Durham Star Keaton Jennings Finds Club Crushed By ECB

Whilst fans of One Day International Cricket will be tuning in to watch England vs Bangladesh on Friday, perhaps taking advantage of the visitors great odds on winning at Bet365, Keaton Jennings and the rest of Durham County Cricket Club will less than enthusiastic as the England & Wales Cricket Board heap relegation and a points penalty on them for mismanagement of debts and the clubs finances which they seem to have treated like some sort of Greek bingo game.

There are times when a team being relegated to a lower division is entirely their own fault. One only need to look at the meteoric fall of Aston Villa in last season’s Premier League to see the principle in action. However sometimes it is not the performance on the pitch that can doom a team to dip a division, sometimes the cause is behind the scenes, which is what has happened to Keaton Jennings and the rest of Durham County Cricket Club who saw themselves relegated by the ECB this week.

Durham Punished For Debt

• Team owe 7.5m
• ECB aid package 3.8m
• Team relegated
• Team have 38pt penalty
• No test match hosting

The penalties were imposed after the club needed to go cap in hand to the ECB for a financial assistance package finally admitting that the seven and a half million pound debt they’d run up was unsustainable. The ECB have given them a bail out package, worth some 3.8 million, but the relegation and 48 point penalty is a high price to pay for the team, especially as Keaton Jennings will now find his wages capped and his team not alone in the UK gambling news of the ECB’s punishment won’t make things worse for county cricket.

Keaton Jennings Sees Side Relegated For Fiscal Foolishness

“The financial package and associated conditions approved by the ECB board reflect the unprecedented seriousness of Durham County Cricket Club’s financial situation.” said Tom Harrison the Chief Executive of the ECB attempting not to make it sound too much like one of their top flight teams had just gone broke. However some prominent members of the team are less than pleased, and whilst the youthful Keaton Jennings has kept his views to himself captain Paul Collingwood has been less reticent.

England and Bangladesh will face off this Friday, and Bet365 has all the betting odds (photo: telegraph.co.uk)

“The fact is the players are 100% innocent here. We get asked to win things, and give our best, and stay in the first division, and that’s what the club is all about.” He explained, “That’s why it’s such a kick in the teeth. The players are seriously unhappy, a lot of anger, a lot of ‘whose fault is this?” Going on to admit that the financial situation had come as a complete shock to the players like Keaton Jennings who were perhaps not the only people in the UK gambling laws of common sense would have prevented this happening.

England Take On Bangladesh As The ECB Take Down Durham

Alas common sense seems to have been wholly absent, and the Cricket Writer’s County Championship Cricketer of the Year, Keaton Jennings, now faces, at the tender age of twenty four when his talent is so much in development, playing at least a season away from top flight cricket through no fault of his own and some players feel misled into re-signing for what they thought would be a Division One club next season. There’s even tell that the ECB have been overly harsh to get the rest of the county teams to tow the line when the reforms to T20 cricket come up for consideration.

Eng vs Bang ODI Series Odds

• England – 2/5
• Bangladesh – 2/1

Perhaps most irritating for local fans, however, will be that the Riverside can no longer host Test Matches, and as Collingwood helps England prepare for it’s opening one day game against Bangladesh half a world away in Dhaka he told the media; “Yes I’m angry, yes I’m devastated along with all the other players” but in the end let’s remember it’ll be the fans that suffer most. England are 2/5 to beat Bangladesh in this ODI series, the home side garnering just 2/1 at the likes of Bet365, however if you like to bet on sports in the UK you might want to place a bet now that Keaton Jennings side will be back in Division One in 2018, the odds will be fantastic……