Interesting Times

Interesting times on the cricket field, but even more interesting ones off it as the old Chinese curse goes, with the Indian Premier League wreaking havoc even when it's not in session.

How you may ask? Well hot off the presses today comes news that Sri Lanka (state) president Mahinda Rajapakse has personally intervened to block Sri Lanka’s tour of England next summer after they had been lined up as replacements for politically tainted Zimbabwe only last week.

The reason? Well player power or cold hard cash as it’s more commonly know. The Sri Lankan players are apparently desperate not to miss out on the IPL jamboree as touring England would mean they’d only be available for 10 days for the giant IPL cash-in and so tapped up their country’s president to intervene.

Between the IPL and Sandford’s millions it really is troubling times for lovers of Test cricket, rightly considered to be the ultimate form of the game, but a form which is becoming increasingly marginalised outside of England.

Even in its close season, the IPL is capable of opening up not so much a can of worms, as a veritable box of snakes with its vulgar wealth. The Sri Lankan players need their board’s blessing to play in the IPL, the Sri Lankan board needs the money from the tour to fund Sri Lankan cricket and England need a seven-Test summer to fulfil their Sky TV contract.

And so we go around, but it raises the very real prospect that some of the game’s finest talents will retire from Test cricket to prolong their careers in an essentially meaningless Twenny Twenny thrash n’ bash (despite the supposed two-year retirement ban which frankly is about as flimsy as porn star's pyjamas).

Once upon a time, cricket lovers used to wish that there was both more money in the game to attract young talent and that a more attractive TV friendly form might be developed to spread the gospel of cricketing love.

Just goes to show, you should be careful what you wish for, sometimes you just might get it.