FOR the life of me I cannot understand why John Crawley is performing wonders for Hampshire and not Lancashire.

Called up into the England Test team and leading the run-scoring charts proves what a class act he is on the field.

Off it, however, is another matter.

Reading every word possible about his dispute with Lancashire which led to the 30-year-old leaving the county in the summer has not been sufficient to discover what the real problem was between the two parties.

It is easy to jump to conclusions from the little information which has been made public. And since neither Lancashire nor Crawley will spill the beans on the details, we have no option but to make the most accurate conclusions possible based on the information given.

The facts are that Crawley was Lancashire's captain until he was stripped of the captaincy last autumn. He was under contract for at least another two years but something happened behind the scenes which made him feel he could no longer play for the county.

He asked to be released from his contract which Lancashire refused then Crawley took his case to court, paying Prime Minister Tony Blair's lawyer wife Cherie a reported £12,000 for her legal services out of his own pocket.

The remainder of his contract was eventually bought out, apparently by Hampshire, and Crawley is back enjoying his cricket, scoring runs for fun and playing for England again.

There are two camps in the Crawley debate. One that says he is a lovely lad who was maltreated by Lancashire and did not deserve to be held to a contract at a place where he was unhappy and unfulfilled.

The other says that he was under contract and should have served it out. I belong to the latter.

Crawley was happy enough to sign the contract and he should have been big enough to serve it out.

Lancashire have been slaughtered in the press for requiring their best batsman to stick to his side of the deal. Why?

The details of the disharmony, which neither party wants to tell us, are not important and only cloud a straightforward issue.

A contract was signed and should have been adhered to by both parties. Crawley had the chance to escape from Lancashire but he chose to agree to play for Lancashire for so many years in return for a healthy salary.

Lancashire stuck to their side of the bargain, Crawley chose not to. Lancashire, it seems, made life difficult for him and when the going got tough Crawley got going - to Hampshire.