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City, county, region
By Will 1 month ago, 8 Comments »
So Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, doesn’t believe a city-based franchise system would be workable in England’s attempt to challenge the Indian Premier League. In fact, Clarke said that “franchise sport has simply never worked in the UK”, which comes hot on the heels of county chief executives voicing their own concerns over the latest Twenty20 developments.
Clarke was speaking at the ECB’s AGM, but some of what he says concerns me. He was full of praise for India’s tournament, but insisted “much of the look and feel of the tournament was taken from the ECB template”. Valid sentiments, but it only makes the ECB look even more daft, short-sighted and bitter that they didn’t think of it first. There is still no clear idea of what the English Premier League will amount to, and the relevant parties - ECB, Professional Cricketers’ Association and the counties themselves - all appear to be at loggerheads with one another. Meanwhile, Allen Stanford is waiting in the wings, licking his lips at what he believes could be a huge earner. But how? And when?
We can forget 18 counties being involved. That much we know. And I’m not in favour of city-based franchises either as this will inevitably lead to some cities and towns being left out, or merged with a neighbour. For example, thinking purely geographically, Gloucestershire and Glamorgan would presumably be combined…but as what? Bristol or Cardiff? Exclude one and you’re effectively ruling out 50% of the England and Wales Cricket Board.
Regionalisation seems a fair and simple solution:
North Yorkshire, Lancashire, Durham
London Surrey, Middlesex, Essex
South Hampshire, Kent, Sussex
Wales and West Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Somerset
West Midlands Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Northants
East Midlands Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire
Fascinating to think of the teams these would put on the park, too, and who would captain them. Your thoughts?
8 Comments »Cheerleaders turn blue
By Will 1 month ago, 8 Comments »
The rights of cheerleaders to do what they do best - cheer, half-nakedly - are being cruelly restrained in India. And quite honestly, I’ve had enough, so in the spirit of the free and democratic internet, it’s our misson - no, obligation - to catalogue the events in the medium of photos. Here are the lovely ladies prior to being asked to cover up:
But the Maharashtra police got in a right tizz about the flesh on show, and their natural attributes have now been painted blue. It’s a walking, garish travesty.
Cricinfo reports it as follows:
Modesty is the best policy
The Deccan Chargers’ cheerleaders followed the police dictact to dress in a “decent manner” during yesterday’s match in the outskirts of Mumbai. The cheerleaders wore full length tights beneath their regular outfits and the police were pleased with the way things panned out. “Our personnel were keeping a tight vigil on the performances. I am glad to say everything went off smoothly. We did not find anything objectionable in the dances or the dresses,” Ramrao Wagh, the Navi Mumbai police commissioner, told the Hindustan Times
Grannies lose out to IPL
By Will 1 month ago, No Comments; be the first!
Is the IPL a flop or not?
- I love it more than my grandmother (66%, 69 Votes)
- It’s a complete flop and I despise it (34%, 35 Votes)
Total Voters: 104
Stanford close to luring ECB
By Will 1 month ago, 39 Comments »
Allen Stanford and Lalit Modi. Two entirely different characters, both from opposite ends of the world - geographically and, arguably, morally - but both with a shared love of money and cricket. Why do I worry less about the Wild West cowboy, and more about Modi’s modus operandi?
Perhaps it’s because he’s American and has no historical connection to a cricket board. Maybe it’s because he appears to have no dirty agenda to the politics of the sport: he’s seemingly happy to pile money into the flayling West Indies cricket, and anyone else who wants to join in the fun is more than welcome. This sounds naive - of course, billionaires crave and adore money: it is their driving force - but his come-follow-me attitude is refreshing and progressive, which cannot be said of Modi. Modi’s business is power and politics; the IPL has already made him millions, but it is a vehicule to global dominance. We’ve seen this season how the ECB have been tied up in knots banning (and subsequently unbanning) various players who represented the Indian Cricket League - the antichrist to the sanctioned IPL - which demonstrates just how much power the BCCI wields.
Anyway, I digress. I like Mr Stanford and am quite excited by what he could do to counter Modi’s unquenchable thirst for dominance. He has met with the ECB - significantly, the president of the West Indies Cricket Board, Dr Julian Hunte, was also present - to finalise plans for an England v West Indies All Stars XI later this year (and possibly running over five years). The matches themselves aren’t too significant, but it could signal the start of a business relationship which expands far beyond any of our imaginings. Stanford’s 20/20 in the Caribbean was a rollicking success - some say he should be in charge of ICC’s World Cups - so it’ll be fascinating to see what he and England come up with.
39 Comments »Knight Riders on top
By Will 1 month ago, 5 Comments »
The results from our poll are in, and 29% of you ‘orrible readers are supporting Sourav Ganguly’s Kolkata Knight Riders. The Delhi Daredevils, led by Virender Sehwag, prop up the list with a pathetic 14 votes.
The next poll asks the relatively simple question: is the IPL a flop? Cast your votes on the main page.
- Kolkata Knight Riders (29%, 69 Votes)
- Chennai Super Kings (17%, 40 Votes)
- Deccan Chargers (13%, 31 Votes)
- Mumbai Indians (12%, 29 Votes)
- Kings XI Punjab (10%, 25 Votes)
- Bangalore Royal Challengers (7%, 18 Votes)
- Rajasthan Royals (6%, 15 Votes)
- Delhi Daredevils (6%, 14 Votes)
Total Voters: 241
McCullum raises bar
By Will 1 month ago, 27 Comments »
“McCullum’s going spastic,” one of my colleagues said over messenger while I watched one, lone, bearded spectator trudge around the Arctic Bowl in Southampton in the mizzle. I didn’t see much of Brendon McCullum’s explosive 158, but the facts and stats behind such innings illuminate it perfectly adequately.
Let’s start with the facts. He hit 10 fours and 13 sixes, one of them an outrageous paddle over his left shoulder off a disbelieving Zaheer Khan, and ended up scoring more runs than anyone has ever done in the brief history Twenty20 cricket. The previous record-holder - Cameron White, who hit 141 not out for Somerset against Worcestershire two years ago but contributed just six to the Bangalore’s pitiful total - spent most of the innings watching helplessly as one ball after another disappeared into the night sky. The pre-match fireworks had nothing on this.
McCullum’s penchant for the spectacular is not new. Only last month he creamed 170 off 108 balls to help Otago make mincemeat of Auckland in the
final of New Zealand’s State Shield, but on that occasion hardly anyone bothered to turn up to watch. Now, he did the business in front of well over 40,000 fans, most of them barracking at the start for their local side but many giving McCullum the ovation he deserved as he took the Bangalore bowlers to pieces. Fair enough: it was a knock that transcended partiality.
What cricket is this? People have termed Twenty20 the sport’s fast-food, which correctly implies it’s cheap, nasty and fills you with guilt. But that doesn’t convey just how fleeting it really is. It’s amphetamined cricket. Ravers’ cricket. Cricket for a trance nation. Dumbed down. Speeded up. Some brilliant shots, some awful slogs, much shorter boundaries. Cheerleaders. Too much colour. Where is this all heading?
27 Comments »Michael Knight does a pitch report
By Will 1 month ago, No Comments; be the first!
Chucklish photo from The Guardian’s obo team prior to the first IPL bollocks:
Cricinfo banned from IPL
By Will 1 month ago, 5 Comments »
I’ve been in Southampton covering Hampshire’s first game of the season against the champions, Sussex, so have a few things to get off my chest or note down here. Yes, The Rose Bowl - comfortably England’s most characterless cricket ground is a world away from the razamatazz of the Indian Premier League. It won’t have escaped your notice that we, Cricinfo, are effectively banned from the IPL. That is, the organisers won’t give us accreditation so none of our staff are permitted entry (I believe), and nor are we allowed to use any of the photos that come from the agencies (some of whom are boycotting the event).
This is baloney, and a ridiculous own goal by Lalit Modi that smacks of arrogance and a clueless understanding of what the public want and how they consume their cricket news. Cricinfo has upwards of 10 million users, a large portion of whom - for an event of this scale - would be logged in to follow our IPL scorecards. Cut Cricinfo out, and the IPL shoot themselves in the foot.
It won’t actually affect how we operate - we are still doing ball-by-ball commentary, whose traffic must have been extraordinary for tonight’s crazy opening one-dayer - as Cricinfo’s editor, Sambit Bal, explains:
Sambit Bal, the editor of Cricinfo, described the restrictions as discriminatory and unjust. “We are a legitimate cricket media organisation with unmatched global credibility and we are asking no special favours,” he said. “We cover cricket with journalistic rigour and integrity. We are being denied our basic rights to cover a cricket event in a professional manner.”
However, Bal said Cricinfo’s editorial commitment to the tournament would not be affected. “Boycotting the IPL is not an option for us. Our commitment to cover cricket is absolute, as is our obligation to the reader. We are not blind to the significance of the IPL, which could be a seminal event in cricket. We will try to cover every game with the same rigour and depth expected of us.”
5 Comments »
English Premier League gathers momentum
By Will 1 month ago, 10 Comments »
The news that Allen Stanford, the Wild West’s Lalit Modi, is to meet the ECB next week offers a delicious opportunity to ponder what the England board has up its sleeve. And still the ECB continue to maintain, with absolutely no conviction, that they “don’t want a knee-jerk reaction to the IPL”. That is exactly what they want, and arguably need. There’s a sense the ECB are spitting nails that another country - god forbid India! - have stolen their Twenty20 and created a monster from it. They want that monster, their beast, back.
So they’re pondering the English Premier League (EPL), a smaller sibling India’s giant tournament, to take advantage of England’s season to attract international stars. It’ll probably take place in June and July next year as no other country has any international commitments to conflict. And with Stanford potentially coming on board - it’s absolutely unclear what, if any, the Texan’s role might be - the prospect of millions of dollars come into the equation.
Stanford’s 20/20, the Caribbean tournament which he piled millions of his own money into, has been a runaway success with cricket at its core. There are even some who wish Stanford would take charge of ICC’s World Cup every four years; he does things loud, in a very American way, but rather like Mr Getty has a fondness for cricket and wants to keep the sport’s traditions at the centre. Also like Getty and Modi, he knows a good deal when he spots one.
In the IPL, team names have been singularly uninspiring. The Mumbai Indians, the Deccan Chargers, the Bangalore Royal Challengers. Boring. What do you make of England’s plans, and what teams might be created?
10 Comments »Strap in: here comes the circus
By Will 1 month ago, 19 Comments »
We work alongside other journalists every day at our shiny ESPN towers, and I was chatting to a football scribe the other day about the IPL. He admitted to be “gagging” for the start, itching to witness what he considers to be a “mini World Cup”. It probably says rather a lot that he, who only has a passing interest in my sport, is more curious about the forthcoming IPL than I am.
Well, that’s not strictly accurate. I am definitely curious about it all - I just hate and loath the premise and the impact it will inevitably have. Cricket’s landscape has changed forever. But the prospect of watching Ricky Ponting and Ishant Sharma representing the same team - the Kolkata Knight Riders! - captained by Sourav Ganguly, is too ridiculous and balmy not to slap my thighs like a baboon and yelp “bring it on”. It’s a brilliant farce, succinctly described by The Sunday Telegraph’s Scyld Berry:
The owner of Kolkata Knight Riders is Shah Rukh Khan, as famous as any Indian film star. Their main sponsor is Nokia. Their coach is John Buchanan, simply the most successful coach ever in international cricket, as he was Australia’s last. Their opening batsman is Chris Gayle, the man reviving West Indian cricket, with a style of hair and cricket to rival Symonds; their wicketkeeper/batsman is Brendon McCullum, the nearest New Zealand come to a star cricketer; and Ponting is a useful batsman. Ganguly said: “I was personally present at the auction. Every franchise had an amount of $5 million to spend as a maximum, and there is a restriction of eight overseas players in each franchise, and you can play only four at a time. We have to have four Indian under-21 players, two under-19s, and four local players from our catchment area.”
My team will be the Kolkata Knight Riders - yes, because I can hear the twangy theme tune of the coolest TV programme ever made providing another absurd backdrop to the quacky-wacky madness of the whole charade. What odds KITT might appear to present the winners - and I use that term loosely - with a replica Pontiac Trans Am?
The tournament hasn’t even begun but already there are major concerns surrounding its coverage, though they have eased slightly today. The IPL has prevented websites from covering the tournament from the ground itself - they will not provide accrediation to journalists representing new media - and applied restrictions to the sale/rights of photos. Talk about shooting themselves in the foot. A boycott by at least one major media group surely beckons. Not the ideal start, but somehow appropriate.
19 Comments »Now come on, chaps. Behave
By Will 1 month ago, No Comments; be the first!
I had to raise a smile when the MCC* made a statement today to say that Lalit Modi, the commissioner and chairman of the Indian Premier League, had agreed to abide by the MCC’s Spirit of Cricket. It was endearingly headmasterly; young Lalit, you and your tournament frighten us witless. By all means take over the world, but please do so in an orderly manner.
* (yes, it’s just “MCC”, but I prefer “the MCC”)
No Comments »The Indian dimension
By Emma 2 months ago, 1 Comment »
It has been somewhat of a double whammy for county cricket, and not one that could have been predicted by the end of last season. As Sussex were celebrating their second consecutive Championship victory in September, the only possible concern Chris Adams and co. could have had about their international berth would be which player to keep. Now, thanks to the incomprehensible forelock-tugging and deference that boards around the world are giving to a Test nation that only woke up to Twenty20 when they won the World Championship, having already let a private enterprise set up in the format they had snubbed, Mushtaq Ahmed may well have worn a Sharks shirt for the last time. But with only a month to go until the season starts, the nearest to clarity I’ve seen for clubs on the ICL is Andrew McGlashan’s list over at Cricinfo. The medley of pre-stance Kolpaks, post-stance Kolpaks, UK nationals, EU nationals and Internationals requiring NOCs has left a bit of a muddle.
So what does this spell? Well, at some point, there is going to be a lawsuit. Maybe more than one. I’m not going to pretend to know anything about the legal situation, but the PCA and their international equivalents will have been getting legal advice since the ECB’s statement last week. What will be most interesting will be who ends up suing who. Well, interesting for a law student. None of it is in the interest of English cricket.
As if a whole swath of maybe-banned-maybe-nots wasn’t enough, the sheer salaries and brevity of commitment being offered by the IPL are easily more of an attraction to top class internationals than six months drudgery in some of England’s colder climes. Shaun Pollock, for a while linked with Warwickshire, was only interested in playing the Twenty20s. Of the many Antipodean retirements of the last few months, how many are headed here? This of course is leaving aside the possibility that English players wont up sticks and move to Bangalore. When players with as little international exposure as car-park call up Luke Pomersbach are being offered $50,000 for a few games graft, surely some of the international fringe must be eyeing their bank balances with jealousy.
Considering the outcry over the last few seasons at the invasion of international players, the new position seems far more worrying. With a dearth of players available to fill the overseas slots, there will be a widening in the gap between the ‘rich’ counties and those without the cash to compete for what names are available. To think that some time last year Ricky Ponting was bemoaning the grind of international cricket, and voicing concerns that too much of the shortest format was being played. Ironically, the ICL should have had little impact on English cricket in terms of timing, while the IPL runs in direct conflict with parts of the season. It is impossible to know what the long-term impacts are going to be. In the meantime, coaches around the country will be filling in team sheets in pencil.
1 Comment »“Do I have $1.5m for Mr Dhoni?”
By Will 3 months ago, 12 Comments »
The IPL cattle market is, for now, over and the players have been sold, branded and sent to their respective clubs. One of our chaps in India did a brilliant job of live blogging the whole thing (I think most media outlets stole/borrowed the details), and it was fascinating seeing which players went to which clubs and for what sum. Albie Morkel went for $675,000; Adam Gilchrist for $700,000. Chris Gayle cost $800,000 while Kolkata bid $950,000 for Ishant Sharma.
The hype of the IPL is almost overflowing at the moment, but I still can’t see the tournament lasting the long haul. Super-powered teams have been forced together in the past - World XIs and so on - without great success, so why will the IPL be any different? It’s a quick injection of easy money for the players and a bit of fun for us, but don’t expect it to last. He says, desperately hoping he is right…
What do you make of it all?
12 Comments »