Surrey chief supports Rory Hamilton-Brown

Sheldon suprised at lack of ECB apology

Cricinfo staff

August 11, 2007

Paul Sheldon, Surrey's chief executive, has expressed his surprise that the ECB has not made any public apology to Rory Hamilton-Brown after it dropped him for the first Under-19 Test only to reinstate him shortly before the second match.

"Clearly not enough evidence had been collected at the time," Sheldon said. "My understanding is Rory was wrongly accused of drinking the night before that Test match. In fact, he hadn't even been in the hotel where he'd been accused of drinking.

"He has been reinstated and therefore it's proved he wasn't drinking, so I am surprised that the ECB statement did not include an apology to the player. All I know is that they took the captaincy away from him and he didn't have the chance to answer the case because otherwise they wouldn't have removed him as captain."

Sheldon said the county would wait for the results of an ECB investigation before deciding what action to take. The ECB has refused to confirm or deny that any such investigation has been launched.

Asked whether he thought Hamilton-Brown could take legal action against the England board, Sheldon said he "would discourage him from doing that ... he doesn't want to prejudice his future with England. I think he'll be big enough and brave enough to accept it was a mistake and I hope he'll just be prepared to move on."

While Hamilton-Brown may take that advice, it seems unlikely that the ECB will be able to avoid some fallout for the course of action it took at Scarborough last weekend.

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