Cover Points : Twenty20

Gamesmanship and luncheon

dcsiva — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:25:00 GMT

Clearly New Zealand were robbed of a victory against England in the recent ODI:

The New Zealanders were desperate to complete the 20th over, which would have allowed them to win under the Duckworth/Lewis regulations if they had scored seven further runs without losing a wicket.
But to the agony of Brendon McCullum, who was unbeaten on 60, the umpires decided that the conditions had deteriorated too severely and the game had to come to an end.

But was it because of the rain, the fixed length break between innings, or simply because England bowled at an astonishing rate of 13 overs an hour? The latter, surely? But the fix is in for the fixed length break only:

Umpires will now have the option of reducing it to a minimum of 10 minutes to try and ensure a result. ICC regulation 15.1 now reads: "The duration of the interval shall be agreed mutually by the umpires and both captains subject to no interval being of more than 30 minutes' duration or less than 10 minutes' duration.

Meanwhile, the BCCI is being generous enough to discuss the possibility of a Test Championship with the ICC, whilst also warning the English counties of the consequences of picking ICL players in the English Twenty20 league. And, on another note entirely, here's Q's great post on switch hitting.

Abolish the counties!

dcsiva — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:58:00 GMT

What would Twenty20 look like in the future in England? Cities, regions, or just plain old counties as it
is now? The last options seems entirely unworkable given the amount of money in the IPL and ICL. Is this, finally, the end of the counties' hold over English cricket? Q digs into the not-so-ancient history of Twenty20 cricket:

What I am going to delve into is what took place in Leicester, England in September 2005 - It was the International 20-20 Club Championship.

This was an idea that originated from Leicestershire with the backing of some Asian investors interested in cricket. The idea was to hold a 20-20 championship between the domestic 20-20 champions from around the world.

Will settles on regions as the best idea, because cities couldn't be inclusive enough:

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...

The BBC carries a story on splits within the counties on this question. AYALAC celebrates the climb-down from Giles Clarke.

And, lastly, those well known comedians in the Lok Sabha, pass the time discussing Twenty20:

And then came his questions, "Where are the funds coming from? Should cricket lose its nobility? Should gambling and betting be allowed in such an open manner."
The verbal jousting between the Speaker and Dasgupta went on for a couple of more minutes only to the delight of the House, with Chatterjee telling the CPI leader, "Afraid of you, the finance minister has fled." And as soon as Dasgupta had finished, finance minister P Chidambaram returned to his seat.
Dasgupta retaliated by saying, "I used to play cricket." The Speaker, however, had the last word, asking, "Why did you not continue?" The House had a good laugh before taking up the serious issue of the Finance Bill.

India win by spin; England struggles with Twenty20

dcsiva — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:03:00 GMT

India manage to win what was a close game in style. Mahesh tries to find a turning point:

After the game, I tried to look back at the turning point of the game. Was it Ganguly’s 87 in the first innings, the 46 runs India added for the last wicket or even Sehwag’s double strike of Kallis and Smith?

King Cricket argues subtly and accurately that in India batsmen face an extreme trial by spin:

Harbhajan Singh opened the bowling for India today, hinting that South Africa’s batsmen were to face an EXTREME TRIAL BY SPIN. South Africa pretty much failed their EXTREME TRIAL BY SPIN, getting bowled out for 121.

Mike Brearley, now head of the MCC, and author of the much admired (and read?) The Art of Captaincy gave a speech about liking the Twenty20 form of the game:

Clearly we have to embrace the fizz-buzz appeal of Twenty20 cricket, but how do we - by we I mean the ICC, ECB and other interested bodies - stop the tail wagging the tiger?

Perhaps this is the wrong question? It leads to a conclusion like this.

Of course, there could be far more sweeping changes to the structure of cricket, to its administration and to its priorities. If we were going to start from scratch, we wouldn't start from where we are at all. But we are where we are. We have county set-ups. Clearly the Indian tiger in the shape of the BCCI will have to be talked to; and listened to. Inconveniently, this tiger is not going to become extinct. The problem will not go away.

Meanwhile, Jamie Jackson interviews the folks on the business side of the equation:

Andrew Wildblood, the IMG executive who dreamed up the IPL with its commissioner, Lalit Modi, over a cup of tea at last year's Wimbledon, tells Observer Sport: 'Cricket like any "product" has to respond to changes in its consumers' demand and must innovate to protect its future. The authorities need to be at the forefront of this, as has clearly been the case in India. I believe that the ECB should at least consider something like a franchised, private ownership model, or creating new entities playing Twenty20. I think this can be done in a manner that is complementary to the existing structure and creates new value for existing stakeholders.