'Sorry' the hardest world for England

STUART Broad, the England Twenty20 captain, was told not to talk about a statement that made an apology for players urinating on The Oval pitch.

Broad stays quiet

STUART Broad, the England Twenty20 captain, was told not to talk about a statement that made an apology for players urinating on The Oval pitch after the fifth Test.

The bad publicity continues to dog England's cricketers in their summer of Ashes triumph with the incident, initially seen and reported by Australian journalists who were working in the press box after the controversial drawn Test that confirmed England's 3-0 Ashes series success, has dominated the news agenda for the past three days.

Andy Flower, the England team director, however described the story as "ridiculous".

It made the front page of The Sun, with Graeme Swann, a columnist for the newspaper, acknowledging culpability, and "various notes of regret" being sent from the ECB to Surrey CCC, according to Richard Gould, the county's chief executive.

The players' statement said: "The England cricket team would like to state that during our celebrations after winning the Ashes at no time was there any intention to disrespect Surrey CCC, the Oval or anyone else involved in the game we love.

"As a team we pride ourselves on respecting all things cricket including the opposition and the grounds we play at. We got carried away amongst the euphoria of winning such a prestigious series and accept that some of our behaviour was inappropriate. If that has caused any offence to anyone, we apologise for that and want to reassure people that it was a simple error of judgment more than anything else."

Conspicuous by its absence from the statement, however, is the word "sorry" while the idea of causing offence is qualified by an "if".

Broad, meanwhile, would only add: "The whole England side, all the guys, thought that a statement would put an end to it," thereby refusing to confirm or deny that certain players had indeed relieved themselves on a length, or just short of it, or whether the team had acted independently in putting out the statement or because of pressure from the ECB.  If an apology was necessary, why did it take 48 hours to arrive?

Broad was speaking on the eve of the first of two NatWest International Twenty20s against Australia, and his refusal to elaborate echoed the reaction of Hugh Morris, the managing director of England Cricket, who declined to comment under instruction from a media officer.

It is all a far cry from 2005, the last time England played a Twenty20 match against Australia in this country (two games in 2009 were rained off). Then, England's crushing 100-run win under Michael Vaughan prefaced a summer of Ashes euphoria, as beating Australia was shown not to be an impossible dream.

Eight years on, England's fourth Ashes win in five series has brought a more muted reaction and there has been criticism, too, of the decision to rest five leading players - Broad, Swann, Alastair Cook, Ian Bell and James Anderson - from the five 50-over internationals that follow the Twenty20s.

The Times