While Allen Stanford's Twenty20 for $20 million grabs all the headlines, Alan Lee heads to Godshill in Hampshire where they are gearing up for the St Mary Bourne in Regional Division Two (North West) of the Hampshire League. He writes in the Times:
Alan Cousins was shovelling cow dung from the outfield and scouring his back catalogue of last-resort players. Later, while Kevin Pietersen was holding court about the merits of becoming one-match dollar-millionaires thanks to the distorting largesse of a Texan financier, Cousins hit on his solution. A call to Devon and Ken Balfour was rerouted from his holiday.
True, Ken was 67 and still running in a new knee, but he hobbled back gamely to don his aged whites in the familiar wooden shack without lights or hot water.
As captain, groundsman, fixtures secretary, opening batsman and wicketkeeper, Cousins is a life member of that dwindling band of stalwarts keeping the village game alive against the increasing calls of garden centres, shopping malls, reality TV and sloth. “But I've given up being treasurer,” he said with a certain pride.
In the same paper, Simon Barnes says the Twenty20 match is about rich people getting richer. He's not going to get over-excited about Kevin Pietersen's chances of buying a second Porsche.
It's entertainment, but it's not sport. In sport, the process itself matters: the beauties, the subtleties, the long-term relationships, the tactical nuances, the opposition, the quest for perfect execution. In reality TV, we put someone on the griddle, put him to the ultimate test, and then forget him for ever while we pour ourselves a nice drink.
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