Essex CCC has always prided itself on being a happy club so the fallout between some of its senior players and the chairman of cricket, Ronnie Irani, is both unseemly and unusual.
Some of those players, Sir Alastair Cook among them, along with Essex’s head coach, Anthony McGrath, were upset by what they saw as undue interference from Irani in the day-to-day running of the side, which they considered beyond his remit. As a result of this disquiet, Irani stood down last month but the issue rumbles on, complicated by him threatening to run for club chairman, a post currently held b...