T20 offers way out of ECB’s TV crown jewels impasse

Children need to eat fruit, right? And they need heating. And houses. And shoes. Look, I’m no expert, but it seems to me they need masses of stuff. It would probably be cheaper to be a crack addict than a parent.

Yet the government has never insisted that Tesco give away oranges to children. Or npower give away electricity. So I’m not sure why they feel they can insist that the ECB effectively give away their most valuable assets ‘in the public interest’.

On the face of it, the decision to recommend home Ashes Tests return to free-to-air TV seems like good news. As Michael Vaughan made clear in his recent autobiography, it was the chance exposure to Test cricket on TV that inspired his love of the game. Many of us can identify with such experiences and there’s little doubt that the long-term future of cricket would be best served by allowing the greatest number of people access to it.

But life isn’t that simple. By preventing the ECB from selling TV rights to the game’s most lucrative series on the open market, the government would actually be jeopardising the game’s viability.

Sound hysterical? Well, the current TV rights deal is worth £300 million to the ECB over four years and, if ECB figures are to be taken at face value, they would expect revenues to fall by up to 50 per cent under the proposed new arrangement. Even conservative estimates suggest the figure would be in excess of 20 per cent.

What would the effect? Well, consider how the counties are funded. Or how their academies and development programmes are funded. Or where the money comes from to pay for many of cricket’s coaching initiatives and grass roots projects. It is, I’m afraid, largely earned from TV rights. Most pertinently, consider what would happen to all those counties who have just borrowed millions in order to fund ground redevelopment schemes. Any threat to their income could have catastrophic consequences. Whatever the long-term benefits of free-to-air cricket, the short-term costs make it almost impossible to bear.

Maybe the effects of free-to-air cricket are somewhat overstated, anyway. After all, the Grand National is shown free-to-view: has it ever made you saddle up a horse and point it in the direction of a hedge? Have years of exposure to the Boat Race had you building a raft and taking it round the Surrey Bend? 

Besides, I’m not convinced that some of the free-to-view channels deserve a helping hand. While Channel 4’s coverage was admirable, it’s worth remembering how they interrupted coverage to bring us horse racing and how they insisted that the start time of Tests were brought forward to accommodate Hollyoaks.

The BBC hardly deserve any favours, either. They already have the advantage of a £3 billion hand-out from license-fee payers, yet have failed to even bid for cricket packages of late. 

It would be nice to think that, if the government believe it’s so important that the nation sees cricket, then the government would pay for it. But even the most ardent cricket lover would surely have to admit that there’s no way the tax-payer should be paying for such things.

But perhaps there is another solution. Not only could a free-to-view highlights Test package be utilised better, but it’s possible that Sky could show some games free-to-view, perhaps on Sky 3.

In the long-term, however, the solution might be to forget the Ashes as the cornerstone of this debate. For the best part of 20 years, there was nothing more likely to put a youngster off cricket than watching England suffer another thrashing at the hands of Australia. Besides, selecting it as cricket’s only ‘crown jewels’ event perpetuates the myth that England-Australia is the only event that matters.

Instead, I’d offer domestic Twenty20 matches to a free-to-view audience. The format might offer more mass-market appeal anyway, while the brevity of games could be more appealing to broadcasters. Ideally I’d like to see an FA Cup style knock-out (incorporating the minor counties) almost given away to a free-to-view broadcaster. The long-term effects would surely counteract the relatively minor loss in income and increase support for the county game. And we wouldn’t have to wait until 2016 for it to happen.

Strauss misses Twenty20 squad

Chris Tremlett and Sajid Mahmood return to England colours in the 30-man T20 preliminary squad – while Test captain Andrew Strauss is ‘rested’.

In Strauss’ absence, the captain for the tournament will be named at a later date – though the inclusion of Strauss’ Middlesex colleague Shaun Udal, who skippered the county to the T20 Cup last year, is intriguing.

Alongside Hampshire skipper Dimitri Mascarenhas, Udal will be a prime candidate to lead the side.

At 40, Udal is the oldest member of the party – while Warwickshire seamer Chris Woakes, who only turned 20 in March, is the youngest.

Essex skipper James Foster finally returns as one of three keepers named in the party, while  Yorkshire seamer Tim Bresnan and  Worcestershire fast bowler Kabir Ali are also recalled for the first time since the disastrous ODI series with Sri Lanka in 2006.

New faces include Kent’s Joe Denly (alongside county skipper Rob Key) and Middlesex and Ireland’s Eoin Morgan (but not, as widely predicted, Dawid Malan).

Chairman of selectors Geoff Miller said: “Andrew Strauss had an outstanding tour of the West Indies during a difficult winter. Andrew and the selectors believe his game is better suited to Test and one-day international cricket and it is for that reason he has not been selected in the preliminary 30-man squad. Andrew is focused on the Test and ODI format of the game despite not being included in the 30-man Twenty20 squad.

“The selectors have decided against naming a captain for the ICC World Twenty20 at this stage because we feel it is important to comprehensively review the recent tour of the Caribbean and seek input from all relevant parties including the incoming England team director who is yet to be appointed. Once these processes have been achieved the selectors will name England’s Twenty20 captain in due course.”

Full squad Kabir Ali (Worcestershire); James Anderson (Lancashire); Gareth Batty (Worcestershire); Ian Bell (Warwickshire); Ravi Bopara (Essex); Timothy Bresnan (Yorkshire); Stuart Broad (Nottinghamshire); Paul Collingwood (Durham); Stephen Davies (Worcestershire); Joe Denly (Kent); James Foster (Essex); Andrew Flintoff (Lancashire); Stephen Harmison (Durham); Robert Key (Kent); Sajid Mahmood (Lancashire); Dimitri Mascarenhas (Hampshire); Eoin Morgan (Middlesex); Graham Napier (Essex); Samit Patel (Nottinghamshire); Kevin Pietersen (Hampshire); Liam Plunkett (Durham); Matthew Prior (Sussex); Adil Rashid (Yorkshire); Owais Shah (Middlesex); Ryan Sidebottom (Nottinghamshire); Graeme Swann (Nottinghamshire); Chris Tremlett (Hampshire); Shaun Udal (Middlesex); Chris Woakes (Warwickshire); Luke Wright (Sussex).

‘I’m a terrible Twenty20 player!’

From SPIN, October, 2007

SPIN: Are you expecting to get a hostile reaction when you walk out to bat in South Africa?
KP: I got a hostile reception when I walked out to bat in England yesterday [at an Edgbaston ground packed with India supporters] yesterday! It doesn’t faze me one bit. I don’t even think about it.

Will your knowledge of the local conditions an advantage?
Not really. International players travel round the world all the time now. They’ve all experienced the conditions. Besides, I’ve never played there in September. It’s a bizarre time to hold the tournament: it’s the start of their summer and the ball will move all over the place. Still, it’s the same for everyone. I love the country. It’s an awesome place.

England’s established players haven’t played much T20. Can you learn from the county specialists who have been drafted in?
They’ve more to learn from us. Playing international cricket is very different. There are completely different pressures. It’s much more intense.

How do you feel the format suits your game?
I’m a terrible Twenty20 player! I’ve not really taken to Twenty20; it’s not really my game. People think I’m suited to it because I’ll just go out and smash the ball straight away, but I’m at my best when I take 20 overs to build an innings. My best innings have all been like that. I prefer not to rush my game.

Looking at England’s ODI cricket, we’ve seen some real improvements since the World Cup, particularly with the fielding. What’s changed?
It was a long winter. I think maybe we were just out of energy. We were battered and battered by the Aussies and then battered by everyone else in the World Cup.
We knew things had to change. We knew we weren’t fulfilling our potential on a regular basis. We knew we had to be open and honest. We had to stop saying how good we are and start actually being good. We knew the fielding needed to improve. We needed regular runs from the batsmen and wickets from the opening bowlers.
Everyone has brought into it. Our performance in the field at Edgbaston was one of the best of any England team I’ve been involved in.
Colly has been chucked in the deep end as captain, but he’s doing really well. He’s fresh and he has a good approach. He’s similar to Vaughany in that he is very approachable and anyone can talk to him. I’m really conscious of helping ‘Colly’ out as much as I can. It’s a happy dressing room.

Colly seems to consult you a fair bit on the field…
I just try to help out as much as I can. I wouldn’t say I’m vice-captain or anything like that but Colly is heavily involved in the game, so he talks to me a lot and asks my opinions. Basically we just chuck a few things at each other like bowling changes and fielding positions. We read off a similar script.
We’re still a young team. The exciting thing is how much potential and talent the team has. We definitely went into the series against India as underdogs. They have three batsmen with 36,000 runs between them. None of us will get that amount in our whole careers between us. But I’ve said in a [team] meeting that if we fulfil our potential I don’t think anyone can beat us. We just need consistency to fulfil that potential.

How do you rate your own form?
It doesn’t matter how many runs I score: when we win I’m happy. I’ve scored so many runs for England in one-day cricket and we just keep losing and it’s just the worst thing ever. Personal performances don’t really bother me; they’re good for stats. But everyone wants to be in a winning dressing room. Anyway, I feel fine. I’ve scored quite a lot of runs this summer – close to 1,000 in all competitions. I take pride in my performances and want to be the best player I can be. But winning is the most important thing to me. If I get 0, 0, 0 and 0 but the side win, I’ll be the happiest bloke.

KP was announcing the 2008/9 opening of a new npower Urban Cricket Arena in Birmingham. Last year, npower Urban Cricket, run with the ECB, distributed over 40,000 Urban Cricket kits.