Wellock's World
IPL changes the picture
IF you can't beat em ,
join'em. That looks like
being the ECB's response
to the Indian Premier
League, which starts today,
and it will be another brick
out of the wall which
separates cricket from the
dumbed-down world beyond
the boundary.
A Texan billionaire is
proposing to pump
megabucks into setting up a
western rival to the IPL, and
this has obvious attractions
to the ECB because it might
allow England players to
jump on the Twenty20 gravy
train without missing a
chunk of the English
season.
Otherwise the fear is they
will follow the lead of
Dimitri Mascarenhas, who
himself has followed his
predecessor as Hampshire
captain, Shane Warne, in
being seduced by the IPL
riches. It is extraordinary
that Hampshire, having lost
the unprincipled Warne in
this manner, should then
agree to his appointed
successor missing part of
the season.
The Indian Twenty20
jamborees have already
prompted some early
retirements from Test
cricket and doubtless
influenced Australia's
decision to pull out of a tour
to Pakistan, while several of
New Zealand's squad will
miss the first part of
their tour here.
The Texan, Allen
Stanford, has no
particular love of
cricket, although
from his base in
Antigua he
claims to be
passionate
about reviving the
game in the West
Indies and sees
Twenty20 as the way to
do it. Has he not seen the
reckless strokes the
Caribbean batsmen get out
to in Test matches as a
result of their over-exposure
to the one-day game?
HAMPSHIRE'S approval of
Mascarenhas' Indian jaunt
smacks of a contempt for
the traditional county game
from their high profile
chairman Rod Bransgrove,
whose main ambition of
achieving Test match status
for the Rose Bowl has
unfortunately been
realised.
As Cardiff is also to be a
Test venue, Durham must
be questioning why they are
continuing to develop their
magnificent ground if they
are going to be fobbed off
with one-day internationals
and the occasional Test
against Zimbabwe/
Bangladesh.
A further sop is that they
have been promised the
domestic Twenty20 finals
day in 2011, when we can
look forward to a
supporting act in the shape
of Atomic Kitten or the
Sugababes or the latest girl
band to roll off the Simon
Cowell production line.
Amazingly, with the game
in such a state of flux, many
other counties are planning
to spend millions on their
grounds. Gloucestershire
want to stage Tests at their
soulless Bristol
headquarters, and Essex
are to vacate Chelmsford for
the 2010 season to allow
total refurbishment.
Perhaps what the future
holds for Riverside is 20,000
lager louts watching floodlit
slogging, with the annual
Northern Proms concert
slotted in just to prove we
have retained some
semblance of civilisation.
As for proper cricket, we
dinosaurs will have only
our memories to live on.
THE world's troubles give us
all reason enough to turn
into Victor Meldrew, but I
was shocked that this
column recently provoked
such wrath in a reader he
claimed to be struggling to
find words to express the
level of his
anger.
Part of
the
raison d'etre of a column
such as this is to cause a
stir, but not to the extent of
raising blood pressure. So
while all contributions to
the new Hear All Sides
section in the sports pages
are very welcome, I have no
wish to send anyone into
apoplexy.
The reader concerned
accused me, among other
things, of ignorance, and his
wrath seemed to stem from
my suggestion that
Castleford Rugby League
Club's ground might have
been known as Coaldust
Lane prior to being
christened The Jungle.
To those who found that
patronising I apologise.
However, the gist of my
argument was that
Castleford had staged a
blatant publicity stunt in
offering a trial to Dwain
Chambers, which has since
been proved correct as the
trial has been cut short. It is
because I am well aware that
the club has a proud history,
steeped in local tradition,
that I am saddened that it
should demean itself
through such a cheap stunt.
We can now expect
Chambers to launch an
expensive court case in a bid
to get his Olympic ban
overturned. Either that or
he'll turn up as a tearaway
fast bowler in the Indian
Premier League.
THE US Masters provided
further disheartening
evidence that, for all their
talent, the current crop of
English golfers don't have
the bottle to win a major.
It's hard to take such a kick
in the teeth as Paul Casey
suffered early in the final
round when he took two to
get out of a bunker, but to
slump to a 79 suggested
something lacking in his
make-up.
The only one who didn't
suffer a bad round was Lee
Westwood, but after
following his opening 69
with the first of three
successive 73s he wasn't
really in contention. That
was a shame as he played as
well as anyone from tee to
green and it would have
been interesting to see how
his nerve would have held
up under real pressure.
8:59am Friday 18th April 2008
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