Posts tagged with ‘Twenty20’

There has been renewed press speculation that the 2012 Olympic stadium could be used for cricket once The Torch has begun it’s four-year crawl in the general direction of Rio. Naturally, the ECB and surrounding counties say they know nothing about it.

But, in order to keep up with the rest of the world (i.e. India) with it’s T20 finance boom, English cricket needs a modern infrastructure to match. Instead it has Old Trafford, about as modern as Alf Garnett.

Do me a favour, and take a look out of the nearest window. There may well be a winged hog somewhere in the vicinity. Meanwhile, in the cricket world, a county chairman has been heard saying the things that Giles Clarke gets paid to sweep under the carpet: English cricket is as anachronistic as the crew of USS Enterprise strolling around the Wild West.

Lalit Modi had probably never heard of Alfonso Thomas before tonight. Now that the IPL teams are 0-3 in the Champions League he certainly has.

The IPL, is a sleaze-filled, dripping with liquid money fake-fest. There is so much money involved that it is actually cheap. The Champions League was supposed to be that too. It was IPL teams along with 9 makeweights to pad out the fixtures and shut Giles Clarke up. Then, along came Alfonso Thomas to rock Lalit’s world.

Hype and anticipation are building for the Champions League Twenty20 tournament. The two counties involved, Sussex and Somerset, are looking forward to a pay-day. But how will they actually fare against the finest the IPL has to offer? Think of this tournament what you may, it finally gives us a chance to measure the standard of county cricket compared to the rest of the world. Believe me, that is no bad thing.

Apparantly Paul Collingwood is to miss the Champions League T20 tournament, which starts later this week. He has torn his upper-nurdle, and will play no part.

To all those who hoped to see him performing as brilliantly in the nets as he did during the IPL, this is a great disappointment.

As Andrew Flintoff delays the signing of his newly downgraded ECB contract at the prospect of earning more as a freelance Twenty20 cricketer, it is easy to get caught up in accusations of mercenary greed and a sport losing it’s identity.

But is cricket simply returning to it’s roots? Money, like it or not, was the catalyst for everything that has gone before. Even W.G. Grace would attest to that.

Fifty over cricket is the runt of the cricketing litter. We know what happens to the runt. To start with, it gets the leftovers, but when the rest of the litter’s appetite increases the leftovers suddenly disappear. It hangs on for a while, then it dies.

The trend recently is of players retiring from Test cricket to prolong their Twenty20 careers, or at least professing a preference for the format limited in length but unlimited in financial inducement. But, Ricky Ponting isn’t going to be following that trend, having announced his retirement from Twenty20 internationals to prolong his Test career.

Whilst all England basks in the glow of an Ashes win, we may have overlooked the fact that there is some cricket going on between Sri Lanka and New Zealand.

I wasn’t there, I didn’t see it on TV. So what to make of the abandonment on Tuesday due to waterlogged run-ups? Who was to blame, the authorities at Old Trafford, or the teams and umpires? Reading the reports in the press, it is hard to say for sure, blame being apportioned to either one or the other.