has come to appreciate its responsibilities to half the population. Women have access to top-quality pitches; the womens game gets TV coverage; there are even professional contracts for a lucky few.Women also now play a sport that is run by men.That was the trade-off, you see. Had I put together a power list of English womens cricket in 1996, it would have consisted entirely of women. Right up until the merger, the WCA remained an organisation in which no man was permitted to take office or become a full member. The WCAs executive director was a woman - Barbara Daniels; the WCAs chairman was a woman - Sharon Bayton; the WCA executive committee was made up exclusively of women.Those working as selectors, scorers and coaches were almost all women. In all womens Test matches up until 1996, the WCA insisted upon using female umpires. Any regular media coverage womens cricket received was generally due to dedicated female writers who had also played the sport - Rachael Heyhoe-Flint writing for the Telegraph in the 1960s and 70s; Sarah Potter and Carol Salmon penning reports for the Times, the Cricketer and Wisden in the 1980s.Then the merger happened and these women disappeared. Initially Bayton and Daniels had asked for a womens cricket seat on the ECB board; this never came into existence. A Womens Cricket Advisory Group was set up, but without access to the main ECB board, or indeed to the audit committee or the cricket committee (which were all staffed entirely by men), it lacked any kind of real influence. At a local level, the new county boards - led by men - were advised of their responsibilities with regard to womens cricket. Some embraced this. Many others did not. Other responsibilities formerly dominated by women, such as coaching and umpiring, were also taken over by the ECB. In practice, because this often required female officials to requalify, this meant that such duties became almost entirely undertaken by men. Thus former England cricketer Megan Lear was replaced as England coach by an ECB nominee, Paul Farbrace, and the umpires in womens internationals became male first-class ECB appointees. Umpiring and coaching within the womens game are still today overwhelmingly male activities. And the ECB management board, while it has had a womens game representative since 2010, is currently constituted of 11 men and two women.Make no mistake - the so-called merger (in reality more of a takeover) was always viewed as a trade-off. It is hard to disregard the enormous strides womens cricket has made in recent years thanks to proper funding by the ECB. This was the very reason for the merger in the first place: as a volunteer body, it was increasingly difficult for the WCA to both fund a game that was growing at the grassroots, and to continue to fund international tours.Yet the WCA had always highly prized its autonomy. In 1950, the executive committee agreed that of the fundamental principles on which the WCA was founded, one of the most important was that women should run every aspect of it. It was hard to contemplate sacrificing this.Thus during WCA discussions in 1996 and 1997, the fear was ever-present that were a merger to go ahead, the individuality, identity and most importantly its own control over the womens game would be lost, subsumed into the behemoth that was the mens game. It was eventually agreed that the benefits of a merger outweighed these fears. But have such fears really proved so unfounded?There are some who will be asking: does it matter? Should we care that womens cricket is now run by men? Think about it this way: if you are Colin Graves or Andrew Strauss, and you have spent your whole life playing mens cricket, deciding things within that context, then that is what you know. If you are a journalist and you have spent your entire broadcasting career commentating on the mens game, and suddenly you are given a womens match to cover, you are unlikely to be able to provide the same level of insight. Frankly, in both instances, it is fairly clear that the womens game is always going to be an afterthought. At an ECB level, the problem is not so much that decisions are being taken by men, but that they are often being made with exclusively mens cricket in mind.Womens cricket was always the priority of the WCA. Who prioritises it now?The really sad thing about the power list is that I dont really disagree with those who compiled it that those listed are the 50 most powerful people within English cricket. But it does highlight a fundamental problem. Of course, there were multitudinous benefits to that WCA-ECB merger, but something has been lost too - and that power list of English cricket shows just how much. Cheap Retro Jordans For Sale .Y. - Jerome Samson scored once in regulation and again in the shootout as the St. Cheap Jordan China Wholesale . Gerald Green and Miles Plumlee? Green had bounced around the NBA when he wasnt playing overseas. 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PRETORIA, South Africa -- Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee Olympian described by a judge as a fallen hero, was sentenced on Wednesday to six years in a South African prison for the murder of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, a ruling viewed by some as too lenient.However, Judge Thokozile Masipa appeared to anticipate criticism of a jail term that fell far short of the normally mandated 15 years for murder under South African law, declaring: Our courts are courts of law, not courts of public opinion.Pistorius, who shot Steenkamp through the door of a toilet cubicle in his home in 2013, was asked to stand and face Masipa as she announced his sentence in a wood-paneled courtroom in the South African capital, Pretoria. He was calm after the ruling, embracing his aunt and tearful sister before being led down a courtroom staircase to a holding cell ahead of being taken to prison.Later, a convoy of police cars with lights flashing and sirens wailing left a side entrance of the courthouse. In the convoy was a van with tinted windows, possibly carrying Pistorius.The sentencing was the latest act of a three-and-a-half year legal drama that has often played out on live television and shown the fall from grace of a runner once viewed as an inspiration to many for overcoming his disability. Both of Pistorius legs were amputated below the knees when he was 11 months old because of a congenital defect.He made history by competing at the 2012 Olympics on his carbon-fiber running blades, and was one of the worlds most recognizable athletes.Hes a fallen hero, he has lost his career and he is ruined financially, said Masipa, who originally convicted Pistorius of manslaughter, a ruling that was overturned by an appeals court that instead convicted him of murder and sent the case back to her for sentencing.In explaining the sentence, Masipa said there are substantial and compelling circumstances to show leniency toward Pistorius because he is a good candidate for rehabilitation, is unlikely to commit another crime and had shown what appeared to be genuine remorse over Steenkamps death.Pistorius, 29, maintained he killed Steenkamp, a 29-year-old model and reality TV star, by mistake thinking she was an intruder hiding in the bathroom early on Valentines Day 2013. Prosecutors alleged that he killed her intentionally after the couple argued.Part of the difficulty for the judge in determining an appropriate sentence was that the Supreme Court convicted Pistorius of murder with indirect intent. Pistorius was found guilty because he knew someone might die -- even an intruder -- when he shot. As Masipa noted, the Supreme Court did not find that Pistorius knew he was firing at Steenkamp.Pistorius will be eligible to apply for parole after three yeears, according to legal experts.dddddddddddd Prosecutors, who had asked that he be sentenced to 15 years in prison, can appeal for a heavier sentence but have yet to comment on whether they will do so.The family accepts the judgment, Anneliese Burgess, a spokeswoman for the Pistorius family, said outside the courthouse.The Steenkamp family did not criticize the sentence. The family has said it before they wanted the law to run its course. It has done so. No further comment. They will keep a dignified silence, said Dup de Bruyn, the Steenkamp family representative.Legal expert Marius du Toit described the sentence as lenient but not wrong.Some people who gathered outside the courthouse were critical.The law didnt take its course, said Dukes Masanabo, a South African sports official who had hoped Pistorius would be sentenced to 10 to 12 years, not six.He said the sentence is too light because Pistorius was sentenced to almost the same sentence -- five years -- for his earlier manslaughter conviction. He served one year of that sentence before being placed under house arrest at his uncles mansion in Pretoria, and he had some freedom of movement outside the home during certain hours.The time that Pistorius already served in prison is not subtracted from his new sentence, which may have contributed to the judges relatively lenient decision, say legal experts.Another South African, Sarah Maete, said she wanted Pistorius to get the full 15 years in prison for murder.Its not enough, she said.In delivering her sentence, Masipa referred to the difficulties she faced in deciding a sentence that satisfies every relevant interest in a case that captured the worlds attention and led to extremes of opinion over the celebrated athlete. She noted that Pistorius had fired four times -- not once -- through the closed toilet door and spoke of the devastating effect the crime had on Steenkamps family.Ultimately, mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating factors, the judge said.Steenkamps parents, Barry and June, were present in the courtroom, which was packed with relatives of both Pistorius and Steenkamp, journalists and other observers.Pistorius defense lawyers had asked for no jail time at all, saying he should be allowed to do charity work with children.Ulrich Roux, a South African lawyer and commentator who is not involved in the Pistorius case, said it had opened a window for South Africans into how their justice system works, including cross-examination and how a judge reaches a decision.He said: Its been a huge learning curve for our society.---Imray reported from Somerset West, South Africa. 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