This week has been a rough one for the newest form of our most beloved game. It seemed like 2008 was the absolute defining moment for the T20 format. India won, appropriately, the first season of the IPL, the Stanford Millions competition in the West Indies, and, of course, the T20 World Cup. But 2009, and particularly the past week, has been a real test for the form known as ‘Hollywood Cricket’.
The man at the center of all this is American businessman Allan Stanford. In 2008, Stanford arrived at the home of cricket, Lords, with a basket full of money and quickly made friends.
His inaugural tournament, on a ground named after him in Antigua, saw a group of West Indian teams play the best county team in England and the England cricket team itself. From the get-go, the competition had the real feel of a farce. Why were West Indian players playing for a team called the Stanford Superstars? Why would a national team get involved in what was set up as a franchise competition? The answer was, of course, the mighty dollar…in fact, $20 million or so.
The first sign of trouble should have been that the game of cricket was being sold to a man who claimed to have no interest in the actual game. But the cash tied up the West Indians, and for some reason the Poms jumped right into bed with the jeans. Another sign of the problems with Stanford was the extraordinary footage of the billionaire frolicking with the wives of English players during a competitive match.
But still, while gamers made it clear that the situation was getting more and more awkward, the allure of the mighty T20 and the dollars that came with it were too much to turn down.
When news first broke last week that Stanford’s millions were largely based on fraud, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Suddenly, the egg on the face of cricket managers was so obvious that even they couldn’t ignore it. Much has been written about the incredible lengths to which the game will go to attract corporate funding. The T20 dairy cow was not previously questioned. Now, of course, the Stanford Millions will be cancelled, and reports suggest that many of the West Indies players had been convinced to invest their prize money in Stanford’s fraudulent business practices, so now they didn’t even have the dollars. to prove. .
Another blow to T20 is the growing range of players nominally pulling out of the next IPL tournament. Australian stars Mitchell Johnson and Michael Clarke have already reaffirmed their disinterest in the competition, and now Ricky Ponting, who was admittedly quite poor for the Kolkata Knight Riders, has retired. With the cricket schedule so packed, it will increasingly be a wake-up call for players juggling monetary and national interests. Indeed, speaking of juggling, what about the England cricket team, who found out about their upcoming riches after they were allowed to participate in the IPL, and were then knocked out for 51 by one of the weaker teams? in the world. Surely players are now seeing that perhaps the juggling act is getting harder. What seemed like easy money is now certainly something else.
T20 came incredibly fast. Sure he’s had a life at English county level for quite some time, but the fact that we had an international world cup and the franchise’s inaugural competition so soon after the game started is extraordinary. I wonder about the true longevity of the shorter game. The games are certainly exciting, but there is little room for subtlety or intrigue, players either break them and get a cap, or break them and get out. If one of the great arguments against the ODIs has been their uniformity, surely they only multiply in T20. For every ‘David Warner’ Moment, there is a myriad of relative equality. Crush… Six… Crush… Out.
As money dries up around the world, the only real incentive to play the game will also diminish. So far there are no real results for the unique international T20s as we have seen between Australia and South Africa and New Zealand this summer. These games are almost International Friendly as the main attraction of the game has been the IPL and its riches. But, like I said, if the dollars are running out or lost in fraudulent situations like Allan Stanford’s, then not only are admins going to have to think about the actual purpose of the game, but they’re also going to have to question their decision-making before they jump in. in bed with any enthusiastic businessman with money.