take the money and run boy

Ali Brown has never really made much of an impact on me.

He played a few games for England, even smoked the Indians once.

Scored a double ton in a domestic one day cricket.

And played for Surrey.

None of these things impregnated my memory.

Then before the IPL started, the cream of the English domestic cricketers were in a rush to come out and say they were approached to play.

Ali Brown was one of the first.

He had just signed a one year happy retirement contract with Surrey.

Brown is old school Surrey, not one of these “I’ll play for anyone with cash” sort of county players.

He decided that as Surrey had been good to him, he would be good to them, and he stood by his contract.

This meant saying no to Bhaji and Sachin.

Surrey have been rubbish this year.

Really rubbish.

Watching them the other day reminded me of watching the clean up of a mass religious suicide.

They had to start getting some new blood.

The decision to get rid of Brown was a correct one.

The team is bigger than the individual.

Ali Brown probably thinks he did the right thing.

Perhaps his wife/lover/accountant or posse are doubting that.

If he had done a Dimi, he would have at least double his salary for the year, and been in on the ground level of the IPL.

Now he is looking for a county, when if he played in the IPL he could have owned one.

Sportsmen have only a short window to cash in, and you can't blame some of them for choosing cash over club/county/country.

Ofcourse I will, and do, all the time, bloody money grubbing fuckers.www.cricketwithballs.com... fighting the war on tony greig