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October 26, 2009
All that jazz
Posted 3 weeks, 6 days ago in Champions Twenty20 League
The Champions League may not have matched the buzz of the IPL, especially when the Indian teams exited early, but the glitz and glamour that has sieged Indian cricket o flate was very much evident in the tournament. Amrit Mathur in his column in the Hindustan Times believes it’s time embrace the new trends and flow with the tide.
October 25, 2009
British parochialism and sport
Posted 4 weeks ago in Champions Twenty20 League
The British, while adept at inventing sports, are notoriously backward at becoming involved in other people's adaptations of their inventions. Will Buckley in his blog on the Observer website believes a great sporting moment passed by with Sussex and Somerset missing out during the Champions League Twenty20.
October 23, 2009
County sides need time to recharge
Posted on 10/23/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
The disappointing performances by Somerset and Sussex in the Champions League was only confirmation of the inferior standards of county cricket. This could reopen the idea of introducing the franchise system, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian. Next year, counties will hopefully prepare better.
The only English batsman to play with freedom and freshness was Wes Durston, who produced two cameos when he replaced Marcus Trescothick in the Somerset side. Durston had barely played a first-team game for Somerset throughout the 2009 season, yet he scored runs more effortlessly than anyone. Durston was fresh. The rest of the batsmen of Somerset and Sussex were jaded. And it showed. They doggedly searched for the magic elixir but there was nothing left to give on pitches that often negated easy strokeplay.
October 22, 2009
Ganga's T&T show how West Indies can heal their rifts
Posted on 10/22/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
Caribbean cricket could splinter into individual nations if it does not learn from Trinidad & Tobago's spirited run in the inaugural Champions League Twenty20, writes David Hopps in the Guardian. Twenty20 cricket can be the salvation of West Indies cricket, satisfying its need for a quick sporting fix, just as it dominated one-day cricket in the early years, winning the first two World Cups in the late 1970s.
T&T's impressive captain, Daren Ganga, has spoken intelligently about the "great legacy" of West Indies cricket and how proper investment is long overdue to respect and continue that legacy. It cannot be guaranteed that the G&T-sipping crowd are listening to T&T. But the warning could not have been starker, with Ganga visualising a break-up of West Indies cricket into individual nations if the various stakeholders do not get their act together.
October 21, 2009
Crowd the calendar, devalue the Champions League
Posted on 10/21/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
The Champions League is entering its final stages but the majority of the Indian public seem blissfully ignorant of the tournament itself. The reasons are fairly obvious. The fact that not a single IPL team is in the semi-finals is bad enough. Cricket in India has reached a saturation point and as one journalist put it, the public are suffering from "cricket fatigue." Dileep Premachandran sums it up in the Guardian.
One cabbie in Delhi even asked if I was going to watch India play Australia [there is a one-day game on 31 October]. When I told him I was about to watch the Daredevils, he just shook his head. At the next traffic light, he turned to me and said: "How can you watch these games? The [Indian] players are all split up. I wouldn't even know who to cheer for."
October 20, 2009
Where are all the IPL teams?
Posted on 10/20/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
Malcolm Conn calls the failure of India’s teams to reach the Champions League semi-finals an “embarrassment” for the Indian Premier League. In the Australian Conn writes about the first staging of the tournament and talks to Stuart Clark about New South Wales’ huge game with Victoria.
Ben Rohrer, the New South Wales batsman, stole Australia’s domestic prize from Victoria earlier in the year, and he speaks to the Age’s Jesse Hogan about not being a Twenty20 specialist.
Lessons learnt for county teams
Posted on 10/20/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
Given the disappointing performances of Sussex and Somerset in the Champions League, the county coaches have problems of a different sort to solve before embarking upon another campaign against the world's best Twenty20 outfits. Nick Hoult investigates in the Daily Telegraph.
But the usual English one-day weakness of a lack of power in the batting line-up cost Sussex and Somerset a chance of making any real impact in India.
Only five county batters featured in the top 50 strike rates. Luke Wright was the only Englishman to hit more than one six in the entire tournament and Wes Durston recorded the solitary county half-century.
October 17, 2009
'It has been quite a show'
Posted on 10/17/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
Writing in the Hindu, Peter Roebuck says the Champions League is the freshest tournament staged for years.
Indeed the tournament has surpassed expectations, providing a richness absent in technically superior endeavours. The Champions League (CL) has had several particular attractions that have made this first edition all the more enjoyable. First and foremost CL has none of the tiresome flag waving that emerges when countries lock horns. Oscar Wilde was wrong. Patriotism is admirable and Nationalism is the scourge. No good comes of it.
In the Witness, Roebuck writes Trinidad & Tobago "have helped to improve the battered reputation of West Indian cricket" with their performances in the Champions League.
At the same time they strengthened the case for breaking up West Indies as a cricketing entity and leaving each nation to its own devices. After all, West Indies exists largely for cricketing purposes. Otherwise it is a region with its own complexities and complexes loosely bound together by geography, history and common practices, but as prone to self-interest as any other collection of countries. Moreover, one of the West Indies’ most prominent contributors, Guyana, is actually a South American nation struggling to recover from the toppling decades ago by the British secret service of a duly elected leader.
October 16, 2009
Why IPL teams should fail in the Champions League
Posted on 10/16/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
In a hilarious piece in the Wisden Cricketer KingCricket elaborates why he isn't a big fan of IPL teams. Chiefly, because they are businesses first and sporting clubs next. Sample what KingCricket thinks could be the thought process behind Deccan Chargers signing on Andrew Symonds: “How does Andrew Symonds represent the Deccan Chargers ideals and values?” they’d have asked. “Do his qualities fit with our image? What’s our official stance on the shoulder-charging of streakers? Do we have one? Why don’t we have one? Let’s say that we’re pro shoulder-charging streakers so that we can sign Roy.”
Trescothick's departure a setback but not a calamity
Posted on 10/16/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
Marcus Trescothick's departure from India is a setback in his recuperation from the stress-related illness that prompted his premature retirement from international cricket. But it is not the end of the world for Somerset or for Trescothick, writes Vic Marks in the Guardian. The team still remains as positive as ever and are focussed on the road ahead.
Since his illness Trescothick has established some ground rules about how to react when he senses his torment, which is triggered by separation anxiety, is returning. No longer will he try to battle with the demons, which is what he attempted both in Pakistan in 2005 when he felt obliged to stay on since he had suddenly been landed with the England captaincy, and in India in 2006. Instead, when he sees the signs, he is minded to withdraw immediately.
There is life beyond internationals
Posted on 10/16/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
It isn't just nation versus nation contests which stir the public's imagination. The ongoing Champions League seems to have brought the best out of certain players, especially the unknowns, and it's thanks to these tournaments that the game is still alive, writes Harsha Bhogle in the Indian Express.
It could never, for example, allow you to experience the combination of disbelief and joy that we saw with Alfonso Thomas of Somerset. Not many people knew much about him, we knew that he was a cricketer, no more, but against the Deccan Chargers he kept his cool, took his side home and then produced one of the most wonderfully innocent and unrestrained exhibitions of happiness I have seen. “I can’t believe what I’ve done” he gushed and for that moment alone I thought the Champions League was worth it.
October 12, 2009
Champions 'whatever' League
Posted on 10/12/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
The Champions League is less than a week old. Do many in India really care? Kadambari Murali Wade in the Hindustan Times lists ten reasons why the tournament hasn't yet matched the hype of the two IPLs.
4. Howzatt! You mean, ‘Who's that’?
We Indians also like our designer foreign brands. And they're not around. No Smith, Ponting, Hayden, Flintoff, Pietersen, Warne, Vettori, AB… and no melodramatic Pakistanis! Okay, so we have Gilchrist holding the Deccan flag aloft and Gibbs disappearing before he can say hello for the Cobras. Then there's Brendon McCullum (traitor!) on for Otago, that quiet Kallis, and a subdued, shorn Symonds. Not enough, mate.
But it's a different story in the Somerset camp, where the club's chairman Andy Nash, chuffed after upstaging Deccan Chargers in Hyderabad, stood up and said that he felt it was the greatest night in the club's history. Somerset allrounder Peter Trego gives a behind-the-scenes account of that victory and what it's like being a part of the Champions League, in his blog for the Guardian.
On the the morning of the game we managed a successful swim session at our pool – now restored to the correct shade of blue – which was a good chance for the lads to get together and have a laugh. The usual jokers were on top form – Craig Kieswetter wrestling Marcus – but the, er, undoubted highlight, was seeing the "Prince of Malaysia", Arul Suppiah, strutting poolside in the tightest hotpant Speedos I've ever seen. No matter how in shape you are, that's never going to be a good look.
October 8, 2009
Cricket's club culture
Posted on 10/08/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
The traditionalists will see the next 16 days as an opportunity to switch off from the game and ignore the hooplah but for Twenty20 enthusiasts the potential for the Champions League is obvious, writes Tristan Holme in cricket365.
As far as the cricket itself goes, it's anyone's game. It's not a meeting of 'only the champions' as Rahul Dravid and friends suggest in the television ads - just like the Uefa Champions League is not a genuine Champions League - but all 12 teams have real pedigree. For many players uncapped at international level this is an excellent opportunity to showcase their skills and it should be thoroughly enjoyable to see which of them can handle the added pressure of playing in front of massive partisan crowds.
October 7, 2009
Champions League payday for clubs
Posted on 10/07/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
The Champions League Twenty20 will be the first time club cricket will rival international cricket. And even though the winners' kitty of $2.5 million may be small, compared to football, it may well be a fortune for the champion club. Andy Bull works out the financial implications, with regard to the tournament, in The Spin blog on the Guardian website.
If Sussex can play well over the next three weeks, this may turn out to be the most profitable year in their history, despite the fact that they have just been relegated from the first division of the county championship for the first time. All they need to do is win five games of Twenty20 - fewer than 200 overs of cricket. With that kind of financial incentive qualifying for the Champions League is going to become the top priority for every eligible team.
October 5, 2009
Hodge hasn't given up on lawn bowls
Posted on 10/05/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
Brad Hodge hasn't had the best of relationships with the national selectors. But he insists he holds no grudge against them these days. In India with the Victorian side for the Champions League, Hodge talks to Arghya Ganguly of the Times of India on his sarcastic comment on lawn bowls, his sports management interests and more.
I obviously wish that I play for my country again but there will be no love lost if I didn't. You think I can get in? That's nice. Pick the squad, put me in and give me a call again. And we shall sit and chat for a long time. But you are not going to pick the side? Are you?
October 4, 2009
Victorians seething, bowled by Nannes' choice
Posted on 10/04/2009 in Champions Twenty20 League
In the Age, Darren Berry, director of coaching with the Rajasthan Royals, looks at the situation facing fast bowler Dirk Nannes. In the upcoming Champions League Twenty20, Nannes will turn out for the Delhi Daredevils and open the bowling against his Victorian team-mates next week. How could this happen? Why is it allowed? All these questions have been posed by Nannes' Victorian team-mates over recent weeks and many of them are seething about it. Victoria's best chance of winning is with Nannes on board as opposed to hurling thunderbolts at them, says Berry.
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