An abuse survivor has accused the England and Wales Cricket Board of failing to protect him and “countless others” from a former Durham junior coach described as a “monster” by police.
Michael Strange, 63, was handed a two-year prison sentence at Newcastle Crown Court on Thursday after admitting indecently assaulting a 15-year-old boy in the 1990s, the fifth time he has been convicted for child sex offences.
Strange appeared via video link from prison, having been sentenced to 40 months in January 2022 after pleading guilty to two counts of indecent assault in November 2021.
That was the same month that the victim in this case came forward, having read media reports of Strange’s previous convictions.
In his victim personal statement, the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he “struggled to understand” the abuse of power and trust, and was “disappointed” by the cricket authorities for not identifying Strange’s offending earlier.
He said they had failed to protect “me and countless other vulnerable children”.
“I hope safeguarding measures are constantly reviewed to prevent similar incidents in future,” he said.
The man added in his statement: “For over 20 years the actions and behaviour of Michael Strange has been an embarrassing secret.
“I felt disgust, shame and guilt, but never had the courage to speak to anyone until now.”
Prosecutor Neil Pallister said Strange approached the complainant, who was 15 at the time of the assault, saying he was a cricket scout and offering him the chance to play senior cricket at his club.
“This was a big step up from the children’s cricket the complainant had been playing and he was keen to take up the opportunity,” Mr Pallister said.
The court heard Strange befriended the teenager and his parents, and frequently offered lifts to and from training sessions.
On the night of the assault the victim had gone back to Strange’s house after a match and was waiting for his parents to pick him up when Strange put pornography on the television, it was said.
“The defendant was talking graphically about pornography and what he wanted to do to the complainant as he was touching him,” Mr Pallister said.
The ordeal lasted between 20 and 30 minutes until the teenager saw the headlights of his father’s car shining in the window, the court heard.
Strange told the victim to tell his parents they had been talking about cricket, Mr Pallister said.
“He said the incident has always lingered at the back of his mind for 20-plus years.
“When he saw news reports about previous wrongdoing by the defendant he thought he should come forward.”
The officer in charge of the case, Detective Constable Lisa Herron of Northumbria Police, said: “Strange, once revered as a ‘hero’ in cricket circles, is a dangerous predator who preyed on young boys under his tutorage in the most sickening of ways.
“He robbed multiple promising young cricket stars of their innocence. He is the definition of a monster.
“It has never been easy for any of his victims to speak out and to have to re-live that childhood trauma but I, on behalf of everyone at Northumbria Police, want to thank the victims who have bravely come forward. Thanks to your courage, Strange has remained behind bars and been exposed for the depraved beast he is.”
She added: “I want to urge any victim of sexual assault, abuse or rape to please speak out regardless of when it happened or who the perpetrator was because nobody should have to deal with abuse alone.
“We know how difficult it is to speak out and we promise we will support you in every way we can. We can offer support and guidance and put you in touch with specially trained Independent Sexual Violence Advisors (ISVAs) and introduce you to support networks.
“And, of course, we will do everything we can to seek justice for you. No one deserves to suffer.”
Strange entered a guilty plea to the indecent assault charge on August 9 at South Shields Magistrates’ Court, with the matter referred to crown court for sentencing.
The following day the ECB confirmed it would conduct an internally-led review of Strange’s offending. That followed calls from another of Strange’s victims for a wider review into abuse in cricket in an interview with the PA news agency in October last year.
Following Thursday’s sentencing, an ECB spokesperson said: “The thoughts of everyone at the ECB and within the game are with all the victims of Michael Strange and we applaud and commend their bravery in coming forwards. Everyone should be safe playing cricket.
“Michael Strange has not been involved in cricket since he was suspended from all cricket activity in May 2005, so the full scope of his crimes are only clear to us now. We are distraught that he was able to commit these crimes.
“The landscape of safeguarding has changed enormously in 18 years, but we have worked with statutory partners on this case and we have commenced an internally-led review to establish further information about the environment in which Strange committed his offences within cricket to inform best practice and to further develop ECB’s safeguarding strategy.”
In December 2022, the NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit, which audits national governing bodies annually, concluded the ECB is meeting the unit’s safeguarding standards.
Strange was a coach affiliated to Durham County Cricket Club and coached at local clubs in the north-east.
Police started investigating Strange in 2005, however the first victim was not able to proceed with the complaint and it was not until 2011 when police were able to gather sufficient evidence to submit a case to the CPS and obtain charges that allowed for Strange to be convicted for the first time in 2012.
He has since been sentenced for historic child abuse offences linked to cricket in 2016, 2020, 2022 and now 2023.
IPL: Mumbai Indians condemned to last-place finish after 18-run defeat to Super Giants
Rohit Sharma's half-century was not enough for Mumbai Indians as they slipped to an 18-run defeat to Lucknow Super Giants at Wankhede Stadium.
The defeat consigned Mumbai to bottom place in the Indian Premier League for the second time in the space of three seasons, after losing 10 matches this year.
LSG were also left to lament their misfortune, as despite reaching 14 points, they did not qualify for the play-offs.
KL Rahul's 55 got the ball rolling for Lucknow, but their innings was ebbing out until Nicholas Pooran's dazzling 29-ball 75 took them to 214-6, despite the efforts of Nuwan Thushara (3-28) and Piyush Chawla (3-29), who stepped up in Jasprit Bumrah's absence.
Rohit's 38-ball 68 set the tone for what looked set to be a promising Mumbai chase, as he struck 13 boundaries around a short rain delay.
However, Mumbai went from 88 without loss to 120-5 in the space of six overs, leaving the tail with too much of a mountain to climb.
Data Debrief: Lucknow miss out
While Mumbai sit bottom of the pile yet again, it is a case of what might have been for LSG, who for the first time in their three-season history, failed to make the top four.
Fourteen points is often enough to get over the line and into the play-offs, but their poor net run rate of -0.667 means they miss out.
Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould
The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.
The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.
The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.
Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.
“We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.
“When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.
“You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”
As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.
“Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.
“I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”
Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement
Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.
Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.
She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.
View this post on Instagram“I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.
“I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.
“But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.
“I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.
“I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”
Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.
“It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.
“It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”
Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.
“I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”
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