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October 10, 2009
Take the money and see fans run
Posted 4 weeks ago in Twenty20
Freelance is the new buzzword in cricket and in the Age, Greg Baum writes that it is a mercenary approach that will inevitably turn fans away from the game.
Player agents say many more cricketers will take the money and run, or hobble (Flintoff), stumble (Symonds) or swagger (Bravo). They say authorities have only themselves to blame for scheduling too much meaningless cricket between countries. They want the program streamlined so that their clients play more - and more meaningless - cricket for their franchises. You can draw your own conclusions, adding 10 per cent plus expenses, about why agents would think this way.
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Sportsmen hate to be called mercenary, but so be it. Players and authorities will bristle at that, but I make no apology, and nor will the increasing number of fans who have become disillusioned with the direction of the game. After retiring, Adam Gilchrist admitted that it was difficult for sportspeople to see the professionals' cloistered world as it looks from the outside. Well, here's a glimpse. Go, freelance away, but don't be surprised if in a while, no one cares, and if in another while, because no one cares, there is no one to watch.
September 20, 2009
Freelancing Freddie will not disturb county game
Posted on 09/20/2009 in Twenty20
While Andrew Flintoff chases the millions from Chennai to Dubai, the county game will continue to satisfy journeymen cricketers, writes Kevin Mitchell in the Observer.
As St Freddie hobbles off into a supposedly golden sunset, dreaming of making as much as £18m over the concluding five, pain-killer years of his career, from Dubai to Chennai and who knows where else, an old verity resurfaces: in professional cricket, the team game played by a collection of often insecure individuals, it is everyone for himself.
In the New Zealand Herald, David Leggat gives the New Zealand perspective on Flintoff's globetrotting, stating the example of Brendon McCullum, who had explored ways of circumventing a New Zealand Cricket contract while maintaining his IPL deal before signing in July.
Here's a thought. What if next year a player went to NZC and said he'd had a variety of offers to occupy him through the coming months round the globe, with big financial spinoffs. The board replies: 'Fine, off you go, best to the wife and kids, see you same time next year?' Who would suffer more?
September 16, 2009
Cricket's future in disarray
Posted on 09/16/2009 in Twenty20
Robert Craddock in Australia's Daily Telegraph is concerned that Andrew Flintoff's decision to become freelance could be a wider indication of players' changing priorities. He writes that in Australia, the baggy green cap is not the lure it once was for young players.
Many young cricketers look at Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke and think they could never be that good. But they look at lesser performers such as David Warner and Moises Henriques landing six figure IPL deals and think, "That could be me''.
Andrew Flintoff and Andrew Symonds are the first top cricketers to become international freelancers, but if there is one certainty in life it is they won't be the last. England this week offered Flintoff a $60,000 contract to play one-day and Twenty20 cricket and he knocked it back.
Why wouldn't he? In the Indian Premier League he can get that in two days.
And that's nothing compared with what's happening further down the ladder. Take the case of Bangladesh fast bowler Mashrafe Mortaza. He earns $US600,000 for two months work for the Kolkata Knight Riders yet around $US60,000 for playing for his home nation for a full year.What do you think will become his priority?
In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley agrees that it is players in less well-paying countries who must be kept in the system.
Those in the corridors of power know that Flintoff could be a trailblazer for players in countries where board contracts are not nearly so lucrative – places like West Indies, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, all of them integral components of cricket's family.
So paltry are their rewards for playing international cricket that it is easy to promulgate the notion of their players departing the scene as soon as they have made an impression. Even in countries where the rewards are greater accomplished players will leave three or four years before their time to take full advantage of the stupendous pay packets being offered – exclusively for now but probably not for long – in the Indian Premier League.
If the players are not engaged then the television companies and the fans who foot the bills would eventually turn away. All this is not going to happen tomorrow but it is possible the day after tomorrow.
June 23, 2009
My memories of a golden World Twenty20
Posted on 06/23/2009 in Twenty20
Seventeen days just wasn't long enough, was it? Or maybe that question proves it was just right: the World Twenty20 has left us wanting more, and for once the next edition - scheduled for spring 2010 in the Caribbean - can't come round quickly enough. To keep you going, here are some quickfire thoughts about the past fortnight and a bit, writes Lawrence Booth in the Guardian.
9) Our desire to classify Ajantha Mendis has led to one comparison that just doesn't seem right. England used to play Anil Kumble as a slow-medium inswinger, and the tag has shifted inexorably to Mendis. Yet most of his deliveries go straight on, and two of his wickets against New Zealand came courtesy of leg-breaks. The search for Mendis's dictionary definition goes on.
10) Weren't the crowds great? We've always known India and Pakistan can pack out grounds in England, but the Sri Lankan presence for their semi-final at The Brit Oval was overwhelming. The only sadness was the lack of Caribbean flags at a venue that was once their home away from home. But if we didn't know it before, we know it now: no cricket country on earth does multiculturalism as well as England.
June 9, 2009
Two sides of the Twenty20 debate
Posted on 06/09/2009 in Twenty20
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Twenty20: Soul-grindingly repetitive or marvellous?
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Twenty20 may fast be turning into the game's most popular format, but the Independent's James Lawton clearly isn't one of its fans. Read what he has to say after watching England secure their passage to the Super Eights with victory over Pakistan
Twenty20 contrives its thrills in a crayon-drawn format so pre-ordained, so soul-grindingly repetitive, that its defenders declare it foolproof, but then what happens when one of two allegedly competitive teams has neither the form nor the inclination to make a match of it? We saw it at The Oval on Sunday night. It is a hideously jerked-up formulaic parody of the real game, the one that delighted such as Pinter and Samuel Beckett and was once lauded by a visiting African chieftain, a guest at Lord's of the Foreign Office, as the finest, most elaborate and still most subtle rain-making ceremony ever devised. Twenty20 is about as subtle as a ram-raid.
Arguing the case for Twenty20 is Lawrence Booth, who writes in this week's Spin that the format has the ebbs and flows that is the essence of sport, and can also throw up some good yarns such as last year's IPL also-ran reaching this season's final. Stuart Broad's meltdown followed by Stuart Broad's comeback. Gayle's sixes on to the road and the roof. Mike Hussey's fluffed catch. Kevin Pietersen turning his back on twos with distinctly regal waves. Ajantha Mendis beguiling the Aussies and Tillekeratne Dilshan moving to a half-century by flicking the ball over both his head and Brad Haddin's. The O'Brien brothers. Stumps for goalposts. Marvellous! Not proper cricket? How about proper sport in that case?
June 5, 2009
The rise of Twenty20, the fall of ODIs
Posted on 06/05/2009 in Twenty20
Mike Selvey writes in the Guardian on the future of ODI cricket, which he feels is bleak, thanks to the rapid rise of Twenty20.
It may be then that 50-over cricket, the link between the longest and shortest forms of the game, is the format to go, and if this would be a pity – for all its apparent mid-innings flaws, it still has the capacity to produce the sort of enthralling come-back and counter-punches that Twenty20 by its frenetic nature cannot – then for the good of the game, something has to give. Beyond the next World Cup, scheduled in 2011 to be staged goodness knows where, the opportunity is there to rationalise the programme, free the logjam. A World Cup of Twenty20 cricket to be played every two years should be ample.
May 16, 2009
The lure of T20 matches irresistible
Posted on 05/16/2009 in Twenty20
During the week viewers were given the choice between watching a shivering and lacklustre West Indian team going through the motions in a five-day match and the last over dramas offered by Rajasthan Royals and Royal Challengers Bangalore. No matter how strong the devotion to Test cricket, no matter how deep-rooted the rejection of IPL’s razzamatazz, the lure of the 20-over matches was well-nigh irresistible, writes Peter Roebuck in the Hindu.
May 5, 2009
The fielding doosra
Posted on 05/05/2009 in Twenty20
While batsmanship has evolved, and bowlers have begun to assert themselves in the IPL, the fielder continues to use old techniques to meet new challenges, writes Suresh Menon on ESPNStar.
In soccer, the one-footed striker has virtually faded out of the game; to be successful you have to be able to shoot off either foot. If fielding is given the attention it deserves, then batsmen will no longer play to a fielder's weak side because there won't be one. Push to the left of cover, and he will pick up with his left hand and throw; to the right and he is equally comfortable on that side. Twenty20 clearly calls for such skills, and necessity might be the mother of training.
February 26, 2009
Will the Twenty20 bubble be next to burst?
Posted on 02/26/2009 in Twenty20
Even the wealthy franchises of the IPL are feeling the effects of the global economic downturn as sponsors withdraw, writes Mike Atherton in the Times.
Now all eyes will be on the IPL in April, as the second season gets under way. Already the signs are that franchise-holders are finding things tougher in the second year after an average shortfall in revenues of $4million last year. Rajasthan Royals, last year's winners, are without a sponsor, while Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Chargers have lost principal sponsors.
The warning signs were flashing red for the co-owner of Kings XI Punjab recently when he said: “These are difficult times and we need to work out ways to make sure that all the franchises survive.” Another franchise director, unable clearly to grasp that the present crisis is all about the flow of credit, said: “There is a cashflow crunch, not an endemic problem.”
February 1, 2009
Twenty 20 can refresh longer versions of cricket
Posted on 02/01/2009 in Twenty20
Observers of the game have been worried about the growing importance of Twenty 20 and how it could adversely affect batting skills. But the format could add value to the game, writes Daryll Cullinan in Businessday.
A prime example was Duminy’s lap over the keeper’s head off Australian quickie Shaun Tait during the recent Twenty 20 series. It was one of the most amazing shots I have ever seen. The ball is going to new places in the field.
The new kids on the block have fresh minds and seem less paranoid about adapting between limited-overs cricket and Test cricket. Fifty-over cricket affected scoring rates in Test cricket for the better. Fielding also drastically improved and the need for athleticism, strength and power quickly became paramount. Can Twenty 20 take it even further, and is it affecting the game positively or negatively?
January 18, 2009
Are the traditionalists worrying too much?
Posted on 01/18/2009 in Twenty20
Vic Marks in the Observer says although cricket seems to be in troubled times, one must keep in mind lessons learned from the Packer revolution.
The traditionalists feel under threat again, but maybe the Packer experience tells us not to fret too much. Change can be beneficial and the advent of the IPL, along with so many other incomplete Twenty20 schemes, is hastening that change. Before Modi had his bright idea there was plenty wrong with the international calendar: too many sterile fixtures at Test level watched by nobody; too many ODIs, whose results are forgotten within hours. There is now a better chance of changing all that.
November 21, 2008
Cricket is becoming little more than showbiz
Posted on 11/21/2008 in Miscellaneous
Cricket is in worse trouble than the financial markets and nothing seen at the Gabba is going to brighten its mood, says Peter Roebuck in the Age.
Cricket yearns for a gripping struggle played to a high standard between well-matched teams. This Test has been accident-prone and mostly second-rate.
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As every month passes, the position deteriorates. Test matches are rearranged to accommodate dubious 20-over shenanigans, bound to attract as much interest among bookmakers as supporters. Players grizzle about their load and then accept lucrative offers to play an extra month. Matches are staged between uneven sides supposedly in the name of spreading the game but actually to create the illusion of competition. And the show will go on. Cricket is becoming little more than showbiz. With so many snouts in the trough it can hardly stop. A game needs to be loved, not raped.
November 6, 2008
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.
October 29, 2008
How long before Twenty20 takes over?
Posted on 10/29/2008 in Australia in India 2008-09
Picture this. The biggest run machine of our age poised to take guard against one of the fastest bowlers the world's ever known. A contest between two teams that have gone toe-to-toe for the best part of a decade, in a rivalry that has seen everything from remarkable comebacks and hat-tricks to allegations of racism and boorishness. Pencil in, too, a partisan crowd packed to the rafters, baying for blood as the visitors' premier bowler sprints in off his Mercedes-smooth run-up.
Sadly, one part of the picture was sorely missing on the first day of the India-Australia Test at the Feroz Shah Kotla, blogs Dileep Premachandran on the Guardian website.
The crowd roared and the Indian tricolour waved, but vast swathes of green, blue, red and orange seats were empty, shimmering brightly in the afternoon sun. If you needed a statement about Test cricket's health, you couldn't have got a more damning one. Only about 20,000 had braved the trek past the many security checks to get inside a stadium that now seats 45,000. Many might have been in bad shape after the Diwali revelries the night before, but in a city of millions you certainly expected better for a match-up that is now Test cricket's heavyweight clash.
October 25, 2008
Too many questions for comfort
Posted on 10/25/2008 in Twenty20
Duncan Fletcher, the former England coach, isn't a big fan of the winner-takes-all US$20 million Stanford shootout. Placing so much financial emphasis on what is essentially a one-off match could upset the balance between the three forms of the game, the high stakes involved could upset the morale in the dressing-room and stifle a player's flair and his ability to take risks. Read on in the Guardian.
For example, the Test team will contain some players who appear in Antigua and others who don't. How will a guy who's left out feel when the others start talking about the money they could make next November? The spirit of equality is one of the vital ingredients to a happy dressing room and this doesn't exactly feel equal to me. That crucial bond between players could come under threat.
There are other implications too. Even the four blokes who don't make the final XI stand to earn more for sitting around for three hours doing nothing than guys who are battling it out in the heat of a five-day Test.
In the same paper, Mikey Stafford gives a dummy's guide to the Stanford Super Series.
In the Daily Times, Nasser Hussain wonders if the likes of Andrew Strauss and Monty Panesar feel hard done by when the going gets tough in India if they are playing alongside players who have just boosted their bank accounts.
In the Independent, Stephen Brenkley says England have embarked on a "bizarre" venture and their players might be a trifle uncomfortable about the match and know that in cricketing terms it is meaningless. But the ECB, on the hand, have nothing to complain about.
So it would seem that this Twenny twenny for twenny match, despite its raison d'etre, is doing English and West Indies a world of good. Not so, actually. England, who like to think of themselves as both influential and powerful in cricket and indeed should be so, have been left behind since the announcement of the Stanford match.
October 18, 2008
'Balance just about right'
Posted on 10/18/2008 in Australian cricket
In an interview to David Sygall in the Sun-Herald, James Sutherland, Cricket Australia's chief executive, says cricket is booming at the grassroots in the country. He feels the ICC has got the balance right between Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s.
The CA board certainly argues that Test cricket should always be treated as the premium, prestige format and Test cricket is more popular in Australia now than it was a decade ago. However, it is not as popular in all other countries as it is here. Our view, which is reflected in the ICC approach, is that the long-term development of cricket should have Test and ODI predominating in the international cricket calendar, with Twenty20 cricket complementing that as a mainly state or equivalent level format with an appropriate but not disproportionate amount of international Twenty20 cricket. IPL is, for example, a state level competition in India and we play three Twenty20 internationals in our Australian summer, which I think is about right .
September 14, 2008
A reality show of sickening vulgarity
Posted on 09/14/2008 in English cricket
Steve James is appalled about the future of the game as the Stanford 20/20 for 20 draws closer. In the Sunday Telegraph he outlines his fears for the future.
Indeed to call it cricket at all will be difficult. For 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 … this match has immeasurable potential for division and discord. Win bonuses in cricket always do. Always pity the poor county cricketer in charge of the players' kitty. It is an impossible task, forever leaping into a viper's nest of egos and irrational claims.
Already the Stanford selection has raised hackles. Why on earth are 15 players required for a week's work, even if the same squad only touch down for 24 hours afterwards en route to India? How is Alastair Cook included? The omission of so-called domestic Twenty20 experts is correct – where is Chris Schofield now? But why no Dimitri Mascarenhas? He played in England's last Twenty20 match, a win over New Zealand at Old Trafford. "It's a kick in the teeth," he has said publicly. Privately his ire is much stronger.
September 9, 2008
Olympic rings in ICC meeting
Posted on 09/09/2008 in Twenty20
Adam Gilchrist remains committed to cricket being part of the Olympics and will be involved in lobbying the ICC chief executives in Dubai on Wednesday, Malcolm Conn writes in the Australian.
The Sri Lanka vice-captain Kumar Sangakkara and Gilchrist will make passionate appeals to the meeting through video presentations as part of a groundswell of support for the true globalisation of the sport. If Wednesday's meeting looks favourably on the concept the chief executives may recommend that the ICC executive board consider approaching the International Olympic Committee next year with a view to having cricket adopted in 2013 for the 2020 Olympics.
Sangakkara’s Cricinfo column on the Olympics is here.
August 28, 2008
Stanford All Stars? Or West Indies?
Posted on 08/28/2008 in Twenty20
I don't know whether the cricketers of England or West Indies are in the habit of perusing the website of the London high court for its daily list of causes, but they might do so for September 18, when an injunction is due to be brought by Digicel against the West Indies Cricket Board. If it goes unresolved, all bets could be off, at least in the short term, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian
So comes the semantics. Is it really a West Indies team that England will be playing? Indeed is it right to call them England? It seems to me that if, say, the current England XI were hired to play at Wormsley under the Getty banner then that doesn't make them England. Likewise Stanford All Stars. We all know what they are, but this is about legalese. I hope it can be established that England will not play as England but as an England XI, just as we would were it any other non-international match abroad. If KP gets a hundred and helps win a million a man then all well and good. But it shouldn't count in the international records.
July 28, 2008
The ECB's baby has matured
Posted on 07/28/2008 in Twenty20
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Owais Shah is jubilant after winning his first major trophy
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Patrick Kidd in the Times says the Twenty20 Cup has matured since its launch on June 13, 2003. He sees a trend in this year's competition:
The noticeable thing about this season's competition is that it is now a game for clever cricketers. Not flash ones - though as the first semi-final between Kent and Essex wound to its conclusion on Saturday evening the cameras showed Middlesex's batsmen practising reverse sweeps and shovel shots before their match against Durham - but those who use their brain, play the right shot for the right occasion and, above all, master the basics, are the most successful.
Kidd also takes a look at the tournament's evolution.
I had never won a tournament before so I was praying hard for victory in the Twenty20 final, says Owais Shah in his blog on the Guardian website.
Fans made the most of the Finals Day, Andrew Baker reports in the Daily Telegraph.
Off-field battles are the only threat to Twenty20 revolution, Nick Hoult points out in the Daily Telegraph.
Though the ECB and counties shelved a franchise format for the English Premier League, it might not be the end of the road yet, Hoult reports.
July 20, 2008
Blind Twenty20 vision ignores 50-over cricket
Posted on 07/20/2008 in English cricket
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Is two Twenty20 tournaments the right preparation to win a 50-over World Cup?
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The ECB's decision to have two Twenty20 tournaments in the domestic season comes at a time when the 50-over game is in an abysmal state, says Scyld Berry in the Telegraph. He writes:
Last week, when the ECB decided on a new domestic structure, the county chairmen last week had the opportunity to do something about the abysmal state of 50-over cricket in England - and did absolutely nothing. England are the only one of the eight major cricket-playing countries never to have won a global tournament (the World Cup or Champions Trophy) and the ECB, by their actions, are manifestly happy for it to stay that way. They want to line their pockets with two 20-over competitions. A successful England team at 50-over cricket? Empty words.
He says that if "the ECB staged a domestic 50-over competition in July and August, with time for the players to practise, England might have a chance of winning a World Cup."
Exploiting the 20 overs of powerplay is essential to a 'successful' 50-over team. But how can that be done on early-season pitches when survival has to be the aim, not power
Match-winning spin is another essential if a World Cup is to be won, especially the next one in Asia. In this year's Friends Provident Trophy only two spinners have taken four wickets in an innings: both modest off-spinners born several thousand miles from Britain, Gareth Breese and Greg Lamb.
In the Observer, Vic Marks says although the ECB have retained the County Championship's current format, there are threats it needs to be protected against.
The rich counties will get richer and may start to use their wealth more ruthlessly to acquire the best players. In the past this has hardly been worthwhile. In 2002 Essex were promoted from both divisions and, according to Graham Gooch, this cost the club money. We are now approaching an era when success may be rewarded financially, which constitutes progress.
There may also be a disparity in the quality of overseas players counties can afford. The commercially minded will contemplate Twenty20 cricket only in India and now with the EPL, provided the appropriate salary is available. Mahendra Dhoni, a must for the TV audience in India, is unlikely to leave his continent for anything short of six figures for three weeks' work.
July 19, 2008
Let the markets decide
Posted on 07/19/2008 in Twenty20
Harsha Bhogle is not too perturbed with the ECB's announcement of the English Premier League, instead suggesting that the franchise-driven system, with more localised loyalties is critical to the future of the game. He believes that market forces will decide the future of the game. He put forth his point in the Indian Express:
The stage is set then for the football model where there will be T20 leagues in each country; some more lucrative than others. That is why I was amused when I read of a proposal in England to ‘counter’ the IPL. You don’t need to. The Bundesliga exists, so does La Liga as does the EPL. And France, Belgium and Turkey and everybody else has its own league. The leagues with bigger markets draw the better players, the smaller leagues effectively become feeder leagues and that is how it could well be with cricket. Having said that, it raises the question of how much T20 cricket is good for the game.
The key here is the definition of the “game” as we have traditionally known it. If the “game” is Test cricket, it is a valid question but I don’t think any one person decides what the “game” is. The markets decide. We didn’t decide how much rap was good for the music world, people buying cds did. We didn’t decide how much of computer animation and special effects was good for the storytelling style of movie-making. The box-office decided that. So too it will be with T20 cricket. If we believe we can control how much T20 should be played, we will seed another Packer for human enterprise fuelled by finance will always find a way.
July 14, 2008
ECB's monster
Posted on 07/14/2008 in Twenty20
The popular metaphor for Frankenstein's monster is of something new running amok. In cricket that thing is Twenty20 cricket, its manic spread and brazen allure conquering all before it, Derek Pringle writes in the Telegraph.
The England and Wales Cricket Board created Twenty20 five years ago, to widespread acclaim and profit. But those by-products now threaten to destabilise a game several centuries in the making, a situation the ECB can perhaps best serve by shackling the thing it loves.
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Twenty20 is undoubtedly a hot product but the frightening thing for people who prefer progress and change to be considered and gradual is that eight months ago only one of those competitions existed - the Twenty20 Cup. The indecent haste to fill those gaps that still exist in the itinerary seems driven by the need for a fast buck, which in turn suggests that the product is a fad and not especially robust. As some sage pointed out recently, cricket needs to make money to exist but should not exist simply in order to make money.
July 13, 2008
Nail in Test cricket's coffin
Posted on 07/13/2008 in Twenty20
The proposal for a new Twenty20 league in England has hammered a nail in Test cricket's coffin, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Well researched, even well meaning though it may claim to be, the report cannot dispel fears. It offers a stay of execution that it cannot deliver. The intention is that New Twenty20 will complement the smash-hit IPL (and good luck in convincing Lalit Modi, the accomplished and extremely satisfied IPL commissioner, of that).
Forget for a moment the ridiculous business of the world's best cricketers playing for one team in the IPL and then merely weeks later for others, mixing and matching, in the New T20. The IPL would run for 42 days, NT20 for 25 with a salary cap of £1m. If players could earn so much so quickly, why would they want to play international cricket beyond it? And while the players are bred by international cricket at present, that does not have to last. T20 can find its own stars. It already has.
July 12, 2008
New Twenty20 threatens county structure
Posted on 07/12/2008 in English cricket
"Although its architects will deny the charge of plagiarism, the similarities between the radical new Twenty20 competition leaked yesterday and the Indian Premier League (IPL) are so clear that it seems the ground-breaking tournament has simply been transported thousands of miles from Bombay to London," writes Richard Hobson in the Times.
In a different slot, the New T20, as it would be called, is being projected as a complement rather than a rival to the IPL. The organisers will save themselves a lot of tedious politicking with Lalit Modi and his friends on the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) if they can make friends early. But the tone of the early part of the document written by Keith Bradshaw, the MCC chief executive, and David Stewart, the Surrey chairman, is that England must act quickly to ensure that India, already the biggest market for the world game, does not gain a monopoly on the most lucrative staging of the format.
Also in the Times, Christopher Martin-Jenkins writes, "Profits are estimated, with questionable precision, at £7 million a team, but let us have some cricketing honesty here. It should be either this revamped nine-team extravaganza with profits genuinely shared, or a continued county league. In a properly balanced programme there is no realistic place for both."
"The Twenty20 format proposed by the Marylebone Cricket Club, Hampshire, Lancashire and Surrey is imaginative and has some merit but it threatens the fabric of the domestic game in England. Despite what the project team state, the creation would cause an insurmountable split among the 18 first-class counties. It threatens overkill of Twenty20 cricket, a product that has achieved so much good in the six years since its inception," writes Angus Fraser in the Independent.
July 11, 2008
Blurred Twenty20 vision?
Posted on 07/11/2008 in Twenty20
Reacting to the proposal for an Indian Premier League clone in England, Stephen Moss in the Guardian asks: Do we really want to replace the grand narrative of county cricket with mock dramas starring the Headingley Humdingers.
If and when this English Premier League is launched in 2010, dominating the key cricketing months of June and July, the county championship, which has already been made virtually meaningless by the comings and goings of star players for the odd fortnight, will wither. It will carry on in some form, but in effect it will be a second-eleven competition, a place for the Premier League stars to get some practice and for young players to stake their claim to the big bucks of Twenty20.
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Cricket is a great game because it lasts long enough for character to express itself. Twenty20 allows for no such niceties. Mock drama replaces narrative; money overwhelms love; celebrity usurps true character.
Jonathan Agnew, in the Test Match Special Blog, doesn't believe the franchise system will work in England.
Not only is there no attachment to a team from Birmingham if you live in Leicester, but Twenty20 cricket is so short, that any journey of more than an hour hardly makes the experience worthwhile.
On the same blog, Alec Stewart feels Twenty20s must be given room to breathe, and that the ICC's futures tours committee must try avoiding a situation where Sri Lanka might send a second-string side to tour England.
June 21, 2008
If Test cricket is boring then I'm a Texan billionaire
Posted on 06/21/2008 in Twenty20
One may glorify Twenty20 as the best version of reality television, but it'll never hit the heights of the climax of an Ashes series, writes David Mitchell in the Guardian. However, he says it is monumentally unfair that players are expected to show restraint, and prioritise Test cricket, when future financial security is being offered them on a plate, like Allen Stanford's investment of US$100 million in a series of Twenty20 matches over the next five years in Antigua.
Missing the Antigua game due to injury or making themselves unavailable for the IPL because of the start of the English season have huge long-term financial consequences for these men and, if they follow the money, I for one wouldn't blame them. Test cricket organisers need to be big enough to defend themselves, rather than relying on men in their 20s, with few prospects of employment beyond 35, to do the job for them.
June 20, 2008
Big benefits await Bravo and Marsh
Posted on 06/20/2008 in Twenty20
Alex Brown writes in the Sydney Morning Herald about the impact Twenty20 is having on the game.
It’s not just to domestic and international calendars but to the individuals, the players, who are tumbling down the rabbit hole with little idea as to where it will all end. Dwayne Bravo and Shaun Marsh would appear to have little in common.
Bravo, an all-rounder from the village of Santa Cruz in Trinidad, is diamond-encrusted, extroverted and counts the likes of top-selling reggae artist Beenie Man among his friends. Marsh is a quietly spoken batsman from Narrogin whose most obvious link to celebrity is his father, Geoff.
But it is these two players, perhaps more than any other outside India, who best represent the "Twenty20 effect" on the current generation. Afforded opportunities beyond anything their forebears could have expected, Bravo and Marsh, both 24, are the poster children for cricket's newest format and are reaping the benefits.
In the same paper Philip Derriman states the case for a stand at the SCG to be named after Richie Benaud.
In Supercricket, Neil Manthorp feels Dale Steyn's gaffe on his IPL experience didn't intend to hurt anyone, much like Lance Klusener's vain attempt to ease the pain after South Africa's painful 2003 World Cup exit.
It was Zulu's version of the famous Boris Becker quote when the German tennis star was eliminated from Wimbledon in the first round when he was defending champion and tournament favourite: "I lost a tennis match, I didn't kill anyone. Nobody died," Becker told a stunned room full journalists.
June 11, 2008
Is cricket selling its soul?
Posted on 06/11/2008 in Twenty20
In the Guardian Brian Close and Tony Lewis debate whether Twenty20 is destroying the soul of cricket. In the same paper, Andy Bull joins the chorus of people calling for the end of one-dayers.
Going forward, post IPL, one shudders to think about the fate of regular cricket, writes Amrit Mathur in the Hindustan Times.
India's leading news magazine, India Today, have a cover story on the IPL. It promises to radically alter the shape of the game, redraw the contours of the global cricket economy and power Board of Control for Cricket in India further, writes Sharda Ugra.
Also read Rohit Mahajan's view in the Outlook.
April 27, 2008
Twenty20 is destroying cricket's culture
Posted on 04/27/2008 in Twenty20
William Rees-Mogg, of the Times, has seen the great Don Bradman bat, and isn't impressed with cricket's latest format. In fact, he thinks its destroying the game's culture. In his view, Twenty20 "is a good deal less interesting than baseball, which is itself less interesting than cricket". In case you missed it first time round, the piece is now doing the rounds in Australia.
The culture of cricket now seems to be going the way of Troy, or indeed of the Roman Empire. The glory of cricket, with its intelligence and the complexity of the interplay, is sinking into the past. We are moving, surprisingly rapidly, into the dumbed-down cricket of Twenty20. Cricket first developed on village greens such as Hambledon, it looks as though it may come to an end at Bangalore.
Why do I instinctively dislike Twenty20 so much? It is not that I ever played cricket with even the lowest degree of club competence. I did have the good fortune to be a contemporary of Peter May at school. He was the leading batsman of the under-16 XI, and I was their scorer. My objection to Twenty20 is that it purports to be cricket but is a quite different and much less interesting game. Cricket seems to me to be the most fascinating of the team games of summer.
April 24, 2008
Smile, you're on the IPL's payroll
Posted on 04/24/2008 in Twenty20
Giles Smith has a funny take on the IPl in The Times.
People putting in the most effort at this point? That's an easy one. It's the cheerleaders. They never stop. And the cameras never stop showing them never stopping. The odd thing being, of course, that you have never seen crowds less in need of leaders for their cheering.
Meanwhile the Hindu's Nirmal Shekar doesn't seem too impressed with the shortest form of the game:
The best of sport allows for the pause. It lets us sit back and savour the has-been and dream of the still-to-come. Nothing that is breathless — and therefore leaves no room for a complex cognitive process leading to emotional fulfillment — can lay claims to sporting greatness.
Twenty20 is here to stay, and unless Test cricket and ODIs are given a subtle makeover we will be left with dessert and no main course, writes Dileep Premachandran in the Guardian.
But back to the cheerleaders (briefly). In The Telegraph, Paul Bolton writes about a beach cricket tournament that took place in Australia three months ago that has just now being shown on Sky. There is an inevitable comparison to the IPL, but what may also interest readers is our observation that the IPL was not the first to employ cheerleaders: the XXXX Angels set the trend by giving it some in the tournament, much to the unsurprising delight of the crowds.
The Guardian's Mike Selvey is excited about Allen Stanford's plans in the Caribbean.
How much would it cost him to take over the central contracts of the top players and up their wages to the sort of stratospheric levels that would prevent them from seeking greener grass elsewhere?
March 23, 2008
Stanford shows the way
Posted on 03/23/2008 in Twenty20
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Allen Stanford pictured with a spectator
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| The Observer's Kevin Mitchell feels that the Stanford 20/20 is a tournament that the ICC can learn from.
Tucked away from the tumult and discord in Dubai was the Stanford 20/20 in the West Indies. It was, by all accounts, a thrilling, packed tournament - a template the ICC could profitably borrow. Prices were reasonable, interest compacted and intense. Of course the founder, Allen Stanford, wanted to make money. 'He might have broken even, this time, maybe not,' said a source, 'but it's long-term, America, huge market there.'
It's what those Madison Avenue guys call 'the vision thing'. The Indians have it. Stanford has it. I'm not so sure the ICC have even heard of it.
But he is also worried about the effect that the opposing Twenty20 leagues would have on the game.
Intoxicated by the prospect of quite extraordinary wealth, the people running cricket in India are convenient villains. And there can be no doubt they are driven almost solely by self-interest. But India has a right to be the epicentre of the game. The frenzied love of the people ensures it.
The concern is that the speculators reshaping the game, while sounding calm and conciliatory now, might not be so accommodating of the views of the rest of cricket once their power is near absolute. It is then that anarchy will be unleashed.
March 14, 2008
ECB has lost the plot with IPL-type Twenty20 plans
Posted on 03/14/2008 in English cricket
In The Times Christopher Martin-Jenkins pulls no punches in putting forward his views on the ECB’s plans for Twenty20 cricket this coming summer, describing them as a “knee-jerk” reaction to the IPL.
Presumably he [ECB chairman] Giles Clarke is motivated by a desperation to generate enough new television money (Sony paid £500million for ten years for the IPL rights) to be able to pay the England team even more to keep them free of the IPL's clutches.
Praising the Twenty20 Cup as “the ECB's greatest marketing success and a boon to all 18 first-class clubs, not least because their supporters, including some new ones attracted by the format, identify closely with the local team”, Martin-Jenkins believes tinkering with the format is “overkill” that will “only confuse”.
February 9, 2008
Twenty20 vision of a bad new world
Posted on 02/09/2008 in Twenty20
Chris Rattue, writing in the New Zealand Herald, asks whether Twenty20 is all it is cracked up to be.
Is Twenty20 really a salvation for a game that is struggling in some old strongholds, offering a thrilling new road ahead. Or is it sporting candy, a rush of excitement that invites a subsequent and depressing lull?
Twenty20 is here to stay. But what about in two years' time, or five years, or 50 years? And might Twenty20 cricket devour the game which gave it life? Or could it be a flash in the pan, a glitzy newcomer whose charms quickly wear thin and leave a ghetto behind especially with the rich Indian leagues threatening to drag the world's best players to their extravaganzas?
January 27, 2008
India's billion-dollar Twenty20 revolution
Posted on 01/27/2008 in Indian cricket
In the Sunday Telegraph, Michael Atherton says that the Indian Premier League and Twenty20 cricket is poised to take over, so you better get used to it.
It was said after the Ashes victory of 2005 that cricket was the new football; well, the IPL is cricket's version of football's Premier League, and the consequences, in terms of the finances and structure of the world game, are likely to be far-reaching.
But Atherton warns that rather than complement the traditional game, the new formats and new cash might well swamp it.
Further down the line, English county cricket may find itself threatened and the ECB, by sanctioning the IPL, may not so much have kept the barbarians at the gates, as let them through the front door. If the franchise model expands, as is the hope in India, then there will be a limit to how far a market can serve two masters. Even in India, a much bigger market for cricket, there will be a potential conflict between the new and the old. No prizes for guessing where a young, hip Calcuttan businessman will want to spend his company's dosh - and it's not with the antiquated Bengal Cricket Association. Shah Rukh Khan's Kolkata Red Chillies has far more appeal.
With franchise owners having staked megabucks on the IPL, the Times of India's Indranil Basu crunches the numbers to find out whether the IPL model makes business sense.
December 15, 2007
Y they like Twenty20
Posted on 12/15/2007 in Twenty20
It grieves me to write that Twenty20 will grow so rapidly over the next couple of decades that it may threaten the very existence of Test cricket, writes Kerry O'Keeffe in a hilarious column in the Sunday Telegaph.
Michael Clarke looked like Captain Grumpy before a ball was bowled - the music was too loud and Gilly was spilling his guts to Slats about the game plan on the two-way. He may have had "Pup'' on his back but he had mongrel on his mind - straight away he hit a pie from Mark Gillespie over long off for a Dorothy Dix.
Also read Chloe Saltau in the Melbourne-based Age, Tim Lane in the same paper, and Mike Coward in the Australian.
November 30, 2007
Officially or unofficially, Twenty20 is now huge
Posted on 11/30/2007 in Indian Cricket League
Writing in The Times, Shane Warne flags that Twenty20 will hit India, the game’s largest market, in a big way over the months ahead. The ICL starts today, although Warne has joined the official IPL – “there are lots of capital letters in those sentences” he admits - but Pandora’s Box has been opened, and Warne does not approve of the possible action against those playing in the ICL.
Both leagues give wonderful opportunities to professional cricketers and I think it is right that players should have the freedom to play in whichever of them they wish to. Although the ICL is yet to be given official blessing, I hope that players are not penalised or banned from other competitions.
Cricketers have to earn a living and the bills do not stop coming through the letterbox at the end of a season. It is wrong that honest men … with good reputations may be punished for simply accepting very good offers to ply their trade. The ICL has been described as a breakaway and a rebel league, yet comparisons to World Series Cricket in the late-Seventies do not stand up.
It will be interesting to see how the ICL works, whether the crowds give their support and how the facilities stand up. But, however popular it proves, I cannot imagine a big split in the game.
October 11, 2007
Spectators' day out
Posted on 10/11/2007 in Twenty20
Twenty20 transformed what originally had become a boring traditional English medieval game into what, with aggressive marketing, could be an immediate and gratifying entertainment, writes former England fast bowler Frank Tyson in Sportstar.
Twenty20 is simply the descendant of the game played by Medes and Persians. Man throws a ball, another man hits the ball with a stick, runs around a marker and scores a notch! — and the team registering most notches wins the contest. Simple! In this regard, however, it is worth remembering that democratisation can make a sport too coarse — or too lacking in the refinements which underlined an innings by Tendulkar or a spell by Bishan Singh Bedi.
After all, in the words of the poet Dryden, one should not blindly accept popular standards simply because they are those accepted by the majority. As Dryden wrote: “The most may err, as grossly as the few.”
September 29, 2007
No reason to be grumpy
Posted on 09/29/2007 in Twenty20
Even if the maths had been kind to the South Africans, writes Tom Eaton in the Mail & Guardian Online, they were simply not quick-witted enough to compete at the Twenty20 event.
Put a bowling machine 22 yards away and South Africans will hit it as far -- perhaps further -- than anyone in the world. But put a brain and will behind that ball and, well ...
September 28, 2007
The value of Twenty20
Posted on 09/28/2007 in Twenty20
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Rohit Brijnath: "Twenty20 was invented by someone whose idea of understatement is Clint Eastwood with a six-gun and a scowl"
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Twenty20 attracts to a point because it is not supposed to be taken too seriously, writes Rohit Brijnath in the Sportstar.
Twenty20 was invented by someone who grew up with ‘Rollerball’ posters in his room, and whose idea of understatement is Clint Eastwood with a six-gun and a scowl.
It’s a game that is the remarkable mix of many stolen parts: it has borrowed the idea that plot is irrelevant from Van Damme movies, it’s scrounged the concept of “music at changeovers” from the U.S. Open tennis, it’s spawned its own version of basketball’s dancing girls, it’s crude version of football’s penalty shoot-out, it’s got a hockey-style on-ground bench, and bears a resemblance to golf with its bizarre rules (what in God’s name is the free hit, some might well ask?). All that’s left is for Twenty20 to become a contact sport.
But, Brijnath goes on to admit, Twenty20 is enjoyable perhapsbecause it is new, because India is winning and because it makes one feel younger.
Twenty20 is the future, but it’s also the past. The game we embrace now is the one we left behind. Every shot played by Yuvraj that night against England was only an echo of our boyhood, when the water tank at the end of the lane was six, you couldn’t hit square because you might interfere with Mr. Ghosh’s breakfast, and if you took more than two singles in a row you were a nerd.
Michael Henderson is suitably less impressed with the format. He writes in the Daily Telegraph:
No matter how loudly people cheer, silence is always more memorable at a sporting event than noise... There may be some merit in this new-fangled game if an interest in it leads some of those young people towards the less immediate but altogether richer rewards of Test cricket. But surely I am not alone in thinking that the inaugural ICC World Twenty20, won by India, was not quite as remarkable as stout Cortez stumbling across the Pacific.
September 24, 2007
Cricket will rue dawn of Twenty20
Posted on 09/24/2007 in Twenty20
It's fair to say that Australia has not embraced Twenty20 cricket to the same extent as other nations. Their defeat in the semi-final against India was the first time they had failed to reach the final of a major world tournament since 2004, and while India and Pakistan slug it out in Johannesburg, the Aussies are pondering the future of their beloved game. For Gideon Haigh, among others, the future is not entirely bright.
So the administrators have a hit on their hands, a hit that will reverberate. We have already seen the best-case scenario: a successful tournament still tinged with novelty.
Through time, however, it is likely that the main beneficiaries will be commercial intermediaries.
Cricket will make a great deal of money in the short term, money it has no obvious need for and will mostly waste, and it will be left a coarser, crueller, crasser game as a result. Now that the Twenty20 world championship is over, another proverb comes to mind: be careful what you wish for.
September 16, 2007
The perils of Twenty20's big bucks
Posted on 09/16/2007 in Twenty20
Twenty20 has had its share of detractors, with the Australian's Peter Lalor being its latest critic. Lalor argues against cricket's new format, and has found an ally in Greg Chappell, the former Australia captain.
Now money is a good thing, but everybody knows that it can do strange things to people and to sport.
Former Test captain and the previous India coach, Greg Chappell, has been watching the lantana-like spread of Twenty20 with some concern. He says that while he is happy with the new game being played as a fundraiser at the domestic level, he is concerned that it might affect the focus of our most important breeding grounds for Test players -- the states.
Chappell points out that the one-day game has so distracted most of the other cricketing nations that they have fallen away in the five-day game. He worries that the simplistic Twenty20 form could do further damage. For a start, he finds the form is naive and needs development. "It's got limitations as a form, it is very one-dimensional," Chappell says. "It's certainly not the panacea for our ills as some consider it."
September 9, 2007
New champions league to pay players millions
Posted on 09/09/2007 in Twenty20
The Sydney Morning Herald sheds light on cricket's proposed "Champions League". It claims that leading Australian cricketers could soon be earning wages comparable to that of the world's top footballers.
- Australia, India, England and South Africa each hold their own domestic competitions. India's domestic competition will feature franchised teams.
- The top two teams from each country qualify for an international tournament, which will feature a $US5 million prize pool.
- The first international tournament is expected to take place late next year.
September 8, 2007
Twenty20 gets the thumbs-up
Posted on 09/08/2007 in Twenty20
The Twenty20 format has won over new fans, writes Stuart Hess in the Independent Online.
In the fast-moving age of iPods, Playstations and Wap-enabled cellphones, 20-over cricket is the perfect expression of the sport's march into the 21st century.
Mike Haysman feels the ICC World Twenty20 will be the highlight of an otherwise dull year in his column in SuperCricket.
Test cricket is and always will remain the bedrock of the game. It dishes up intrigue and surprise when combatively presented and that quenches the thirst for stimulation. But now there is a new eager kid on the block.
September 7, 2007
As far from cricket as Ken Dodd from Olivier
Posted on 09/07/2007 in Twenty20
Australians, you sense, have not quite caught the World Twenty20 bug. The word on the street is that the tournament is an irrelevance - easy to say when you've won every tournament going. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Roebuck underlines the prevailing attitudes Down Under.
Anything less suited to solemnity than the sight of highly skilled cricketers whacking a ball about for 20 overs it is hard to imagine. Blink and it will be over. It is as far from Test cricket as were the antics of Ken Dodd from the grave pronunciations of Sir Laurence Olivier. Mr Dodd was a Liverpudlian comedian who took to the stage carrying a featherduster and with hair erupting from his scalp. When his thoughts turned to song he was generally accompanied by The Diddymen. Sir Laurence was otherwise inclined.
August 18, 2007
The Twenty20 World Cup, a bit of a lark
Posted on 08/18/2007 in Twenty20
Since its inception, Twenty20 cricket has found its supporters and detractors. With the inagural Twenty20 World Championship to be held in South Africa next month Peter Roebuck, writing in the Hindu, feels it is hard to take seriously an event so dependent upon tomfoolery. He says it is causing ruptures in the ranks of several international teams and cites the example of Jacques Kallis, who recently stepped down from the South African vice-captaincy after failing to find a place in the Twenty20 team.
"Greater players even than the South African have been omitted, including several distinguished Indians. They, too, serve at the behest, though hopefully not the whim, of their Board.
What are they missing? It is a pity that the tournament has been called a World Cup, a description that seems to claim parity with tumultuous events in football and rugby. But it is only a salesman’s pitch."
July 5, 2007
Let's hope Twenty20 can beat backlash
Posted on 07/05/2007 in English cricket
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After four years, since it first took off, some of the success of the Twenty20 Cup has now faded
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Tanya Aldred in The Guardian reflects that after four bumper years, the lousy weather has hit the rollercoaster success of the Twenty20 Cup.
This year, things have soured. Divine retribution may have been a long time coming, but the rain hasn't stopped. The ECB hired four extra Super Sopper machines but still the matches are called off. Counties face a torrent of refunds and an equally unattractive administrative mountain. Umpires have asked for more protection - Peter Willey has spoken of getting in "professional security". The Hampshire bus was stoned and the players abused at Southgate, and the Middlesex players were relieved of their wallets. A combination of rain and alcohol has brought out the inner oik in some spectators. The ECB have pledged to act.
They need to or they are going to lose the very constituency that Twenty20 was invented to attract. While the liveliness of Twenty20 crowds is intoxicating, sitting next to drunken yobs, convinced that their chants are up there with Dorothy Parker's best bon mots, is no fun for anyone. It is no fun sitting even three stands away.
In The Times, David Fulton, who retired at the end of last season, highlights the problems that the weather causes for the players.
Not knowing whether a game will start is mentally draining. Most professional players will have set warm-ups and routines to follow before the battle commences. When time is of the essence, though, as is the case with a rain delay in Twenty20, umpires can start or resume play at a moment’s notice.
The trick is not to be caught off guard. While there is no point all eleven players staring out the window waiting for the rain to stop, it’s important that you want to get out there and that you’re mind is ready for any scenario. There is a danger that players enjoy rain just a little too much. In the context of a long season, where the aching joints need a rest, this is understandable. Getting paid to play cards with your mates can also seem more appealing than having to stick your neck out and perform in front of a crowd and the media spotlight. Psychologically, it’s important you don’t let your mind get lazy.
June 27, 2007
Louts threaten to gatecrash Twenty20 party
Posted on 06/27/2007 in English cricket
In The Daily Telegraph Derek Pringle warns that the success of Twenty20 cricket is bringing its own set of problems with growing worries about the behaviour of crowds. And the authorities, quick to clamp down on players, are not so proactive when it comes to tackling fans.
Cricket, despite its genteel image of bucolic charm, is not immune from oiks, so we are not talking about the end of innocence here. But part of Twenty20's mission statement was to attract a new audience and many reckon that, along with the rise in the number of women and children at matches, there is a growing boorish element.
At Essex's match against Sussex last Friday, regulars spoke of a section singing ribald football-style songs, a new departure at Chelmsford even for Twenty20. Nothing wrong there you might think, the Barmy Army have been doing it for ages, but with alcohol available for long periods and minimal policing, some feel it is a tinderbox just waiting to be sparked.
June 22, 2007
Twenty20 selling tickets, but not the game's soul
Posted on 06/22/2007 in Twenty20
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Pretty in pink: Middlesex and Surrey meet at a sell-out on the opening night of the Twenty20 Cup
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| Patrick Kidd in The Times writes that the Twenty20 Cup, which starts today, has grown from a gimmick into a fully-fledged and respected competition.
Eagles fighting with Sharks, sparks flying between the Dynamos and the Lightning, and a derby between the Brown Caps and the men in pink shirts: it’s Twenty20 time again as the shortest form of cricket starts its fifth season this afternoon. Yet somewhere over the past four years of beach parties, mascot races and evening boozing, a decent tournament has emerged. Counties no longer need gimmicks to fill their grounds, many people come simply to watch cricket.
Last year, more than 500,000 people watched Twenty20 and the growth is set to be even greater this season, with Surrey alone having sold more than 100,000 tickets for the Brown Caps’ four home games and many other counties reporting sell-outs.
In The Daily Telegraph, Martin Smith flags 20 Twenty20 facts you might not know … and interesting they are too.
No one has hit a century in an international Twenty20 match. Ricky Ponting went closest for Australia against New Zealand in 2005 - in the very first Twenty20 international - but finished on 98 not out scored from 55 balls.
Cameron White, predictably an Australian, holds the highest individual score, thumping an unbeaten 141 (14 fours, six sixes, 70 balls) for Somerset against Worcestershire last summer. He also shares the second-highest total of 116 not out.
A crowd of 26,500 turned up to watch Middlesex v Surrey in 2004, the first Twenty20 match at Lord's, the largest attendance for a county game other than a one-day final since 1953.
Middlesex will wear pink outfits in the Twenty20 Cup this season in support of their partnership with Breakthrough Breast Cancer.
Players fight for rights at Twenty20 World Championship
Posted on 06/22/2007 in Twenty20
Jon Pierik writes in the Herald Sun the international players’ association and the ICC have not agreed on terms for the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa in September.
In the same paper there is a report about Cricket Australia meeting the federal government in July as CA devises a drug policy that is likely to be adopted before next season.
January 12, 2007
Is Twenty20 now 50-50 proposition?
Posted on 01/12/2007 in Twenty20
There’s a certain irony in that the latest broadside against Twenty20 cricket comes from Australia, the country which took one-day cricket, made it a modern product with coloured clothing, white balls and floodlights … and then flogged it to death with endless round-robin series which left players exhausted and airlines counting the cash. In The Australian, Mike Coward is less than impressed with the new format:
What purpose does it fill in the international arena other than providing the ICC with another dedicated event it can call its own?
So much for the joy of the traditional game and the apparent re-establishment of the Ashes as the game's iconic series: that was eight days ago. Since Ponting and his team-mates held up the Waterford Crystal trophy - rather than the actual urn which, for the moment, is on display at the Melbourne Cricket Club's new museum at the MCG - there have been 10 Twenty20 matches around the country, including the international won by Australia over England at the SCG on Tuesday. Yesterday the 50-over format got under way and the domestic Twenty20 final is on today. Roll up. Roll up.
In the Sydney Morning Herald, Philip Derriman looks at the way the game has grabbed a large - and fresh - audience:
The TV audience for Tuesday's match against England, which averaged 2.31 million and peaked at 2.81 million, was an all-time record for any kind of cricket match in Australia. Previously, the biggest audience was the one that tuned in to last year's Twenty20 match against South Africa. Its average audience was 2.18 million.
To judge from the fans at the SCG on Tuesday night, the audience was young as well as big. When at one point during the telecast Ian Healy wandered into a section of the grandstand with his microphone, he looked to be the only one over 21.
Healy had the following exchange with a pony-tailed girl of around 11 years old: Did you come to the Test match? No. Did your dad? Yes. Are you thinking you might come to the one-day matches now? Maybe. Or just stick with Twenty20? Twenty20!
July 21, 2006
Lara: 'Test cricket is my game'
Posted on 07/21/2006 in West Indies cricket
Brian Lara is in Dubai while West Indies take time out from the international merry-go-round, and while there he talked to local journalists about his views of the modern game, making it clear that Test cricket was where his heart lay.
“Test cricket is my game. It is a game I really love to play. Before being asked to captain the team for the third time, I tried to guide my career in the direction of playing more Test cricket and less one-day games."
He also gave his views on Twenty20.
"I don't think it tests the ability of players like Tests do. But it is good for the crowd. You are playing a sport, and sport is all about spectators."
June 2, 2006
The colour of money
Posted on 06/02/2006 in Twenty20
First it was Kerry Packer. Now Alan Stanford. Neil Manthorp analyses Stanford's ambitions in running cricket, like his revolutionary predecessor, starting with the Twenty20 international in Antigua. Read the full piece in Supercricket.
Stanford wants to see what happens to cricketers when they're playing for something real, something that might just affect the rest of their lives. Imagine what R550 000 would mean to Loots Bosman, for instance.
April 22, 2006
Bermuda prepares for Twenty20 classic
Posted on 04/22/2006 in Twenty20
The 20-20 World Cricket Classic gets underway tomorrow in Bermuda. The tournament comprises "classic" teams, made up of former Test and one-day players from the major cricketing nations: West Indies, Sri Lanka, South Africa, New Zealand, India, England, Australia and Bermuda (see the full list of players here).
Eight leading cricket nations will pitch battle for the world's first ever 20-20 World Cricket Classic title in Bermuda during April, 2006. Over 100 of the greatest international cricketing legends will represent South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, West Indies, Sri Lanka, India, England and the host team, Bermuda.
The island paradise of Bermuda, with its sub-tropical climate, stunning scenery and world renowned pink beaches, offers a stunning backdrop to the inaugural 20-20 World Cricket Classic. Just a stone's throw from the Caribbean and West Indies and a favourite destination from the UK, Europe, USA and Canada, the Classic will undoubtedly prove to be an attractive location to combine cricket camaraderie with tourist indulgence.
More information on the event, and how to obtain tickets, can be found at their website.
March 25, 2006
Wham, bam, thanks for nothing Uncle Sam
Posted on 03/25/2006 in Twenty20
Andrew Ramsey imagines a Twenty20 World Cup at Orlando. He tells you of the various possibilities that might unfold, before describing an epic final contested between England and Australia.
January 27, 2006
Short still sweet in clamour for Twenty20 world event
Posted on 01/27/2006 in Twenty20
A Twenty20 world championship may be slotted into the calendar as soon as next year as the format born in England continues to pass every test of its popularity, writes Richard Hobson in The Times.
January 10, 2006
Getting shirty
Posted on 01/10/2006 in Twenty20
Oh dear. The Aussies just can't get it right, can they? First their nicknames came in for a pounding, now it's the shirts they're printed on as noted by The Advertiser, an Adelaide-based newspaper. Now, The Surfer likes to try to stay clear from sartorial judgements as a rule, but this time the critics may have a point.
Bracken wants ball boys for Twenty20
Posted on 01/10/2006 in Twenty20
Australia's Nathan Bracken would like to see the introduction of ball boys to Twenty20 cricket, in the same way as they're used in Tennis:
Bracken said the introduction of ball boys would speed the game up even further with players not required to chase the ball over the rope.
"Because you're on a tight schedule, an hour and 15 (minutes) to bowl your overs, if you can get some kids out there to be a part of the game on the boundary and basically get the ball it would make it that little bit quicker," he said.
"It would make it a little bit more exciting for the crowd and gives the fielding side more of a chance to get through their overs."
Good idea, or utter laziness?
January 9, 2006
Nicknames shouldn't be the name of the game
Posted on 01/09/2006 in Twenty20
The Australian has an amusing take on the significance of Australia's first international Twenty20, but it also has a warning:
"The one thing international cricket does not need is further programming pressures, so leaving Twenty20 fixtures as a cash cow for the tiers below would ensure the golden goose ain't headed for the Colonel's deep-fryer."
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