Starts in two days. Do any of the usual suspects care?
Andy Bull, who has taken over the Guardian's "The Spin" email from Laurence Booth, had what I thought was a good take on why it is worth paying at least a little bit of attention in this morning's edition.
TIME FOR THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE HOOPLA
India's victory in the inaugural Twenty20 world cup back in 2007 sent ripples through cricket. Over the last two years the swell has grown, the ripples have gathered speed and strength. And while you may not know it from reading the English newspapers, there is a very real sense that, as a better man than me once wrote, if you look with the right kind of eyes, this is the high-water mark - the place where the wave broke and rolled back.
The Champions League starts in just two days' time, when Royal Challengers Bangalore play the Nashua Cape Cobras. In England, where
the tournament is being shown only on Eurosport, the hype and hoopla has been muted. The temptation is to see it as just another tinpot trophy. But, if it works, the competition could change the shape of international cricket altogether.
For the first time, club cricket is going to emerge as a serious rival to international cricket. A rival for the attention of the fans, the time of the players, and the money of the sponsors. The jackpot for winning the 2007 world cup was $2.24m. The winner of the Champions League will walk away with $2.5m. By football's standards that is small change. But in club cricket it's a fortune. It is over three times what Durham received for taking the county championship title this year (and over 15 times what they won the year before that).
More tellingly still, it is three times more than Surrey's entire pre-tax profit in 2008, and six times that of Yorkshire.
If Sussex can play well over the next three weeks, this may turn out to be the most profitable year in their history, despite the fact that they have just been relegated from the first division of the county championship for the first time. All they need to do is win
five games of Twenty20 - fewer than 200 overs of cricket. With that kind of financial incentive qualifying for the Champions League is going to become the top priority for every eligible team.
The injection of such a significant lump of cash into a single club would have interesting ramifications for the entire county championship - as it would for domestic leagues in each of the seven
competing nations, with the exception of India. The disparity in operating budgets between the top Twenty20 teams and the others will become vast.
If the same teams keep winning, could that gap become unbridgeable - just as it has in Premier League football? Would those top teams
become less dependent on the national boards for their revenue, and therefore have more of a say over the international availability of
their players? Could the money in fact level out the existing differences in revenue between the clubs that host international
cricket and those that don't?
Wrapped up inside all this is another conundrum, neatly exemplified by Dirk Nannes. He took 12 wickets at an average of just 13 apiece in the KFC Big Bash for Victoria this year. This Friday however, he will be opening the bowling against Victoria, his own State side, for the Delhi Daredevils. Both teams have contracts with Nannes, but Delhi made sure to stipulate that, in the event of a clash, he would have to play for them. Understandably, Nannes team-mates are just a little unhappy about the prospect of lining up against their own star bowler as they compete for a $2.5m jackpot. More murkily still, the Champions League rules state that in the event of a conflict like this one, Delhi have to pay GBP124,097 in compensation to Victoria.
As Darren Berry, team manager for the Rajasthan Royals, put it in a recent article for the Melbourne Age: "I'm assured by the Victorian hierarchy that it would prefer Nannes was with the team. They insisted they had no comeback once Nannes had signed his Delhi contract. Why then did they allow him to sign without the right to veto? Do they have that right? What are the rules and regulations that bind a player to compete against his home state?"
This situation is being replicated across the cricketing world. Farveez Maharoof had to choose between Wayamaba and Delhi, Brendon
McCullum could have played for either Otago or New South Wales, Herschelle Gibbs for the Deccan Chargers or the Cape Cobras.
On Sunday Kevin Pietersen was telling the world that in the future "central contracts are not necessarily going to be things people are going to look forward to", and only this morning Dwayne Bravo has said if he has to chose between a WICB contract and going freelance he "would have to see what money is on offer, and what other offers come along".
Players have a multiplicity of potential employers. Demand for their services is at an all-time high. Suddenly playing in a five-match ODI series in New Zealand, or a two-Test tour of Bangladesh, doesn't look such a tempting option for the stars, let alone seem a worthwhile ambition for talented younger players.
Watch very carefully over the next three weeks. If you like Twenty20 the cricket is likely to be enthrallingly entertaining, and beyond the jamboree, if you look hard enough, you may just see the point where the wave broke and the game changed for good.
Andy Bull, who has taken over the Guardian's "The Spin" email from Laurence Booth, had what I thought was a good take on why it is worth paying at least a little bit of attention in this morning's edition.
TIME FOR THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE HOOPLA
India's victory in the inaugural Twenty20 world cup back in 2007 sent ripples through cricket. Over the last two years the swell has grown, the ripples have gathered speed and strength. And while you may not know it from reading the English newspapers, there is a very real sense that, as a better man than me once wrote, if you look with the right kind of eyes, this is the high-water mark - the place where the wave broke and rolled back.
The Champions League starts in just two days' time, when Royal Challengers Bangalore play the Nashua Cape Cobras. In England, where
the tournament is being shown only on Eurosport, the hype and hoopla has been muted. The temptation is to see it as just another tinpot trophy. But, if it works, the competition could change the shape of international cricket altogether.
For the first time, club cricket is going to emerge as a serious rival to international cricket. A rival for the attention of the fans, the time of the players, and the money of the sponsors. The jackpot for winning the 2007 world cup was $2.24m. The winner of the Champions League will walk away with $2.5m. By football's standards that is small change. But in club cricket it's a fortune. It is over three times what Durham received for taking the county championship title this year (and over 15 times what they won the year before that).
More tellingly still, it is three times more than Surrey's entire pre-tax profit in 2008, and six times that of Yorkshire.
If Sussex can play well over the next three weeks, this may turn out to be the most profitable year in their history, despite the fact that they have just been relegated from the first division of the county championship for the first time. All they need to do is win
five games of Twenty20 - fewer than 200 overs of cricket. With that kind of financial incentive qualifying for the Champions League is going to become the top priority for every eligible team.
The injection of such a significant lump of cash into a single club would have interesting ramifications for the entire county championship - as it would for domestic leagues in each of the seven
competing nations, with the exception of India. The disparity in operating budgets between the top Twenty20 teams and the others will become vast.
If the same teams keep winning, could that gap become unbridgeable - just as it has in Premier League football? Would those top teams
become less dependent on the national boards for their revenue, and therefore have more of a say over the international availability of
their players? Could the money in fact level out the existing differences in revenue between the clubs that host international
cricket and those that don't?
Wrapped up inside all this is another conundrum, neatly exemplified by Dirk Nannes. He took 12 wickets at an average of just 13 apiece in the KFC Big Bash for Victoria this year. This Friday however, he will be opening the bowling against Victoria, his own State side, for the Delhi Daredevils. Both teams have contracts with Nannes, but Delhi made sure to stipulate that, in the event of a clash, he would have to play for them. Understandably, Nannes team-mates are just a little unhappy about the prospect of lining up against their own star bowler as they compete for a $2.5m jackpot. More murkily still, the Champions League rules state that in the event of a conflict like this one, Delhi have to pay GBP124,097 in compensation to Victoria.
As Darren Berry, team manager for the Rajasthan Royals, put it in a recent article for the Melbourne Age: "I'm assured by the Victorian hierarchy that it would prefer Nannes was with the team. They insisted they had no comeback once Nannes had signed his Delhi contract. Why then did they allow him to sign without the right to veto? Do they have that right? What are the rules and regulations that bind a player to compete against his home state?"
This situation is being replicated across the cricketing world. Farveez Maharoof had to choose between Wayamaba and Delhi, Brendon
McCullum could have played for either Otago or New South Wales, Herschelle Gibbs for the Deccan Chargers or the Cape Cobras.
On Sunday Kevin Pietersen was telling the world that in the future "central contracts are not necessarily going to be things people are going to look forward to", and only this morning Dwayne Bravo has said if he has to chose between a WICB contract and going freelance he "would have to see what money is on offer, and what other offers come along".
Players have a multiplicity of potential employers. Demand for their services is at an all-time high. Suddenly playing in a five-match ODI series in New Zealand, or a two-Test tour of Bangladesh, doesn't look such a tempting option for the stars, let alone seem a worthwhile ambition for talented younger players.
Watch very carefully over the next three weeks. If you like Twenty20 the cricket is likely to be enthrallingly entertaining, and beyond the jamboree, if you look hard enough, you may just see the point where the wave broke and the game changed for good.
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