It would be nice to think that the ECB, on behalf of one its member clubs, protested against this nonsense and asked the Indians to stump up to allow Essex to refund admission money for all days, but I expect they actually said "Are you sure you don't want to play only 2 days?", or even "why not use this as a chance to trial our new 100 ball format using five bowlers per over and a beach ball"?