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EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: MCC rebels force a vote on a 'fully democratic process' to choose the next chairman after a woke row at Lord's

RICHARD EDEN: I can disclose that no fewer than 180 MCC rebels have forced the club to prepare for a Special General Meeting.

Supposedly synonymous with fair play and gentlemanly conduct, the MCC was painfully embarrassed last summer when scores of its members were caught on camera subjecting Australian batsmen to volleys of abuse on the final day of the Lord's Test. It was a wise decision, critics say, given that Carnegie-Brown had made an ill-judged joke about older members needing to 'empty their colostomy bags', and was widely blamed for the divisive proposal to end the Eton v Harrow and Oxford v Cambridge matches at Lord's. That move, endorsed by Stephen Fry, who, to the bewilderment of many, had been made President of the MCC, a one-year, honorific appointment, provoked a ferocious outcry led the by inimitable Henry Blofeld, who'd been given a standing ovation at Lord's after delivering his final Test Match Special commentary five years earlier.

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