 |
February 20, 2009
Eight months later ...
Posted on 02/20/2009 in West Indies cricket
|
|
|
And who's that lurking behind Stanford ...
© Getty Images
|
| This weeks’ cricket coverage has been dominated by stories about Sir Alan Stanford, often accompanied by pictures of his big day out at Lord’s last June when he and his new best friends at the ECB and WICB unveiled their brave new world. Standing among them were two other knights, Sir Viv Richards and Sir Ian Botham.
Eight months on and it’s all ended in tears. The media has savaged the boards for their involvement with Stanford and not scratching under the dollar-plated surface of his financial empire. While Richards has been quiet, not so Sir Ian.
“The sorry Stanford debacle leaves English cricket with nothing but egg on its face,” he fumed in his column in the Mirror “It has been a disaster for the Antiguan people, a disaster for West Indian cricket and a disaster for English cricket - and you cannot just let something as massive as this be swept under the carpet. Someone has to be accountable. [Clarke] was the one telling everyone Stanford was the way to go - and it has been a huge mess.
"They took the Stanford deal instead and now where are we? It is all well and good suggesting it was a collective board decision, but I seem to remember Clarke pushing very hard for it."
December 29, 2008
Allen Stanford's year
Posted on 12/29/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
|
|
|
Allen Stanford's eventful 2008
© Getty Images
|
|
From stepping on Lord's with a suitcase full of cash, to offering his knee to England WAGs, Allen Stanford discusses his eventful 2008 in a totally made-up interview in the Guardian.
In June I made my historic first trip to Lord's to meet my new buddies at the ECB. Folks say the British can be cold and reserved, but as I stepped out of that helicopter I had a great, warm feeling of love, somewhere between the knee and upper thigh region. But as soon as Mr Collier had been removed and helped back up to his feet he was fine. "There you go, little fellow," I said, slipping him a little something for his trouble. "But ... I'm chairman of the ECB," he said, still drying his eyes. "My mistake," I said, replacing it with a fifty. "Now don't drop that valise, son. I'll be in your office. If you need me I'll be drinking a Dr Pepper with my feet up on your desk."
December 18, 2008
What's the deal, Stanford?
Posted on 12/18/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
|
|
|
What does the future hold for Allen Stanford and English cricket?
© AFP
|
|
Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire underwriting much of West Indies cricket, has denied reports that he is set to pull the plug on his investment in the game, although his future involvement with the Caribbean remains up in the air. The Daily Mail reported the Stanford 20/20 for 20, which included a US$20 million match between England and a Stanford Superstars side,made a US$40 million loss and if now Stanford walks away from cricket, the impact could be devastating for the England board.
In the Guardian Andy Bull writes that Stanford is a swift and ruthless businessman who made his fortune through wealth management, and his experiences so far have left him unconvinced that English cricket is a wise investment.
Just 23 days after the deal was announced it was reported in the US financial press that two former employees of Stanford Financial were suing the company on the grounds that they had been forced to resign because they refused to participate in illegal activities. The case is expected to reach a verdict next autumn. More seriously still, the same men stated that they had been issued with subpoenas by the Securities & Exchange Commission – the regulatory body which oversees over-shore banking regulations in the USA – as part of an ongoing investigation into Stanford International Bank. The Stanford Group denied knowledge of any formal action, and described the claims as "totally without merit." The ECB refused to address the issue.
In the same paper, Mike Selvey writes that what needs examination is Stanford's stated primary motive - the betterment and future development of West Indies cricket.
... there are those who see a wealthy man with an incongruous, slightly batty affection for a game that is alien to the vast majority of Americans, who understands what cricket once meant to the Caribbean and would move mountains to reinstate that feeling. He is, they say, a generous benefactor, a first-rate philanthropist. Then there are those who see only an opportunist, intent on milking a precious heritage to make a few more bucks. He has, they say, been using Caribbean domestic cricket, and his promotion of it through his own competition, as a loss leader to develop his credibility in those circles in which he aspires to mix.
To Michael Henderson in the Daily Telegraph, Stanford's departure would be a wonderful festive gift to all true lovers of the game.
It was an arrangement that could never harmonise, so widely did the interests of the parties diverge. Stanford is a rich man who, in the manner of rich men, was looking to get richer. He spied a convenient bauble in the form of cricket, and, armed with wads of the folding stuff, which he literally waved under the noses of England’s governing body on a day of infamy at Lord’s, he made them dance to his tune.
The Daily Mail's Paul Newman believes that while Giles Clarke's future as ECB chairman may hang on what he can salvage from the Stanford deal, it is the people of West Indies that one must feel sorry for.
Stanford has been playing with people's lives in the Caribbean, giving them false hope that he was bringing professionalism and cricketing pride back to the region. The warning signs were there when he suspended the professional teams he had created in several islands as soon as he made more important friends at the ECB. Those warning signs were flashing like a beacon to the great Michael Holding, who resigned from the Stanford board and told this paper last summer that Stanford was only in it for himself.
November 7, 2008
America: A bridge too far
Posted on 11/07/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
Sir Allen Stanford and Giles Clarke are both misguided in the view that cricket can make an impact in the US, says Lawrence Donegan in the Guardian.
November 6, 2008
Come on, England. It's entertainment
Posted on 11/06/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
|
|
|
Shane Warne: "Stanford is somebody we should want to be involved"
© Getty Images
|
|
England surely missed a trick during their one-week outing in Antigua for the Stanford Super Series, says Shane Warne in the Times. He says they failed to embrace the entertainment.
Saturday was always going to be a great occasion and I think that England missed a trick. They could have said that they were looking forward to a carnival atmosphere, to an evening of great entertainment for the crowd with a fantastic chance to earn $1million. They could have talked up the whole spectacle - yes, acknowledging the money, but emphasising how it would generate a really exciting game.
.......................................
Let's take the example of Allen Stanford walking into the dressing-room. That wasn't exactly a spying mission in the middle of a tense Ashes decider. Instead of getting uptight, players could have said something like, “Hello, mate, how are you going?” They might have asked him about his love of cricket or his businesses. Who knows - they might even have picked up a tip or two for the longer term.
Illusionary American dreams
Posted on 11/06/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
Sir Allen Stanford and Giles Clarke are both misguided in the view that cricket can make an impact in the US, Lawrence Donegan says on the Guardian website.
According to Giles Clarke, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, one of the principal purposes of last week's game in Antigua was to break America. "We have to see if we can develop that market," Clarke said, which suggests those involved in last week's events have learned nothing from the experience of the Pro Cricket League. Even worse, they have learned nothing from Stanford's experiment in Fort Collins, Colorado, earlier this year, when he spent £2m (£250 per head) on trying to get the locals interested in the game. Its success can be judged by the opening paragraph of a recent story in the town's paper: "When it comes to cricket - at least as far as Fort Collins is concerned - it's nothing but crickets."
.................................................
In sport, as in life, some things are just not meant to be. Just ask David Beckham, who departed for Milan last week, disillusioned no doubt that "soccer" has failed to replace baseball as the national pastime or NFL as the national obsession. What he has realised, and what Stanford and Clarke will come to realise if they continue to chase their illusionary American dream, is that the only thing worse than having no ambition is having too much ambition.
Give cricket the respect it deserves
Posted on 11/06/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
It was strange to hear of Lord’s, the home of cricket, hosting the landing of a helicopter — that too carrying a business magnate with crates full of dollar bills. But it was only a precursor of the farce to follow, a farce that has made utter nonsense of all the ICC’s and ECB’s protestations that they are doing their utmost to ensure the survival of Test cricket, the purest form of the game, and their loud expressions of belief that this form of the game has a long and secure future. Former Pakistan captain Asif Iqbal writes about the Stanford 20/20 for 20 in the News.
The complete abandoning of all norms and even rules for this extravaganza makes a mockery of all the high moral complaints cricket administrators had against Kerry Packer and what was disdainfully described as ‘his circus’. If that was a circus, this was a trapeze act, for whatever Packer may or may not have done, he stuck to the rules of the game and never did anything to harm the formal structure of the sport.
But tournaments like this one will harm the sport’s formal structure in the long run, by making the traditional form of the sport, specially Test cricket, so much less attractive for both players and spectators simply because the money involved will, by comparison, be laughable.
November 5, 2008
England better off losing the Stanford match?
Posted on 11/05/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
In his weekly email on cricket, The Spin, Lawrence Booth lists ten reasons why missing out on Stanford's cash may be good for England. One of them is: "The car parks of county grounds next summer will not now be stocked by pink Ferraris." For the others, click here.
And continuing the list theme, John Stern has five lessons learnt during the Stanford week.
KP is the new Tony Greig.
The obvious similarities were there before but his revoltingly condescending quotes about how Chris Gayle and his team needed the money more took him dangerously close to ‘grovel’ territory.
Read more in the Wisden Cricketer.
November 4, 2008
England's whingeing cost them millions
Posted on 11/04/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
Ian Botham asks in the Mirror: Did it ever occur to the England players that, instead of just turning up and collecting $1m each, there might be another team hell-bent on carrying off the loot?
And some of the nonsense about the pitch and the floodlights made me cringe. If you don't like slow pitches, lads, don't bother going to India later this week - because you won't find many surfaces offering pace and bounce there.
As for the floodlights, what on earth is the problem? In England, we still play one-day internationals with a few light-bulbs hoisted on cranes in the car park, so we're hardly qualified to grumble.
Money cannot buy you class
Posted on 11/04/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
With their minds focused on downplaying all the glitz associated with the Stanford 20/20 for 20 competition, England's players faltered on the field in the final, writes Derek Pringle in the Telegraph. He mentions that the tournament was won through hard work and discipline, and hopes the success of the Stanford Superstars will inspire the West Indies team to emulate the feat.
There was no moral ambivalence about taking the dosh among Chris Gayle's side, who were ecstatic in victory. The six-week long boot camp, with its curfews, drug tests and 12-hour training days, has shown them that hard work and discipline can have its rewards. Hopefully, the national side will follow suit and once more allow the region to strut its pride.
November 3, 2008
England strategically bankrupt
Posted on 11/03/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
Mike Selvey in the Guardian writes that the England XI got what they deserved in the Stanford 20/20 for 20. In simple cricket terms they were not even second-rate, offering an insipid, technically inept, strategically bankrupt and mentally flabby performance when the situation demanded excellence.
Too many gripes and moans - the sort that emanate from those taking a loftier view of themselves than they can justify - have emerged not to have provided a distraction. The hotel was unsuitable (for what?); Sir Allen Stanford had offended them through a bit of harmless byplay with their partners; the host also came blundering unannounced into their dressing room, a sacrosanct place; the pitch was wrong; the lights too low and glary; the outfield like Pietersen's former haircut rather than his current one.
In the Barbados-based Nation, Ezra Stuart writes that from the Superstars' point of view, one lesson to be learnt is that practice makes perfect and that if you don't prepare properly, prepare to fail.
As Ramnaresh Sarwan rightly said, the WICB should look at similar training camps ahead of a series. Credit must be given to head coach Eldine Baptiste, who was overlooked by the WICB for its top coaching post a few years ago.
In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley says the performance can easily be a chapter in a self-help book, or It might even be a whole book: How not to win a million.
From the start, England wanted the money – who wouldn't want a million dollars? – but did not want to be seen to want it. They were painfully aware that the mood among many commentators was that the Big Match was an abomination of sport, existing only to fuel the ego of its architect, the Texan multibillionaire, Allen Stanford, and lacking context in a sporting sense.
In the Times, Simon Barnes slams Kevin Pietersen's "irresponsible" shot, one that made certain that England revived their ancient tradition of trade union collapses - one out, all out.
The absurd Stanford enterprise has effectively destabilised the England team and their leadership at a hideously sensitive time. England are about to go to India, and the Australians will tell you how hard that is at present.
Pietersen's side may not feel it at this moment but losing the match could be a blessing in disguise. Yes, after tax, they may be £350,000 out of pocket, but perhaps the defeat will spur the players on to great deeds in the next 12 months, writes Angus Fraser in the Independent.
November 2, 2008
Stanford's Montserrat heroics
Posted on 11/02/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
The tiny island of Montserrat, tucked away in the Leeward Islands, was remembered for all the wrong reasons. In 1995, the capital city of Plymouth was wrecked by a volcano which drove away nearly half the population. The nation has recovered since and now has a bigger profile, thanks to Allen Stanford's investments in the country's cricket and the money enables the Montserrat squad of about 20 players to practise regularly. Scyld Berry, in the Sunday Telegraph, explains why Stanford's funding is so crucial for these islands.
MacPherson Meade, one of Montserrat’s batsmen, works as a part-time groundsman, mowing the field and picking up stones from the black soil. Wicketkeeper David Lane is in construction at the new town of Little Bay, which will replace Plymouth. In the two domestic Stanford Twenty20 tournaments, where there was no appearance fee, they competed like hell for the $25,000 aMn-of-the-Match award and £10,000 Play-of-the-Match award, even if Montserrat beat only the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Humbled and walloped
Posted on 11/02/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
Was England's trip really worth it? There were more reasons to sound negative about the Stanford venture and to top it all, one of the richest sporting showpieces may well go down in history as the most impoverished in terms of entertainment value, writes Andy Bull in the Observer.
Matters of vulgarity, money and the future of Test cricket aside, there are other issues that should present English cricket with very real concern about the deal with Stanford. As recently as July, Bloomberg reported that two former employees of Stanford Financial were suing for unfair dismissal on the grounds that they had been forced to resign because they refused to participate in illegal conduct.
In the same paper, Vic Marks talks of the lessons learnt in the last week, one of which is that Twenty20 should not take over the world and secondly, the smell of money makes mankind behave in most peculiar ways.
The match may have been freakishly unusual but England’s performance was entirely consistent with the way they have often turned up for big one-day events overseas — undercooked, bearing a sort of post-colonial arrogance about whether they should actually dignify the occasion with their presence — and their reward was as royal a shafting as they got at the last two World Cups and the World Twenty20, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times.
The England cricketers played as if infected by the official diffidence during the week, writes Scyld Berry in the Sunday Telegraph after the no-contest in Antigua.
In the Independent on Sunday, Stephen Brenkley wants all of Stanford's detractors to lighten up.
England are in effect playing an exhibition against a team raised and bankrolled by a rich man because he feels like it. Everything else that followed has been seized on – from the helicopter at Lord's to the unfortunate photo of Sir Allen bouncing one of the England players' wives on his knee this week.
November 1, 2008
Anderson mugged on way to the bank
Posted on 11/01/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
|
|
|
James Anderson's hopes of earning $250,000 depends on his team-mates
© Getty Images
|
|
There were always going to be casualties thrown up by the world's first $20m cricket match and yesterday James Anderson became the most prominent, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
It is part of sporting life but Anderson must have felt like he had been mugged on the way to the bank. He must have thought all along that he would be one of those to have a shot at winning $1m, the prize on offer to each member of the winning team. Two main factors conspired against him: the nature of the pitch at Stanford Cricket Ground which persuaded England that they must play a second spinner, Graeme Swann, and the return to the one-day international fold of Stephen Harmison whose bang it in methods were bound to be preferred on this surface.
In the Times, Giles Smith gives a satirical explanation of how the Stanford circus works.
Teams representing England and an American billionaire compete on the buzzer to answer questions worth an escalating amount of money in a number of categories, including History, Theology, Industrial Archaeology and Stars of the Soaps. Meanwhile, the players' wives are locked in a soundproof booth at the back of the set with Allen Stanford. The player who least objects to his wife jiggling around on the American billionaire's lap has five minutes to plait dough and/or fold a paper napkin into the shape of a carthorse, as previously demonstrated by a special guest expert. He then climbs into the all-important, see-through “Cube of Cash”, where he must grab as much money as he can in three hours with assistance from Sir Ian Botham and the lovely Debbie McGee.
Continue reading "Anderson mugged on way to the bank"
Stanford series a sorry spectacle
Posted on 11/01/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
The Stanford spectacle is creating plenty of debate, and not just in England. Greg Baum in the Age writes that the past week in Antigua hasn't been much good for anyone.
World cricket authorities aren't happy. Whatever the future of cricket, and whatever the place of Twenty20 in it — they're still trying to work it out — they know it isn't this: once-a-year, winner-take-all exhibition matches in substandard conditions, without context or explanation, gratifying one man's ego.
They know the future must include a balance between forms of the game, including Tests; this man says he loathes Test cricket. They know it must look to rebuild the game where it is shaky. This man says he intends to rejuvenate West Indian cricket, yet already has reneged. Still, one man, so many millions. Might as well take it while we can, heh?
The county clubs aren't happy; they think the ECB has allowed itself to be dazzled. The ECB isn't happy; this deal runs for five years, but, having wiped the drool from its mouth and reaffixed its cap, it is already looking for a way out.
The England players aren't happy. For one, four of their party of 15 won't play, so won't make a cent, even if England wins, which means some jockeying for position, an unedifying spectacle (it doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that they could whack up the $11 million between all 15). It might also mean a team of four off-spinners and no wicketkeeper, but 11 good blokes.
David Leggat in the New Zealand Herald argues that the England players should not be surprised at how Allen Stanford has treated the tournament.
He's strolled the ground, beaming for his personal cameraman, plonked himself among a group of English players' partners, one pregnant wife on his lap, wandered uninvited into the English dressing room - which the players regard as sacrosanct territory - as if it is his personal fiefdom. Which in a sense it is. It's his money they're taking. What did they expect, a quiet, retiring poodle happy to hand out serious largesse in return for stuff all?
October 31, 2008
Has English cricket been caught out?
Posted on 10/31/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
Lured by a $20 million cash jackpot, the men who control English cricket may be inadvertently selling more than their sporting skills, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
It may be that the issue will settle down and there should, for once, be slight sympathy for the ECB. They played their hand ineptly but it was probably a hand they had to play. When Sir Allen came calling they worked out that if England did not take the money, someone else would. Sir Allen might have said jolly nice things about the ECB, but so long as he could lure an international side he was probably not worried who they were. The details were hammered out quickly – and much made of the need to help West Indies cricket.
But there have been no clinics for children this week, no coaching, no help, merely a circus. The players may or may not become rich, but cricket is much the poorer.
This week, cricket has again been reduced to its essence: money. The patron this time, though, is a Texan billionaire financier called Allen Stanford and his pawns are the teams of England, Trinidad and Tobago, Middlesex, and Stanford’s own invitational XI, the Stanford Superstars, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
In itself, a money-match is not a problem. Once Kerry Packer had, in the late 1970s, persuaded the greatest players of the day to side with his breakaway league rather than the traditional system, world cricket has been a professional game. “We’re all whores,” sneered Packer at the administrators of the time. “What’s your price?” The price he found, and as Mr Stanford found when he started to negotiate with English cricket this year, is a relatively cheap one. Those approaching this week with honesty – an honesty that has been decidedly thin on the ground – realised that the only meaningful thing of the whole week was the destination of the cheque.
The trouble with this Stanford game is that some people are getting confused and thinking that because the England players are all involved, it is like any other England match, writes Geoffrey Boycott in the Telegraph.
I say that we should see it for what it is: an exercise in making a fast buck and appeasing players who have missed out on the Indian Premier League. Don't be too surprised by the vulgarity of the whole thing, or the inadequate facilities they are playing in. Just let them get on with it, and then we can all start tuning in again when the serious stuff starts in India.I don't blame the players at all for taking up the opportunity to make $1,000,000 a man. Good luck to them.
That ECB officials and England players did not expect the event to raise such reaction smacks of extreme naivety, writes Angus Fraser in the Independent. The ECB may have underestimated the size of Stanford's ego and his behaviour – cuddling up to a couple of England WAGs and walking into the England dressing room at will – may have been less than exemplary but he is not the main reason why so much criticism has been aired. No, the real reason why most people are unimpressed with the event is because Saturday's match flies in the face of what sport is all about. National teams should not be for hire either.
October 30, 2008
Stanford's game isn't cricket, so what is it?
Posted on 10/30/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
Another day, and the disquiet over the whole Stanford venture rumbles on, with particular attention now being paid to the role of the ECB in the whole affair.
In the Times Michael Atherton cuts to the quick.
With developments this week suggesting that the contract is more about Stanford and his brand than any altruistic concerns about West Indies cricket, it is clear that the ECB has been, at best, naive and at worst outmanoeuvred again.
Briefings were given yesterday by officials from the governing body indicating how uneasy they have become at the sight of the England team being used as a prop for a rich man's ego.
Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent, was just as forthright.
The Stanford Twenty20 Super Series has been a public relations disaster. Whatever the complications of the deal and however apparently irresistible the money was, the tournament has become less and less desirable by the day.
From the moment that the ECB and Sir Allen unveiled a case filled with $20m in cash at Lord's last June to be paid for an exhibition match between England and the Stanford Superstars it has been plain that this event has been almost exclusively about the cash and the rich man supplying it.
Paul Newman in the Daily Mail quotes Michael Holding, a former Stanford ambassador: “Allen Stanford is just in it for himself, not West Indian cricket. Everyone will see.” Newman continues:
How could the English game's rulers be so naive in jumping into bed with an American billionaire and expect him to be the answer to their prayers as they find themselves increasingly isolated in a cricket world dominated by India?
This week was only ever going to be about Stanford and the huge amount of money he is throwing at the winners of Saturday's exhibition match between the England cricket team and a group of West Indian cricketers who go by the name of the Stanford Superstars, as everything here has to be prefixed with the name of the man who virtually rules this Caribbean island.
Dean Wilson in the Mirror ponders how the man himself will react to the opprobrium heading his way.
It is not the sort of response Stanford is used to and he will be either completely taken aback by the strength of feeling in the England camp or he will be fuming at the lack of kow-towing from his guests that his money usually affords him. But he should appreciate that a large part of the anger stems from his behaviour that has made a mockery of the game of cricket.
Andy Bull in his blog for the Guardian wonders if Stanford can recoup his investment.
Certainly the 20/20 for 20 has put him in a much better position to grow his business in the City. As for the money to be made directly from the match itself, the ceiling of the potential profits sits far lower than his expenditure on it all. As long as he is in partnership with the ECB rather than the BCCI, then it is going to stay that way. The huge money in cricket comes with a presence in India, not England.
As long as the project to convert Americans to cricket remains a pipedream and Stanford is in cahoots with the English, the tournament is never going to make the kinds of blockbuster sums associated with the future of Twenty20. He invited India, remember, to play this challenge match after they won the World Twenty20, but they turned him down.
Allen Stanford's millions are not a solution for English cricket - the solution lies in India and a deal which will make England's best players available to the IPL, writes Mihir Bose on BBC Sport. The ECB must come to terms with Indian cricket. If it does not, it will be in danger of getting bogged down in matches that may generate publicity and bring some money but will do nothing for its cricket in the long term.
October 29, 2008
England selling soul of the game
Posted on 10/29/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
As the media anger over the sight of Allen Stanford with Emily Prior perched on his knees dies down, there is also a growing tide of thinking that the whole 20/20 for 20 venture is looking increasingly tawdry.
There were more than a few raised eyebrows last June when Stanford’s helicopter landed at Lord’s and he was almost treated as a saviour by fawning ECB executives. The unveiling of US$20 million is hard currency inside the indoor school for many signalled that English cricket had sold out.
Now that the eight-day feast of Stanford’s cash-driven Twenty20 is underway, it has proved too rich for many of those watching it.
In today’s Daily Mail, Paul Newman wrote that “English cricket has clearly jumped into a very uncomfortable bed by so eagerly accepting Stanford's millions and now everyone involved with our game has to lie in it. The ECB may have made sure that their players become very wealthy this week but the price being paid is an expensive one. English cricket is selling its soul.”
According to Newman, those comments have registered with the players, one (unnamed) member of the England squad saying: “If that's what people back home are thinking then we can't get out of here quick enough.”
In the Times on Monday, Simon Barnes described the tournament as “pornography”. He added: “It is not, then, the pursuit of excellence. Nor is it the pursuit of money. Rather, it is the pursuit of squirming. It is a billionaire's malicious joke at the expense of people he never could be, even if he had a billion billion. He will make a group of richly gifted international athletes squirm and grovel before the altars of money.”
In the Sunday Times Simon Wilde also showed he is no fan. “What a vision it is: a toytown stadium, black bats, silver stumps, vulgar amounts of money and a contraction of the game’s skills into the time it takes to consume a jumbo burger, a tub of popcorn and a bucket of Pepsi. Bad taste, just another toxic asset the United States has given the world.”
Steve James in the Guardian would not disagree. “The match is a disgrace at almost every level, and not just because its Texas billionaire backer, Sir Allen Stanford, has spent the past week on a dollar-driven ego trip, parading around his private ground, hogging the limelight and cavorting with the England players' wives. November 1 will be the night cricket is turned into reality TV, where some grisly voyeuristic fare is served up for those of a short attention span. Big Brother has finished: roll up instead to watch the nervous antics of the England cricket team. Who will drop a catch to cost his mates half a million quid?”
Perhaps more surprising, given the vast sums poured into the venture, are the facilities. The pitches have been slow and low, exactly what is not needed for high-scoring, big-hitting matches, and the low-level floodlights, necessary because of the proximity of the ground to the airport, has made catching a lottery, with some of the world’s best fielders left looking like club duffers.
“The cricketing reality is the pitch and outfield mean the games will be dull, dull, dull,” wrote John Ethridge in the Sun. “Certainly the loot available is inversely proportional to the quality of the product, although the ground is pretty.”
It is possible to find those still who are prepared to enthuse. Here’s Nasser Hussain on Emilygate. “It was pretty harmless, to be honest, and the wives must remember that their husbands are potentially earning a fortune by being here and they are in a lovely place having a lovely time in the sunshine. If the man who is putting up all the money wants to give them a quick cuddle for the cameras is that really a big problem?”
It should be remembered, however, that Hussain fronted the ECB/Stanford announcement at Lord’s last summer and is also covering the tournament for Sky … and the broadcasters have invested heavily in their coverage of the event.
English cricket is a Stanford WAG
Posted on 10/29/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
English cricket has become Stanford's WAG, declares Mike Atherton in the Times.
WAG, of course, a term coined during the football World Cup finals in Germany in 2006, does not really stand for wife and girlfriend; it stands for someone who is noteworthy only for the movements and actions of someone else; someone who is unthinkingly and uncritically admiring. An appendage, in other words. And from the moment Stanford landed his helicopter at Lord's in June, trailing his cash, with the ECB's officials fawning all over him, English cricket has been reduced to WAG status.
October 28, 2008
Pitch oddities have Anderson sweating
Posted on 10/28/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
|
|
|
James Anderson's length isn't suited to the pitch at the Stanford Cricket Ground
© Getty Images
|
|
An odd pitch and the problem of team spirit may mean that England play the big match [for $20 million against Stanford Superstars] with an impractical side, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
The pitch at the Stanford Cricket Ground (referred to by its proprietor as the SCG for goodness sake) is an odd one: from a good length it carried through to the keeper only sluggishly; for the spinners it offered sharp turn (enough for Pietersen himself to bowl his offbreaks commendably well to Middlesex's plethora of left- handers); and, most significantly, for the tall bowlers Stuart Broad and Flintoff it gave some quite heady bounce when the ball was banged into the middle ...
It gives a pointer for their next match, today against Trinidad and Tobago, which may well settle who will be included for the big-money showdown. These games, it seems, will demand the big pacemen to hit the middle of the pitch, which means Broad, Flintoff and Steve Harmison, but also spinners and those who can take the pace from the ball.
It is from this situation that emerges a potential conflict between the pragmatic selection of the best side to do the job on Saturday and loyalty to players, coupled with a fear of upsetting team unity. The most vulnerable player in this scenario is Anderson, pretty much an ever-present in England's one-day side.
The Stanford Cricket Ground is well manicured but the real soul of Antiguan cricket is hidden elsewhere, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
The dear old Antigua Recreation Ground was empty yesterday. Beneath the high ramshackle stands named after the country's legends, a football pitch was laid out with a makeshift dugout on the side.
Near the centre circle it was just possible to make out what was a batting crease, a place where Sir Vivian Richards, albeit briefly because he did not need much time, flayed the England attack and where Brian Lara resided for slightly longer, two days longer, to make the world record Test score, and where the West Indians chased down a monumental target to win.
October 27, 2008
Greed indeed
Posted on 10/27/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
Even with the world economy going bust 11 lucky cricketers have the chance to make a killing with just three hours work in Antigua on Saturday. Robert Craddock in the Australian daily, the Daily Telegraph, believes the match between the Stanford Superstars and Kevin Pietersen's English team will be a day where we glimpse what the game is about to become.
The pressure on the players will be huge ... would you like to be the man who dropped the catch that cost your buddies a house? The amount of money the players will earn has become such a focal point that the Times newspaper of London is cynically running The Pietersen index, a stock market-style reading which giving hourly updates of the size of the kitty depending on the fluctuations of the British pound.
Antigua's past, present and future
Posted on 10/27/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
The three main cricket grounds in Antigua - Recreation Ground, the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium and the Stanford Cricket Ground - encapsulate the story of the sport on the island, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
The Antigua Recreation Ground, the old Test ground in the middle of St John’s, a magnificent ramshackle affair that routinely staged the most atmospheric matches, has been bypassed. The ground that witnessed the emergence of Viv Richards and Curtly Ambrose, giants both, and played host to Brian Lara’s twin world-record Test scores, stands as a forlorn monument to an era of West Indies cricket that has passed. Its successor, the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, is a utilitarian, concrete bowl, built for the ICC World Cup in 2007 in the middle of no man’s land and is inconvenient for the working masses. Between what West Indies cricket once was and what it has become, Stanford saw a chasm that represented an opportunity. As families watched the opening match on Saturday in comfort and in the knowledge that they were partaking in something vibrant, it was clear where the balance of power now lies.
Mike Selvey believes the rise and rise of Twenty20 is cricket's dot.com. He writes in the Guardian:
The world has gone mad for it, a lot of people are making a heap of money on its back in a short space of time and the traditional game as most people recognise it, if not necessarily adhere to, has been downgraded in the public mind. India are playing out a pivotal Test series against Australia but this week, like it or not, attention will be focused on a single game, lasting little more than three hours, of no consequence beyond the immense and unprecedented financial inducement it brings.
Read Selvey's thoughts on the England v Middlesex match here.
To Michael Vaughan, in the Telegraph, Twenty20 suits the West Indian or Caribbean type of player.
Their calypso way is the Twenty20 way: walk out with a bit of a strut, relax the shoulders, the odd kamikaze run between wickets, and hit the ball a long way, especially back-foot sixes over extra-cover. Obviously I remember Viv Richards and Richie Richardson, but also Carlisle Best and Gus Logie: no fear, no checked drives, and plenty of sixes over extra-cover.
October 26, 2008
Money shot cheapens the appeal of cricket
Posted on 10/26/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
Simon Barnes writing in The Times makes clear that he has no time for Allen Stanford and his multi-million dollar jamboree in Antigua, voicing the opinion that "sport has become the new pornography".
I won't be watching out of partisanship, loyalty or patriotism, or the pursuit of excellence. If I watch - and I feel no pressing need to - I will do so for reasons that are furtive and shaming. The spectacle may be briefly compelling, but it will soon lose its charm, leaving behind only a kind of embarrassment for the grotesque contortions of the participants. In short, pornography.
This is not, then, the pursuit of excellence. Nor is it the pursuit of money. Rather, it is the pursuit of squirming. It is a billionaire's malicious joke at the expense of people he never could be, even if he had a billion billion. He will make a group of richly gifted international athletes squirm and grovel before the altars of money.
Stanford in bad taste or in spirit of cricket?
Posted on 10/26/2008 in Stanford 20/20 for 20
England take on Middlesex in their first match of the Stanford Super Series on Sunday but the English dailies have mixed feelings about by the show in Antigua. In the Sunday Times, Simon Wilde calls it 'bad taste'.
.. a toytown stadium, black bats, silver stumps, vulgar amounts of money and a contraction of the game’s skills into the time it takes to consume a jumbo burger, a tub of popcorn and a bucket of Pepsi.
But in the Observer Andy Bull writes the Stanford match is much closer to the spirit of cricket than many people imagine.
English cricket was slow to accept that a player did not demean himself by making a living from sport. The great medium-pace bowler SF Barnes was left out by England between 1902 and 1907 because he preferred to earn money playing as a professional in the Lancashire League. Now it seems we are just as unhappy that a player's skills can earn him a quick million.
Nasser Hussain is fascinated by the tournament and wants to see how the England players react to the unique pressure that this winner-takes-all affair will create. He asks in the Daily Mail:
How will Ryan Sidebottom cope if he is bowling the last over with 15 needed? Will Pietersen be his usual confident self if he is at the crease with England needing 16 to win from the last six balls?
To Stephen Brenkley, writing in the Independent on Sunday, of all the short-form matches currently being organised, the Stanford Superstars v England is the most offensive.
It has no context as a propersporting competition, it is neither country versus country, club versus club or invitation XI versus invitation XI. It is a rococo hybrid.
The question, however, is this: why are they [world audiences] awaiting this one-match contest scheduled for a maximum of 40 overs with so much expectation, so much anxiety? writes Tony Becca in the Jamaica Gleaner. Is it because of the action, the brilliant play that is expected, or is it because of the huge prize money for a match lasting for three hours or so?
|
|
RSS Feed
