For the good of the game: A modest proposal for the EPL

Doubles and indeed trebles all round as the ECB and the counties finally agree a form for the inaugural English Premier League Twenty20 competition although why they have to wait until 2010 is anyone’s guess.

Just one question: Won’t everyone have got bored and be demanding a shorter form of the game then?

Ladies and gentlemen we give you World of Spurt’s Five5! (Copyright World of Spurt 2008)

Still timely it might not be, but at last it’s a rival and a counter balance to the morale sapping power of the IPL. So for these small mercies we should at least be grateful.

But if the ECB are serious about using Twenty20 as a shop window to publicise cricket, attract young athletes into it and naturally making it a gateway to the ultimate form of the game Test cricket and not just about making it a rampant cash-in, here’s two modest proposals that they can adopt from day one to prove they have the best interests of the game at heart:

1. Make it compulsory for each team to field a minimum number (say four) of English qualified players under the age of say 24 to blood young talent amongst the established stars and prove that cricket is a career every bit as exciting and financially rewarding as football.

2. Guarantee to sell the TV rights to a terrestrial broadcaster to maximise exposure and audiences for this most exciting and TV-friendly form of the game.

You’ve already sold cricket’s soul to the highest bidder by taking Tests off terrestrial TV following that memorable Ashes 2005 series.

Now redress the balance by committing to do some good for a change, don’t just flog it to Sky or Sentanta because they bid the most cash.

So do the right thing. The eyes of English cricket lovers everywhere are upon you.

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.

The Emperor’s new clothes

Hats and indeed all clothes off to Premier League Chairman Sir Dave Richards who caught off guard no doubt, finally answered the unanswerable in The Guardian about whether the number of foreign players in the top flight had damaged the prospects of the national side.

A resounding ‘yes’ from honest Sir Dave who finally acknowledged the great Premier League hairy mammoth in the room while simultaneously admitting that this fact had probably cost Steve McLaren his job.

So let’s at least there’s an up side, yeah?

Still it’s made him about as popular as a shit on a stick for breaking ranks and saying the unsayable. What no-one tells you about the little boy who spoke up about the emperor’s new clothes: he got a damn good slapping for his trouble.

However there’s breaking and rather intriguing news from the European Commission who’ve taken the first tentative step on the long road to denying the influx of Kolpak players currently infesting the county championship and rugby union.

Clarifying the Cotonou agreement (a similar deal to Kolpak which applies to Caribbean, South African and Pacific Island states and citizens) EC Commissioner Michal Krejza has said: “It’s the decision of individual member states to admit Cotonou players, not that of the European Union.’

This could pave the way for the ECB to legitimately limit the number of Kolpak players who’ve doubled in the last twelve months.

Sometimes it’s the smallest of victories which give you hope.

The Twenny Twenny debate

So the English County Championship shivers into existence once again today and hoorah for that, but with the Indian Premier League also due to start on Friday and now casting a long and increasingly looming shadow, this could very well be the end of the current game as we know it.

Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. While we may have given the impression in the past that we considered the IPL a massive threat to the game with headlines like The Indian Premier League ...of Evil and satiric slogans such as 'one in the nuts for cricket', our primary spurting concern was more for the hallowed sanctity of the Test arena, which all must acknowledge as the ultimate form of the game.

We also predicted money would eventually talk and it seems it has, with both the ECB and England skipper Michael Vaughan bowing to what seems like the inevitable and conceding that England players will eventually play in the IPL. However the IPL chairman, IS Bindra, to his credit, has made an attempt at rapprochement and it seems a compromise in the grand tradition is on the cards.

Twenty20 is certainly the future, in terms of crowds, revenue, convenience for TV and it has to be said sheer excitement, but boards, players and cricket lovers (arguably the true custodians of the game) around the world just have to ensure that 'TwennyTwenny' and Test cricket can co-exist without the former ever damaging the integrity of the latter.

That could lead to the brightest future of all.

The Indian Premier League ...of evil

And so it begins... and what a difference a month makes. Was it just over one short rotation of the moon ago that Kevin Pietersen, our very own KP, him with the three lions tattooed on his shoulder, was loudly declaring to the Torygraph that he wouldn’t jeopardise his England future by signing up for the Indian Premier League?


Headlines like ‘KP rejects IPL’ and quotes like "...It's not something I'm particularly interested in ...Money's not really too important, it's not as if I need money right now. I'm really enjoying doing what I'm doing," would seem to have ruled KP out of any future IPL equation. It was heartening to see one of England’s premier stars publicly forsake the easy cash and make a stand on principle.

However clearly a month is a long time in cricket and talking to The Times via Sporting Life, KP has had a radical change of heart now insisting, “It's definitely something that the hierarchy needs to fix into our fixtures ...You want your best players playing for their country and for the IPL. You don't want them choosing between the two. It's silly to think that you're losing up to a million [dollars] over six weeks.”

Not as silly as playing in a meaningless Twenty20 thrash for a ton o’ cash, weeks before a vital home Ashes series though apparently.

Sometimes these things just write themselves.

Elsewhere in the world of cricket, former England quickie Andrew Caddick has declared erratic, misfiring spearhead erm lethal long levered assassin (oh, we give up delete as appropriate) Steve ‘the Harminator’ Harmison not fit for purpose. Ouch, saucer of milk down Taunton way please!

Pay Days

More trouble at t' mill today as the Indian Greed Premier League gears up to make a land grab on the last country to hold out against the Twenty20 money fest, our dear beloved old Enger-land.

Following New Zealand’s capitulation t’other day, hope was springing eternal after there was a strong line offered by ECB chairman Giles Clarke, who said that England wouldn’t change its domestic first class calendar to accommodate the Indian League. So there!

Strong words indeed, but of course money roars and today the Professional Cricket Association’s Sean Morris said that England players would want to join in the cash dash and a solution should be found or ‘money will talk.’

Undoubtedly it will it always does and with IPL chairman Lalit Modi recently hinting that the IPL would shift its season forward so that the England players could be accommodated into this essentially meaningless license-to-print money league.

It’s going to be hard for players to resist the lure of an easy Twenty20 slogfest rather than grafting away at the gruelling round of Test and ODIs and it’ll only take the likes of a Harmison to sign up before other players think ‘screw that I’m up for some easy money’.

Not so bad perhaps if it's a old pro like Stephen Fleming or Shane Warne looking to cash in at the end of their career, but what about a young gun like Stuart Broad just starting out for example?

So sad to see the traditions and foundations of cricket slowly being eroded by a format which was not long ago being hailed as its saviour.

Road to Recovery

And just like that, we’re back. Yup apologies for the break in transmission, nope we weren’t lying low to avoid Sports Council sponsored hitmen, or dodging sordid tabloid spurting revelations - and rumours that we had anything to do with organising that latest rumble in Tibet (Chinese Military 30 – unarmed Tibetan protestors 0) are absolutely wide of the mark.

Nope unfortunately the truth was - like England’s top order batsman - a touch more prosaic. It was the flu wot done it and as were lying stretched, feverish and sweaty and labouring under the influenza cosh, we could have sworn we saw England triumph in the cricket, the rugby and the Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton took the chequered flag in Aussie land.

What’s that? Feverish hallucination? None of that actually happened? Nope? Must have been the delirium then...

Still, great news greets us on our return to what laughingly passes for sanity around these parts with news that Cricket has struck back against the evil monetary empire of the Indian Premier League with home boards now able to veto any individual player’s involvement in the IPL.

Awesome news and a real dose of much needed bulwark against the fairly pointless cash cow which was threatening the integrity of our beloved and most holy Test cricket.

It’s just what the doctor ordered.

The Cash dash...

It’s just as well there was a decent weekend of FA Cup action, as for England fans there was nothing to sup on but the bitter pint of despair and the soggy crisps of humiliation as we were respectively tonked by the Kiwis at Cricket and hammered by the Scots at Rugger.

So moving swiftly on, we’ll gloss over those which is readily covered by the old standby, ‘It’s England, what else do you seriously expect?’.

But the other big issue exercising us at the moment is the Indian Premier League and last week’s announcement that anyone playing for its rival the Indian Cricket League in future will be banned from all cricketing activity .

So donning our big sports punditry hat of seriousness we’d like to consider what this means for the game. First up let’s dispense with any coyness, this is simply about making the Indian board an even bigger pile of cash than it currently squats on, by some estimates the IPL will earn the BCCI $1 billion dollars.

When Zee Telefims threatened to break their cricketing monopoly, the BCCI quickly knocked up their own competition, the ICL, which is so awash with wedge that it threatens to disrupt the entire international schedule (which is already stretched to breaking), as well as sucking out the leading players into an essentially meaningless though extremely lucrative knockabout.

What’s even more depressing is the way the BCCI has used its financial muscle to bully the rest of the ICC (the ECB included) into forcing players to boycott the ICL for fear of not being allowed to play in their own domestic game. Restraint of trade anyone? Someone, probably England or the Aussies should have called their bluff, instead of meekly bending over.

When Twenty20 was introduced it was touted as a real saviour for the world game, but we seriously doubt this is what anyone had in mind.

Indian Premier League – the spoon of shame

And there’s just time for a quick word on the exciting India Premier League, the hip new Twenty20 tournament taking shape in the financial powerhouse ™ of the current cricketing world.

Interesting idea and will no doubt make a shedload of money but the way the IPL is handling the formation of the teams is intriguing. For those not in the know, there’s a central pool of top cricketing talent from Australia, Pakistan, SAF and West Indies etc. and each team can sign up to eight non-Indian players via a round by round bidding process.

Does this remind anyone else of picking teams in the school playground and the burny-cheeked humiliation of being picked only one ahead of the solitary girl who’s playing? Fortunately there’s no England players involved this year, but Bangladesh’s Mohammad Ashraful and Mashrafe Mortaza we're looking at you to duke it out for the wooden spoon of shame.