International sport is naturally given to the creation of winners and losers, heroes and villains and, more often than not, a nailbiting helping of human drama.
But in 2008, the cricketing world dominated almost as many front pages as it did sports sections. Indeed, it may be remembered as the year when off-field considerations – the political intrigue behind the rival Twenty20 leagues, the multi-million dollar Stanford circus, England’s withdrawal – and ultimate return – to a terror-torn India – left the business of mere runs and wickets somewhat in the shade.
That is not to say that spectators have been denied their fair share of thrills and spills in the middle.
Brendon McCullum’s genre-defining 158 not out in the inaugural match of the Indian Premier League, the dazzling arrival of Sri Lanka’s new mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis and two gargantuan fourth-innings chases in December, will all live long in the collective memory.
Add to that the hint of a new world order – all-conquering Australia now looking vulnerable, India and South Africa doing battle for the title of Test cricket’s best pace attack, England readying themselves for an Ashes summer under the Hollywood leadership of Kevin Pietersen – and 2008 may also be seen as the beginning of something exciting on the pitch.
Much of that enthusiasm, though, could have been extinguished by some of the non-cricketing realities of the modern world.
The cancellation of the maiden Twenty20 Champions League was a regrettable consequence of the horrendous attacks on Mumbai. But had England decided to remain at home instead of fulfilling their two-Test commitment in India, it could have cast a shadow over the mid-term future of the sport in its current form.
Such statements may seem reactionary, but the resolve on all sides to stand as one against the atrocities in November and proceed in contesting the matches – albeit with a suitably revised schedule and security detail – could prove an important precedent for the sport.
With gruesome television images fresh in their mind, few could have genuinely blamed the players from either side had they opted to stay out of the public arena at a time of potential turmoil.
Instead the squads banded together to ensure the Tests would go ahead.
Not only did the parties, both players and powerbrokers, embrace the chance to unite those terrorism had sought to disrupt, they also set forth a model for the continuation of cross-continental tours in even the harshest of circumstances.
Had safety fears been allowed to wreak havoc on international touring schedules, how far would the shockwaves have been felt? India’s subsequent decision not to tour Pakistan in January was because of circumstances more rife with more historical concerns and potential antagonism. Had England opted for a similar stance it could have the start of a slippery slope.
Would Australia’s slated tour to India next year have come under closer scrutiny? Would Ricky Ponting and co have welcomed playing in an environment deemed unsafe for their English counterparts?
If not, then what likelihood New Zealand fulfilling their own trip in 2010?
Admittedly, such a domino effect is not a certainty, but it is far from an impossibility that India could have briefly become a pariah. From there it is only a short step to looking with deeper suspicion at the instability in Pakistan and pondering the long-range prospects of any side touring there.
But, of course, no venue or host nation can ever be given a 100 per cent guarantee of safety. At the time of the 2005 underground attacks on London, Australia were touring England and the sides played at Lord’s just weeks later.
That series, of course, went on to become one of the most famous in living memory. The lessons to be learned from that – and from England’s recent experiences in India – are that sportsmen can do more than entertain the masses. They can help rebuild the morale and confidence of a nation.
Such a resolution, though, would not have been possible without the offer of Abu Dhabi as a luxury holding pen for England’s tourists.
That England coach Peter Moores was able to present his side with a training camp that offered security, top-range facilities and the offer of a neutral Test venue should no satisfactory agreement be reached, was critical in getting the tour back on its feet.
Abu Dhabi has already stepped in to host a one-day series between Pakistan and the West Indies and, after their offer to act as a neutral venue for the Pakistan-India series was overlooked, is also ready to lay out the welcome mat for India and England early next year.
It is, therefore, an increasingly active and relevant member of the international cricketing community. Indeed, the readiness of the emirate’s administrators to act as surrogate host may become a trump card for the ICC as they strive to keep their Future Tours Programme on track.
Cricket Australia’s decision not to travel to Pakistan in March was understandable given escalating violence in the region at the time, but the result is that Pakistan will end 2008 having not played any Test cricket. That is something which cannot be allowed to happen again; Test cricket is too small a family already.
It is also why the Pakistan Cricket Board were open to the forthcoming India Tests being relocated rather than rearranged. With both the Champions Trophy and the Champions League tournaments falling foul of extremism this year, there appears to be a chance for the likes of Abu Dhabi and Sharjah to bid for higher-profile tournaments and become a valuable stakeholder in the game.
There have, though, been other talking points in 2008, starting with Sir Allen Stanford’s attempts to buy his way into cricket’s inner circle with a money-mad Super Series between England and a West Indian select XI
The initial signs were good. Stanford ensured the headlines with his outlandish $20million (Dh73m), winner-takes-all concept, while a host of modern greats, including Ian Botham, Viv Richards and Desmond Haynes, lent the launch genuine cricketing legitimacy.
Ultimately that was eroded by a host of organisational errors, a pitch which was not fit for purpose, an unseemly sponsorship row, and the much-hyped final turning out to be a damp squib as England’s lions were tamed without a hint of a roar.
There was more excitement to be had in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, where India ended a seven-year itch to follow up their famous 2001 series win against Australia with an odds-defying 2-0 victory.
And what a victory. Like VVS Laxman in 2001, Gautam Gambhir took the chance to announce himself as a batsman of true pedigree against the world’s number one team, Amit Mishra spun his way to 11 wickets in his first three Tests and the Zaheer Khan-Ishant Sharma new-ball pairing proved itself as the most hostile in world cricket.
The whole series, the Baggy Greens’ first defeat by more than one Test since 1988-89, had the feeling of a changing of the guard.
Elsewhere, New Zealand and England also lost captains – Stephen Fleming to retirement and Michael Vaughan to a crippling lack of form. Both men enjoyed lengthy stints at the helm and the cricketing fraternity was a better place for the tactical nous and steely determination they brought to the crease.
Also in 2008, unsuspecting batsmen were introduced to a new mystery delivery in Mendis’ flicked ‘Carrom ball’ – the most talked about part of an armoury that could yet provide some relief to Sri Lanka when the long-dreaded day of Muttiah Muralitharan’s retirement finally comes.
Add to that two staggering run chases at the end of the year - South Africa hunting down 414-4 to defeat Australia and Tendulkar guiding India to a winning total of 387 for four against England - and there was plenty of quality cricket.
While security concerns threaten cricket’s long-established venues, new ones rise up in their place. While Australia begin to feel more keenly than ever the passing of their golden generation, so the likes of India gain strength from new sources.
In cricket, as in life, everything changes, but everything also stays the same.
A year ago The Observer ran a ground-breaking four-part series on globalisation in sport. National boundaries could not restrain expansion, we predicted, and developments over the next few years would be more important than anything since spectator sport first took off 150 years ago. Many were horrified by the radical ideas put forward by some of the most influential voices in sport and business. But change is coming, as you can see simply by looking at this list of some of the biggest stories since we published ’21st Century Sport’
‘The 39th game’
As we predicted, European club football would try to widen its horizons to other continents. The Premier League stunned football people the world over by announcing (after an embarrassing leak in February) plans for a round of competitive games in suitable cities around the world. It was, said the League’s chief executive, Richard Scudamore, ‘an evolutionary step, an idea whose time has come’.
Supporters’ organisations said it took English football ‘into the realms of farce’. Fifa’s Sepp Blatter called it ‘a joke at the end of the carnival season’.
The success or failure of the ‘international round’ as the League call it, hinges on its appeal to fans across Asia. When Mohammed Bin Hammam, president of the Asian Football Confederation, said, ‘It is my belief that it is not a good idea to organise domestic leagues in other territories,’ the plans looked dead in the water. But eight months later, Bin Hammam was schmoozing with the Premier League in London, saying he had warmed to the idea and was willing to listen and advise on a way forward. Others have come out in favour. Francisco Roca Perez, head of Spain’s La Liga, thought it was ‘a great idea, it seemed quite natural’, as did the Bundesliga’s head of marketing, Tom Bender, who said: ‘It’s a great idea. It was just badly presented.’
We haven’t heard the last of international expansion, even if the 39th game, an extra round of matches, is unlikely. And don’t be surprised if the Germans or the Spanish come up with something similar. After all, the Bundesliga gave Bayern Munich special dispensation to play a friendly during their season last May – in India. They were the first big European club to play there.
Other football news •The European Championship is to expand from 16 to 24 finalists from 2016. •Europe’s top clubs form a new body to promote their case with Uefa and Fifa. • Barcelona bid to buy a Miami MLS team. • Uefa do a three-year deal to show Champions League games on terrestrial TV in China, available in 350m homes.
Twenty20: Auctions, helicopters and India’s big win
In September 2007, India’s victory over Pakistan in the final of the first World Twenty20, played in Johannesburg, drew a worldwide TV audience of more than 400 million. India had caught the Twenty20 bug and this was the catalyst for the Indian Premier League, launched last spring. The IPL has changed world cricket for ever.
‘Cricket is a religion in our country,’ said Lalit Modi, who dreamed up the IPL with a senior executive from IMG, the sports marketing group. Modi sold the TV rights, for a league in which not a ball had been bowled, for $1.026bn. He lured India’s richest men and Bollywood’s A-list to the IPL player auction, one of the strangest events of the year. Franchise owners spent $35m in eight hours of bidding. The first tournament ended in June, but its aftershocks are still being felt as cricket governing bodies around the world race to create new properties to take to market. The second World Twenty20 is in England next June and the unloved ICC Champions Trophy will become another 20-over competition in the West Indies in 2010.
ESPN Star, the Asian pay-TV broadcaster, paid nearly $1bn for rights to the Twenty20 Champions League, a new competition for first-class sides rather than countries, though that has been postponed because of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Most of the money goes to India, Australia and South Africa, with England picking up scraps. The deal puts further pressure on English cricket. The Indians have the economic power – and they are using it – to change the cricket calendar.
England will almost certainly have to move or give up their May Test matches, releasing their best players to the IPL, and have pinned all their Twenty20 hopes on a new domestic competition (due in 2010) and their deal with the Texan billionaire, Sir Allen Stanford, to play T20 in Antigua. There was outrage when Stanford promoted that five-year deal by landing a helicopter at Lord’s and showing off $20m in $50 bills in a Perspex box – an event that matched the IPL auction for novelty value. Money talks. The biggest winners are India and all the players who get IPL contracts. To many cricket followers the biggest loser is the game itself, with Test cricket under threat.
Plus • Half of England’s players say they would retire from international cricket if it was the only way of clearing the way to play in the IPL. • The ECB talk of hosting ‘foreign’ Test matches at Lord’s. Pakistan and Australia have both discussed the idea.• Pakistan move all home one-day games to Dubai for three years from 2009.
Rugby union
• The Bledisloe Cup between Australia and New Zealand is played outside those two countries for the first time – in Hong Kong. There are plans to stage the next two in Denver, Colorado, and Japan. • The International Rugby Board announce plans to bring Argentina into the Tri (soon Quad) Nations, and to have a Japanese team in the Super 14 . • The IRB also talk of taking the World Cup to ‘new, developing markets’ and will announce the 2015 and 2019 venues in 2009
Golf
•All change at the European Tour, with a new end-of-season finale in Dubai. Prize money is so high that several US stars join the European Tour, which now has more events in the Gulf than in Britain (chk)•Governing bodies in the US and elsewhere campaign for golf to become an Olympic sport from 2016
The media
•International wire services suspend coverage of the Australia-New Zealand series, refusing to sign up to Cricket Australia’s stringent conditions regarding web content. A huge dispute looms: sports governing bodies are increasingly keen on charging the media if reports go online•ESPN, owned by Disney, announce their intent to bid against Sky for the next Premier League contract•ESPN also make big investments online, buying up the biggest cricket and rugby websites, cricinfo and scrum• Indian cricket sells online rights to three companies for $50m over 10 years• Endemol, maker of Big Brother, sets up a sports unit ‘to create unique content across multiple platforms
AN international telephone hook-up on Friday is set to decide whether WA retains its chance to compete for millions of dollars in the Twenty20 Champions League.
The Warriors and Victoria had qualified as Australia’s two representatives for the tournament, which was meant to be played in India now.
The winner will get about $5 million, with the majority of that to be split between the players.
The competition represents a golden opportunity for state cricketers to show their wares on a world stage, and possibly push for a lucrative Indian Premier League contract in the future.
But the Champions League was postponed for the second time after last month’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, one of the host cities.
With its fate since shrouded in mystery, a telephone hook-up between the three members of the Champions League governing council will attempt to determine what will happen with the 2008/09 edition.
The tournament is controlled by the national cricket authorities in India, Australia and South Africa.
WA fears that if the tournament does not go ahead this season it will be stripped of its right to compete.
The WACA has even offered to host matches in a rescheduled tournament, possibly in March, as part of a bid to ensure it holds onto its spot.
Cricket Australia spokesman Phillip Pope said the conference call “will establish exactly what opportunities will exist for rescheduling the competition in the 2008/09 season”.
“The next stage is to sit down and explore every available option,” he said.
“Obviously international cricket has a very tight schedule over the next six to eight months. Naturally there is a desire for the postponed competition to occur in the 08/09 season.
“That will mean everybody has to look extremely closely at the calendar.”
After three straight wins, India will seek to clinch the series by going for the kill in the fourth cricket one-dayer against England in Bangalore on Sunday with a batting line-up strengthened by the return of an in-form Sachin Tendulkar.
India need to win just one more match to wrap up the seven-match series and Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his bravehearts will be eager to maintain their winning sequence in the floodlit encounter at the Chinaswamy stadium.
The visitors, on the other hand, have been left with the daunting task of winning four matches in a row to clinch the series and it appears extremely unlkely that they would be able to stop the Indian juggernaut.
The return of Tendulkar has no doubt made the Indian batting line-up more formidable but it would also force the hosts to tinker with the batting order.
Tendulkar had been rested for the first three matches of the series after playing in all the four Tests against Australia and it remains to be seen whether he will open the innings with Virender Sehwag.
It will be a tough decision for the Indian team management as making Tendulkar open the innings would mean tinkering with the highly successful opening pair of Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.
In case Tendulkar opens, the left-handed Gambhir, who is in very good form, may come in to bat at the number three slot.
For Tendulkar, it will be his first one-dayer in eight months having played his last match against Australia in Brisbane in March this year.
The champion batsman gave glimpses of his vintage form in the recent Tests series against Australia and will be keen to make his presence felt after the short break.
The Indian selectors have also brought back paceman Irfan Pathan into the ODI squad but it appears unlikely that he would get a chance to play tomorrow with Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma and Munaf Patel having bowled well.
The form of Yuvraj Singh, who has cracked two centuries already, has been the heartening feature of the Indian batting line-up and the hard-hitting middle order batsman will have to fire again if the hosts want to clinch the series on Sunday itself.
It has been smooth sailing for the Men in Blue so far in the series but India can’t afford to relax and must guard against complacency.
On other hand, there is a lot at stake for the visitors, who need more than an inspirational performance to turn things around in the series.
England have a predominatly pace-oriented attack which has not made much of an impact on the slow tracks. They have now realised that an all-pace attack cannot do the trick and will have to include at least one specialist spinner in their playing eleven.
Captain Kevin Pietersen is likely to turn to off-spinner Graeme Swann to not only stem the run flow but also get the wickets of the Indian batsmen who are known to be good players of spin, particularly at home.
England’s batting has also been quite disappointing with none of the top order batsmen being able to get the big knocks. It’s a crunch time and there is no denying that it’s a make-or-break situation for the visitors.
Time has come for England’s bowlers to innovate, readjust quickly, bring some variations in the attack and get a spark or two to check the Indians who are in full flow.
The desperate and struggling tourists, hard-pressed as they were, would also look to stop their tormentor Yuvraj, whose batting and bowling have been a nightmare of a kind for them.
England can, however, take comfort from the fact that the third match at Kanpur was not a loss of face after two heavy defeats in the first two one-dayers.
They may feel that the team was done in by the Duckworth-Lewis system in Kanpur and may have robbed it of a win, but the fact remains that Dhoni’s men were also fancying their chances as it was an achievable target.
What would make things a bit more difficult is that unlike the first three matches, tomorrow’s fixture is a day-night affair and the Chinnaswamy Stadium promises to be a batting paradise.
“It’s a sportive wicket, which should assist the batsmen more than the bowlers. The ball will come on to the bat nicely although the first session might help some bowlers,” said pitch curator Narayan Raju.
Teams (from):
India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel, Virat Kohli, Pragyan Ojha, Irfan Patel.
England: Kevin Pieternsen (capt), Ian Bell, Matt Prior, Owais Shah, Paul Collingwood, Ravi Bopara, Andrew Flintoff, Samit Patel, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann.
Hours of play: 2 pm to 5.30 pm, 6.15 pm to 9.45 pm.
English cricketers wanting to play in the Indian Premier League next year may be asked to give away their central contracts by an adamant ECB, which has made it clear that international engagements are top priority.
England team Managing Director Hugh Morris has categorically stated that the England Cricket Board (ECB) can release the interested cricketers for only two weeks as scheduled Tests and ODI programmes cannot be altered. And those wanting to go for the full event may be asked to forego central contracts.
“We will be playing Test matches in the early part of May and clearly that will have an impact on the amount of time that players may or may not go to IPL.
“My understanding is that the ICC, IPL and the ECB have made it very clear from the word go that international cricket takes precedence over domestic tournaments and I think that will be the case. That’s the very clear message we get from ICC. I understand that is what IPL think as well,” Morris was quoted as saying by ‘The Daily Telegraph’.
English players are yet to sign this year’s central contracts with the ECB, but there is every possibility of a standoff between players and the Board.
“I think we’ve made it very clear that we are very happy for the players to have a window of opportunity for the players to play in the IPL,” said Morris.
“Last year at the IPL, the Australians were only there for 25 per cent of the time because they had a Test series in the West Indies,” he added.
As per IPL rules all cricketers participating in the Twenty20 tournament need a ‘No Objection Certificates’ from their respective boards.
The Twenty20 Champions League have commissioned world renowned French jeweller and luxury brand - Cartier, to sculpt Winners Trophy to be presented after final on December 10 in Mumbai.
The exquisitely hand-sculpted trophy designed exclusively for the December 3-10 tourney will measure 41 cm in height, with a diameter of 31 cm and weigh just over 7 kilos. The trophy will be unveiled next month, prior to the inaugural match of the League.
On the choice of the French brand for making the Trophy, Lalit Modi, Chairman of the Champions League, said “Cartier has created some truly exquisite and stunning works of art be it in jewellery design, watches and accessories, that have adorned Hollywood beauties and Royalty alike.
“It was then an obvious choice for us to commission Cartier for creating a truly distinct and exquisite work of art, one befitting the stature of crowning the Champion of Champions in domestic club cricket. I am certain that this trophy, will definitely take pride of place in the Trophy cabinet of any of the eight teams contesting the inaugural Champions League come December 10.”
Bernard Fornas, President and CEO Cartier International, said “C for Cartier, C for Cricket are two simple seven-letter words that encapsulate passion and a union between elegance and style. These adjectives also, in a nutshell, capture the very essence of the trophy’s design.”
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
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