Stanford Twenty20 Cancelled
A High Court ruling today suggests that the proposed multi million Twenty20 cricket match between the Stanford All Stars (i.e. the West Indies) and England is likely to be cancelled due to legal issues regarding the West Indies Cricket Board sponsorship deal with Digicel.
For the full info on the court ruling have a read of the BBC article and the one on CricInfo but essentially Digicel, the sponsors of the West Indies cricket team, have got their panties in a bunch and are unhappy that they’re going to receive little or no money from the $20 million head to head.
I’m not going to go into the rights or wrongs of the mini tournament Allen Stanford has organised. Well, not in this article, anyway, but I do have to ask the question on why this is an ICC recognised match in the first place. Let’s face it, folks, it’s nothing more than a glorified beer match. It’s not an international cricket fixture, for Gods sake.
I had no intention of writing about this whole sordid affair but todays news had me reaching…for the keyboard. Everything about this whole, sorry episode has me questioning the future of the beautiful game.
Oh bollocks. I’ve got one in my bonnet now so…
I find it obscene that any of the players, whether they be West Indians Stanford All Stars or England players are going to become dollar millionaires for playing a single game of cricket. It’s not even a proper fucking game of cricket. It says something for the tournament when the warm up game for the “main event” is a legends beach cricket match.
Now I’m sure that Allen Stanford has the best interest of the game at heart and he’s probably bemused by all this but come on. Enough is enough. How much more shit can we take about “player burnout” and then watch another meaningless cricket tournament on our pay-per-view subscriptions? IPL anyone? ICC Champions Trophy?
I’ve got a major beef with the ECB for agreeing to this match. It spells bad news for the future of cricket and I can’t understand why they took this on especially since they’re cash rich with the renewed Sky contract. I used to advertise Sky on this site but I’ve stopped now because, in some ways, I see Sky as being part of the problem.
Ball bags.
It’s late at night. I’ve had a few beers. I may not be as coherent as I should be and I’m sure that this post will pose as many questions as answers but, in essence, I’ll be more than happy if this dreadful whoring of cricket never happens.
Image credit: Duchessa
