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Dropped chance
In his latest blog Dave Fulton explains how the ECB have missed out with their compromise on Twenty20 cricket
Posted: 18th July 2008 08:07
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The powers at the ECB were always going to be under pressure to move with the times and fully embrace the Twenty20 phenomenon whilst simultaneously protecting the interests of the 18 first-class counties.
Some might argue the EPL, announced on Wednesday by Giles Clarke, which includes 18 teams and two "guest" teams, is a healthy compromise. Others will say it's a complete reactionary fudge up.
The counties will be happy because their futures are looking secure. Never mind that many of them would make a whopping great loss if left to their own devices. Never mind that many of those same counties spend large proportions of their central handouts on foreign players who will never play for England rather than developing English talent.
The cricket landscape is changing at a pace both internationally and domestically and to keep up the ECB announces first and works out the details later.
The Champions League revelation was timed to coincide with the start of the domestic Twenty20 Cup, yet who will be eligible to play and how the prize money will be distributed is still being discussed, whilst growing pressure from England players missing out on the IPL saw Allen Stanford drop in on Lord's for more dramatic announcements.
Now we have the EPL. No coincidence that it came just days after the Bradshaw-Stewart city-based plan that had county chief executives twitching.
Diluted
One of the strengths of the IPL - other than it being staged in a cricket-crazed nation of course - is that most of the focus centred on the best cricketers in the world. Ponting, Ganguly, Gayle, McCullum and Shoaib all lining up for the Kolkata Knight Riders, for instance, is a mouth-watering prospect.
The EPL will have 20 teams so the international talent will be diluted. Crucially the money is also likely to be diluted so there is no guarantee of matching the best players'wage demands.
Clarke justified including all18 counties by saying "broadcasters in this country and in Asia are interested in county sides - they are not interested in made-up sides" but surely what really sells is the quality of cricket being played and that means the best playing against the best.
Far better to have had city franchises, drawn from the counties, playing at the international grounds with five world greats alongside. As long as the counties got their slice of the financial pie they would have been happy.
Imagine a Southampton team comprising Luke Wright, Kevin Pietersen, Michael Carberry, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Chris Adams, Matt Prior, Shane Warne and four other world-class stars. It wouldn't be a tough sell and players from Hampshire and Sussex would be busting a gut to get selected for their composite side.
The EPL still has the scope to be successful, of course. There will be no competing cricket anywhere in the world, while the public's hunger for Twenty20 shows no sign of abating. We await the finer details of the re-structuring of the domestic programme with interest.
Only when the full 2010 programme is laid out as a series of fixtures involving the County Championship and the 50-over competition will we be able to gauge the real impact these changes are likely to have.
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Comments
Nick Richards says...
I really think they've missed a trick here. With the option of city franchises they really had the chance to do something revolutionary (in this country) and exciting that would have gotten the interest of the whole of the UK (and a lot of the international) sporting public - taking cricket onto another level. Instead we've ended up with what comes across as just another hum-drum 20/20 tournament, with a couple of foreign teams bunged in. I'll still watch a fair bit of this EPL but won't be able to escape the feeling that it could have been so much more.
Posted 11:31 22nd July 2008
Dr. asim Safdar says...
I agree we needed to have less teams. 5 international players in 9 teams would have been much more mouth-watering and we could have paid the best to come here too. There still would be over 50 England-eligible players to play and if that was not enough then what is?? Rememeber the half-full Lord's for some Middlesex games? We dont have an appetite for dull cricket.. we want to see that stars turn it on!
Posted 11:06 21st July 2008
Dr asim Safdar says...
I must say I agree city franchises would have been a mouth-watering prospect. Already there are too many teams in the county Twenty20 to follow what is happening. (Note the barely half full Lords for some Middlesex games in cold July). It would have been much easier to follow things with less teams and more international quality to watch. With six England-eligible players in each team that would make 54 players in a tournament of 9 teams. If that was not enough to make England better, then what is?? With too many teams, the weather will also have a chance of affecting the outcomes much more.
Posted 11:02 21st July 2008
Dr asim Safdar says...
I must say I agree city franchises would have been a mouth-watering prospect. Already there are too many teams in the county Twenty20 to follow what is happening. (Note the barely half full Lords for some Middlesex games in cold July). It would have been much easier to follow things with less teams and more international quality to watch. With six England-eligible players in each team that would make 54 players in a tournament of 9 teams. If that was not enough to make England better, then what is?? With too many teams, the weather will also have a chance of affecting the outcomes much more.
Posted 11:02 21st July 2008
Hari Ramadin says...
"Broadcasters in Asia are interested in county sides" Dead right! Here in India we like to see county emblems,player stats-card, green small county grounds, the style of commentry, the crowds holding up banners of 4s & 6s, we like to see the history we don't have in our IPL. We would like to see two groups of Northern & Southern teams fight it out. Anything which reads like an old script (explained to us) captures our imagination. Nothing turns us more than when the underdog turns the heat on & that should be easy enough to script. We shall gladly watch your league.
Posted 09:35 18th July 2008
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