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February 28th, 2009 
admin Twenty20 was from the start about nothing if not money. Twenty20 money would pay players on an unprecedented scale, attract new fans, add glamour, beget more money, loosen the grip of football codes on hearts and minds, and refloat first-class and one-day cricket. It would save the cricket.
Perhaps it still will. But immediately it has more pressing concerns. Allen Stanford’s dazzling millions proved illusory, and he is about to become a ghost, either as a fugitive or behind a jailhouse wall. In his wake, English cricket has been left humiliated and the West Indies again made into beggars.
The next staging of the Indian Cricket League has been postponed — many of its players have not been paid and its future is in doubt. Partly, this is political. The ICL does not have the sanction of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, to whom all in world cricket now defer. A meeting involving the International Cricket Council in Dubai this week predictably resolved nothing other than to have another meeting.
In the meantime, some wonderful servants of the game who appeared in the ICL have been ostracised by their boards, including Australia’s, thus cutting off its nose to save face with the BCCI. And to think that we used to mock Indian obsequiousness.
The Indian Champions League — a tournament for provincial champions from around the world — was postponed after last year’s terrorists attacks in Mumbai and has neither a new timeslot, nor a sponsor. And the Southern Premier League, joining in combat city-based franchises from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa and due to launch in 2011, seems to have slipped off the agenda.
But the jewel in Twenty20′s self-bestowed crown is the Indian Premier League. Instantly fabulous in its inaugural staging last year, seemingly immune to global financial strains, its second edition, due to begin in less than six weeks, is likely to have lost much of its gloss.
Three franchises do not have sponsors, the league has lost one of its sponsors, worth more than $30 million, and according to reports had to renegotiate with another. New or replacement sponsors are proving hard to woo, though again they are being promised the earth.
Anecdotal reports told of how some team owners were disappointed with their international imports last year, not because of a lack of runs or wickets, but because they failed to spend enough time propitiating sponsors.
Twenty20 was from the start about nothing if not money. Twenty20 money would pay players on an unprecedented scale, attract new fans, add glamour, beget more money, loosen the grip of football codes on hearts and minds, and refloat first-class and one-day cricket. It would save the cricket.
Perhaps it still will. But immediately it has more pressing concerns. Allen Stanford’s dazzling millions proved illusory, and he is about to become a ghost, either as a fugitive or behind a jailhouse wall. In his wake, English cricket has been left humiliated and the West Indies again made into beggars.
The next staging of the Indian Cricket League has been postponed — many of its players have not been paid and its future is in doubt. Partly, this is political. The ICL does not have the sanction of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, to whom all in world cricket now defer. A meeting involving the International Cricket Council in Dubai this week predictably resolved nothing other than to have another meeting.
In the meantime, some wonderful servants of the game who appeared in the ICL have been ostracised by their boards, including Australia’s, thus cutting off its nose to save face with the BCCI. And to think that we used to mock Indian obsequiousness.
The Indian Champions League — a tournament for provincial champions from around the world — was postponed after last year’s terrorists attacks in Mumbai and has neither a new timeslot, nor a sponsor. And the Southern Premier League, joining in combat city-based franchises from Australia, New Zealand and South Africa and due to launch in 2011, seems to have slipped off the agenda.
But the jewel in Twenty20′s self-bestowed crown is the Indian Premier League. Instantly fabulous in its inaugural staging last year, seemingly immune to global financial strains, its second edition, due to begin in less than six weeks, is likely to have lost much of its gloss.
Three franchises do not have sponsors, the league has lost one of its sponsors, worth more than $30 million, and according to reports had to renegotiate with another. New or replacement sponsors are proving hard to woo, though again they are being promised the earth.
Anecdotal reports told of how some team owners were disappointed with their international imports last year, not because of a lack of runs or wickets, but because they failed to spend enough time propitiating sponsors.
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