Welcome to the new Kia Oval...

Selling naming rights for grounds has to be among the more egregious examples of sports marketing twattery, with historic, memorable, meaningful names falling to King Cash left, right and centre.

Perhaps the worst example in sport was the replacement for the atmospheric, if rather basic Ayresome Park with the gloriously-titled BT Cellnet Stadium.

Current examples include the Reebok and the Emirates, although the wholesale naming of entire teams seems to have dies out with Airbus and Total Network Solutions (which inspired the superb 'they'll be dancing in the streets of total network solutions' gag) from Jeff Stelling.

Cricket, as is its wont, has been slower to adapt than football (barring Yorkshire Carnegie), and thus far has only Headingley Carnegie (Headingley, as any sane man prefers to call it) and The Brit Oval (The Oval, as far as we're concerned) really taking to selling their souls.

Bacon-and-egg ties were almost burned in disgust earlier this year when it was suggested that the Lord's naming rights could be prostituted around London agencies. What a wonder that would have been. Go Compare Lord's. We Buy Any Car Lord's. Iceland Lord's.

Of course, the powers that be may be greedy, but they're also stuffy. So we would have ended up with something like The Coutts' Lord's, Jaguar Lord's or Lord's Harrods.

Which is why the following press release took me by surprise. The Brit Oval sounded naff, but you could almost convince yourself it was a reference to Britain. Plus insurance should fall squarely within cricket's conservative demographics.

But a (whisper it) budget car manufacturer? From KOREA?!* I can almost smell the angina. Clearly that South London air has relaxed a few airways down in Kennington.

Could be worse, I suppose. The Fosters Oval, perhaps?

Kia Motors (UK) Ltd., has today announced that they are to be the lead sponsor of Surrey County Cricket Club and The Oval cricket ground.

Kia has signed a five year deal, and will have full and exclusive naming rights to the historic ground and become the primary shirt sponsor for Surrey County Cricket Club. The deal is worth over £3.5m to the Club over its duration.

Kia - part of the third biggest auto group in the world - takes over from Brit Insurance as the Club and ground’s primary partner. As well as the ground naming rights and the firm’s logo on Surrey shirts, Kia will also have a number of hospitality and promotional benefits throughout the season. The deal will come into force on January 1st 2011, from whence the ground will be known as the Kia Oval.

The deal is Kia’s first entrance into the cricket market; the company currently has worldwide commercial partnerships with the FIFA World Cup and Australian Tennis Open. Further to this, it employs current world number one Rafael Nadal as a brand ambassador and is also the Official Automotive Partner of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the United States, sponsoring thirteen individual teams.

Speaking about the deal Paul Sheldon, Chief Executive of Surrey County Cricket Club, said: “To sign a deal with a leading International brand such as Kia is a fantastic boost to the Club.

“It is also hugely beneficial to us that we have been able to agree a five year deal as this allows us to plan for the future – both financially and on the field – with certainty. I have great confidence that our partnership has a long and strong future ahead of it.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Brit Insurance, which had been our lead sponsor since 2004. Throughout this time they have been a great support and I am delighted they are still a major supporter of our sport.”

Kia Motors (UK) Ltd., Managing Director Michael Cole said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for us to put our brand right at the heart of England’s favourite Summer sport and in front of an enthusiastic and extremely knowledgeable audience

"We are delighted to be linked with such an iconic location as The Oval - it is rightly famous around the world - and as our UK headquarters are in Weybridge it is a privilege to be so closely linked with Surrey County Cricket Club.”

*Needless to say I have nothing against Korean car manufacturers, or even Kia. Their cars are really good, as it goes.

Cricket 3D - The View from the Pub

I’ve watched cricket in some beautiful places. From the beer garden of the Bat and Ball Inn in Hambledon, beneath the pink cherry blossom at Maghull and of course the rose garden at Sefton Park. It’s safe to say Yates’ Wine Lodge on Allerton Road won’t be joining this list.

Still this was history in the making and with the extra enticement of the classic burger and a pint for £3.50 offer, I wandered over to the only pub in South Liverpool showing England playing Bangladesh in full 3D.

The initial signs weren’t good. A quick phone call to the pub brought the manager to the phone: “We’re on Sky’s website are we? I better have it on then – to be honest we don’t get much call for the cricket.”

Taking my seat about 3 m from the screen, I was heartened to see two other punters wearing glasses which they had paid a £5 deposit for. Mine had been ‘borrowed’ from a recent screening of ‘Avatar’.

Unsurprisingly, given the time of day and location the pair are students but even after a couple of beers they were unsure of whether this experiment with the third dimension was working.

“It needs a lot of work I think” said Matt Brown, 20. “The close ups work and when the fielders move towards you but the actual bowling which you think would be best, is pretty hopeless.”

He’s right. Like most things in cricket it seems to be a question of angles. Occasionally you’re left very impressed – the slow mo shots from mid off look great but then you realise you can’t see if Tamim Iqbal is out or not when he’s rapped on the leg.

Sky seemingly are using this game as an experiment and it shows. Players come in and out of focus and rather than show replays they keep reverting to wide, panoramic shots featuring Stuart Broad’s gangly frame at fine leg. Admittedly these look good but they are just fluff really. A further criticism comes with the ridiculous realisation that you can’t read the scorecard.

What does work is quite surprising. Hawkeye and the graphic projections of where balls are pitching jump out at you like arrows and the controversial Hawkeye actually gains something, making 3D an interesting future option for decision making.

Overall though, the experience is disappointing. The feeling remains that the lack of close ups and multi player action means cricket lacks the dynamic punch of football or rugby, a fact constantly brought home by many of the ad breaks featuring those sports.

“I think it’s got potential”, says doctor, Ben Thompson, who pops in for a pint after work. “They need to pick some of the angles that work and stick with them.”

A bit like Stuart Broad’s bowling really.

Cricket's back (sort of)!

There's nothing quite like the first indoor net session of the 'season' on a midweek January evening.

The daylight hours barely long enough to fit a full cricket game; the trudge through the snow, ice and slush of the car park and into the bright lights of the hall; stand in line and try not to kill the batsman as your first couple of deliveries as inevitably wayward beamers; spend half the evening socialising with the players you haven't seen much of in the last couple of months, and another quarter talking to those you saw last night; facing your first ball you're pinned on your inner thigh as a newcomer makes an early bid to prove his worth before you spend the rest of your ten minutes ducking and weaving a barrage of back-of-a-length stuff from people beginning to find their range again on the lively indoor surface - the perfect preparation for the inevitable raging greentops of April.

Then back out into the cold night safe in the knowledge that tomorrow you'll be walking around the office nursing your back and your shoulder, complaining about your knees and the soles of your feet, whilst keeping the bruise on the inner thigh to yourself.

And you know the pain won't leave until well into next week. 12 weeks and counting until the season - will I make it?

Cricket makes rare decision not to sell own soul

In a rare move that will presumably horrify Giles 'Family Silver' Clarke, Lord's has ruled out any suggestion that it could sell naming rights to pay for its £400m Vision for Lord's redevelopment.

The redevelopment will include a larger museum, greater capacity, retractable floodlights and a vaguely Bondian (James, not Shane) underground cricket academy.

Speculation had grown that the vast amounts of money require could lead to the MCC flogging the naming rights to the ground or stands, a suggestion categorically ruled out.

The likes of Headingley Carnegie and the Brit Oval have led the way towards a football-style model when naming rights for grounds, teams and competitions are open to the highest bidder.

Sadly there is always a financial imperative cricket in this day and age, and some might say that it's good money for not very much.

But cricket is a traditional and, frankly, conservative sport that has done its best to resist the steady infection of hard cash – in the UK at least.

It's a hopeless battle, but it's nice to see that some things are sacrosanct. After all, hat cricket fan could stomach the Edrich Stand renamed the Samsung Jet stand? Not this one.

Big in Japan?

I’ve done my research. Japan competed in Division 5 of the World Cricket League in the Channel Islands last summer, having qualified thanks to winning the East Asia Pacific Cricket Trophy in 2007. Their global debut in the ‘big time’ didn’t go too well, however, with the only fillip being a tie with the Bahamas between defeats to the cricketing powerhouses of Jersey, Botswana and Singapore. They were mercifully rained off against the eventual tournament winners, Afghanistan, who have risen meteorically since to gain official ODI status in April. This summer they held their own in Division 7 of the pyramid, finishing third out of six.

Unlike most lowly-ranked cricket nations, however, it appears that most of Japan’s squad are both homegrown and homebred, with the only reliance on the ex-pat community being a couple of English names and one of apparent sub-continental provenance.

The reason for this preamble isn’t just for showing off my knowledge of barely club-standard international cricket played in distant reaches of the globe (though St Helier is hardly that far), but for the slightly odd episode from cricket nets at the club on Friday night. A young man named Tatsuo from rural Japan walked over to join in. He is studying English in Liverpool over the summer during which time he had seen Pakistani children playing cricket in the park, seen a little on TV in the pub, and was intrigued enough to see what he could do. He’d never seen cricket growing up in Japan and had never played before. It struck me as something akin to me trying to join in a game of Kabaddi whilst touring the Punjab. A very brave thing to do which had the potential to go very wrong indeed.

After an hour or so, with a style very much of his own, he had developed a bowling technique approaching legality with more than a hint of off-break from the pitch. He’d also developed what could generously described as a healthy respect for the ball as well so we left his batting debut for another week but we had an entertaining conversation in the bar afterwards during which he calmly handled all the questions semi-ignorant Englishmen could muster on Japan - yes, of course we asked about the bullet trains. And whaling. He was such a pleasant chap we invited him down to watch the games at the club the following day to experience a game in the flesh for the first time.

I know I’m not the only person to have found it hard enough to explain either the rules of, or merely an enthusiasm for, cricket to English people who are surrounded by the game whether they notice it or not. This includes my manager just this week who has recently watched more cricket than ever before because the Ashes are on the TVs in front of him at the gym. And he still only just about gets the scoring system. What would Tatsuo make of it all?

He arrived in the last hour to see Sefton chasing Southport’s 231. It all seemed to be going fairly swimmingly; I thought he was beginning to understand how the game was ebbing and flowing as a partnership would build and then a wicket would fall in what was turning out to be quite a tense finish. Then, with about five overs left, the bombshell: he didn’t understand why the ‘pitcher’ kept changing ends when Southport were batting at one end and Sefton the other. In the end the chase closed on 230-8 so I then had to try to explain how the draw works.

Fortunately he hadn’t come the week before when the last over had contained a six and three wickets including a stumping off a wide and the most ludicrous and unnecessary run out off the last ball to throw the game away. Fortunately there wasn’t an lbw and bonus points are still some way beyond him.

Hopefully it won’t be the last we see of Tatsuo; he did seem enthusiastic and was keen to learn more. Even if it is just a passing fancy to see this absurd game the English play which can last five days and still be a draw, I hope when he leaves our shores to teach English back in his homeland that he leaves with something of an idea of how cricket works.

Another cricket revolution

About a year ago the ECB appeared determined to go toe-to-toe with the IPL with its own version of an overhyped twenty over tournament overpaying a plethora of foreigners. There was money everywhere if the number twenty was said twice it seemed; who cared about nearly 135 years of history of the County Championship. That much history surely guarantees its old hat credentials.

It was initially undecided whether to follow the IPL’s template to the breach of copyright and invent some city based teams or to discard the unfashionable counties as 8 or 10 teams were all that could apparently be supported by such a model (such a model being the IPL, obviously).

At around this point Lalit Modi’s legal team must have been on the blower as a competition containing all 18 counties, and possibly a few guests XIs too, was hastily put forward as the preferred option much to the disbelief of most cricket, television and finance experts. As a follower of Derbyshire, one of those unfashionable counties already at a massive financial disadvantage to the Test-hosting teams, it was something of a relief that none of the first-class counties would be missing out though there was immediately a nagging doubt as to whether this pipedream would ever take place, and that if it did it would surely be some kind of unmitigated washout.

Sure enough the proposal of the English Premier League was finally laid to rest back in April when the loss of the Stanford deal, no doubt coupled with the overarching uncertain economic conditions (for they must appear in every news story) led to the ECB finally realising that one IPL was actually more than enough and that the naturally cynical English were unlikely to have gone for it in a very enthusiastic manner anyway. It’s certainly tougher to envisage the razzamatazz of the Chennai Super Kings when you relocate it to Grace Road; more like the razzamatazz of trying to light a Superking on a gusty Thursday in early May.

The ECB still weren’t done with hair-brained schemes though; the short-lived plan to run both a league, now to be named the P20, and cup in the twenty over format finally died last week, handily buried in the news surrounding Flintoff’s retirement and the build-up to the Lord’s Test match.

After all this ongoing talk of a domestic cricket revolution on these shores, the rough outline for the 2010 county season was announced yesterday, again conveniently on the eve of an Ashes Test match. This incendiary press release maintains the status quo in a 2 division, 16 four-day game County Championship; there will still be one Twenty20 tournament, enlarged and renamed the P20 for no reason other than stubbornness one assumes, and what appears to be a welcome return to the Sunday League.

This means that the Friends Provident Trophy, which had been pretty much the FA Cup of cricket for most of its history under a variety of sponsorships, will be the one making way for more flexibility in the schedules and yet more Twenty20. I’m sure the bookies favourite for the chop would have been the Pro40, a league with no point except for filling the Sky Sports schedules every evening until the Premier League is back on. However, the Pro40 has been given a reprieve and what appears to be its old slot back on a Sunday afternoon.

In my eyes the FP Trophy had been devalued since they stopped allowing all the minor counties in and brought in the group stages a few years back but this was hardly an irreversible step. I’ll be quite sad to see it go, there’ll be no big day out at Lord’s for the counties to aim for, but don’t be fooled by the ECB’s supposedly progressive outlook; Friends Provident’s sponsorship deal was up after this summer and I can’t imagine it’s the best time for renegotiating contracts or trying to attract new sponsors just at the minute. Lest we not forget that the ground-breaking Twenty20 Cup only came about in the first place because their hand was forced by the demise off the B&H Cup due to the ban on tobacco advertising.

It’s no great surprise that the revolution threatened over the past 15 months has failed to come to fruition in England; that the counties themselves make the final decision leads to the most consistent use of the phrase ‘turkeys voting for Christmas’ in the national press. Also in the length of time that the ECB has dithered over the decision the world has changed.

First up, it has to be a good thing that the primacy of the Championship has been maintained; whether 16 games are required is debatable but a necessity with 18 first-class counties. Although the infrastructure isn’t currently in place I would advocate a move towards including the minor counties with promotion and relegation, with 2 divisions of 7 or 8 playing four day cricket and another playing 3 day cricket to allow a greater level of semi-professionalism, before the remainder of the minor counties could continue in a similar vein to now. The obvious argument against is that it would make planning investment for the future much trickier, but with promotion a club should be able to budget to manage for a year or two on lesser funding. It also gives the opportunity of a proud and wealthy Cumbrian, say, to invest heavily in their county set-up and make significant progress within the game, and surely increases competition.

The return of the premier one-day tournament to Sunday afternoon is an excellent idea, and it seems the ECB may have listened to the fans who actually pay on the turnstiles here. The only stakeholder I can’t see being happy with this is Sky which is currently able to show several Pro40 games a week; this will surely hit TV revenue? It would be nice to see the Beeb throw its hat back in the ring, though this is more likely a purely nostalgic pang of mine.

Interestingly the format of the games in the ‘new’ Sunday League have yet to be decided with talk of 2 innings 40 over games gaining the early publicity. I assume this is an attempt to guarantee close finishes but to me the more ways in which the format is convoluted, the more compromised it is as sport; and that’s before you consider any possible implications of no one-day domestic cricket.

I’d probably plump for a straight 40 over competition as it’s popular with the fans and is close enough to ODIs for me to require the same skills and tactics. 2pm starts without the need for floodlights would do away very early starts and late evenings for fans from out of town, too. One thing which I think is worth considering is rearranging washed-out games on a midweek evening; it may also be a way to fulfil the Sky deal as they could then maintain their level of coverage.

Personally I’d maintain the FP Trophy as a straight knockout 50 over competition, meaning a maximum of 5 or 6 extra games even if you made the final; certainly fewer than the group stages of the current format.

Which brings us to the already much maligned P20. From what I can interpret it appears we’re looking at a north and south group, presumably playing each other home and away, with the top 4 from each proceeding to quarter-finals. Basically the number of group games will increase from 10 to 16 for each county and the main other amendment will be an attempt to play most games between Thursday and Sunday, as crowds have probably proven to be better around the weekend. Whether additional group games will spread the crowds too thinly remains to be seen. That a 3 hour format should take up the entire calendar through the long daylight hours of June and July doesn’t seem like the greatest use of midsummer either. One good thing which the counties have started recently to do is take Twenty20 to outgrounds; something which should be done far more in all forms of cricket.

So another English domestic cricket revolution has come. Will anybody notice the difference?

Cricketers on Twitter

The news that Phil Hughes revealed his omission from the Australia side to face England in the Third Test at Edgbaston has propelled Twitter to the forefront of the cricket-loving public's consciousness.

OK, it probably hasn't, but if you use Twitter and would like to follow your favourite cricketers, I've compiled a list of cricketers using the microblogging service.

Boycott and Aggers are my favourite, and the updates from actual Test cricketers veer between the downright fascinating and mind-numbingly mundane. No surprise there then.

I make no claims for their authenticity, though they all seem real enough to me. All you need to do is click on the URL and follow the cricket person of your choice, assuming you have an account.

If you don't and need to set one up, don't worry - it's easy. Have a gander at this handy guide to using Twitter if you need to.

Until then: Start the car!

Kevin Pietersen
http://twitter.com/kevinpp24
Bio: N/A

England's go-to man over the last few years, right up to the point where they dropped him anyway. Famously reacted to said news with 'foul-mouthed' 'rant' on Twitter.

Married to that girl who used to be in Liberty X.

Best tweet: "Done for rest of summer!! Man of the World Cup T20, and dropped from the T20 side too. It's a fuck-up ..."

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Michael Vaughan

http://twitter.com/VaughanCricket
Bio: Manchester born sheffield lad. Ex England cricket skipper.Wednesday supporter and very keen golfer

England captaincy great, forever to have 2005 etched on his bio. Followed Warne and Gooch down the hair route (allegedly) and taken to increasingly odd exploits such as artballing. Good on TMS.

Best tweet: A run for every spectator at Trent bridge... Notts 59 all out

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Shane Warne
http://twitter.com/warne888
Bio: father to my lovely 3 children , motto keep smiling, be true to yourself

Aussie ledge, famous for the ball of the century, rowing with Ricky Ponting, dodgy phone exploits, fake hair and rubbish commentary that generally starts with "Aw, look...".

Best tweet: "Ps feel for people in country Vic and some parts of nsw, we need the rain desperately to fill dams, but terrible re floods, glad sun out!"

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Dimitri Mascarenhas
http://twitter.com/DimiMascarenhas
Bio: N/A

England all-rounder apparently bred for one-day cricket and T20, bizarrely dispatched by England in favour of player like Michael Lumb and Alastair Cook. Looks a bit like a pirate.

Best tweet: "Chairman of selectors came and didn't even come and say hi.. What a p***k.. Doesn't take much to say hello does it?"

or


"Geoff Miller is a complete k**b.. He had no clue what he is doing.. Fing p***k"

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Graeme Swann
http://twitter.com/Swannyg66
Bio: N/A

The new England team jack-the-lad. An old mate of mine played cricket with him as a schoolboy. He didn't like the England tweaker, but I get the feeling Swanny's changed a bit since then.

Follows Clint Boon.

Best tweet: i shall talk in the third person here...the swannatron apologises for dropping a clanger this morning.

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Christopher Martin-Jenkins
http://twitter.com/cmjcricket

TMS' veteran double-barreled commentator

Best tweet: Should have picked Ramps. Had to have a century-maker. Good luck toi Trott but 30 won't be enough. Australia to win despite Freddie?

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Test Match Special (Alison Mitchell)
http://twitter.com/bbctms
Bio: Alison Mitchell in the TMS box and around the ground

Blow-by-blow updates from Tests, one-dayers, T20s and county games.

Best tweet: Dinner chez Boycott tonight!

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David Lloyd
http://twitter.com/BumbleCricket
Bio: Start the car!

Everything you'd expect from Bumble, the clown prince of cricket. Look at his bio!

Best tweet: bad light looming

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Jonathan Agnew
http://twitter.com/Aggerscricket
Bio: BBC cricket correspondent, following the fortunes - or otherwise - of the England cricket team

As English as warm beer, and as comforting as a warm blanket. Plus he's a very good journalist.

Best tweet: Geoffrey is officially mad! Confirmed

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Phil Tufnell
http://twitter.com/philtufnell
Bio: I am Phil Tuffers Tufnell former England Cricket Professional and Jungle superstar!

Everyone's favourite loveable cricket wide boy, who surprised everyone when he turned out to be a great commentator. His royal jelly exchange with Aggers was something to behold.

Best tweet: The samba is a Brazilian party dance , I live in bloody surrey

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Simon Mann
http://twitter.com/Cricket_Mann
Bio: Test Match Special cricket commentator, freelance sports broadcaster

Test Match Special commentator, broadcaster rather than ex-cricketer, who is OK in our book.

Best tweet: trying to explain cricket to 8yo. 'How many points for that?' after rare England four.

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Tim Bresnan
Tim Bresnan
Bio: Play Cricket Yorkshire and England love travelling and good banter

Banter-loving big-bottomed all-rounder. Probably less enamoured with the bollocking he received for some expletive-laden Twitter banter last year.

Best tweet: Don’t mind my mates dishing it out but who the fuck are you. Crawl out of your basement. U knob

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Malcolm Ashton
http://twitter.com/TMSscorer
Bio: Relatively new Grandad, TMS scorer and Bury FC supporter

Ever wondered when England last played with three seamers whose names all ended in -son?

Best tweet: Go Strauss dog!!

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Henry Blofeld
http://twitter.com/blowersh
Bio: this is Blowersh in the TMS box for real

Blowers on Twitter, whod'v'e thunk it? An insight into what it's like to live like a 1920s gentleman adventurer.

Best tweet: A parking ticket in Bond Street outside Charbonnel & Walker - best chocs ever. Bridge this evening softened by Blowers brill Cote du Rhone!

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James Anderson
http://twitter.com/JimmyAnderson9
Bio: N/A

Live cricket tweets from the England locker room, from Jimmy.

Best tweet: On this day each year I always think about the U2 song - "One".

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Gary Keedy
http://twitter.com/keeds23

Veteran tweaker. Surprisingly never played for England.

Best tweet: is queuing up at the rubbish tip!

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Darren Gough
http://twitter.com/DGoughie
Bio: Cricketer come dancer. Radio pundit come 'all rounder' good egg!!

Darren follows @PorkFarms. We shouldn't be too surprised.

Best tweet: To win a ball, complete the following sentence: #GoughiesBalls I should win a Goughie ball because ...

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The Spin (Lawrence Booth)
http://twitter.com/the_spin
Bio: N/A

The Guardian's Spin section, usually edited by Lawrence Booth, who I presume is behind the Twitter account.

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Jason Gillespie
http://twitter.com/Jason_Gillespie
Bio: I am Jason Gillespie former Australian Cricket player over in England for the Ashes 2009

Very good on TMS, Gilly is obviously a nice bloke. That's another for the burgeoning 'nice Aussie' category.

Best tweet: Congrats to England. Well played. Thank you to those who have followed my tweets during the series. Take care all. Dizzy, signing off!!!!!!!

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Geoffrey Boycott*
http://twitter.com/GeoffreyBoycott
Bio: Former Yorkshire and England cricketer, turned commentator.

Typically pessimistic stuff from the Yorkshire legend. Says 'daft' a lot.

* No less than Jonathan Agnew has informed me that Boycs' Twitter account is not genuine

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Phil Hughes
http://twitter.com/PH408
Bio: N/A

The blistering Aussie opener supposedly revealed that he'd been dropped from Ashes XI via Twitter. Didn't tweet the subsequent bollocking he received from Cricket Oz.

Best tweet: Disappointed not to be on the field with the lads today, will be supporting the guys, it's a BIG test match 4 us. Thanks 4 all the support!

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Iain O'Brien
http://twitter.com/iainobrien
Bio: Get my blog updates from here...

Kiwi fast bowler on life in the counties. Blogged a match I was at. That was weird.

Best tweet: the 4.25 to Upper Hutt does not stop at Petone,nor Ava,nor Woburn. It's now a long walk from Waterloo. I'm not to to good with public trnspt

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Kyle Hogg
http://twitter.com/hoggy22

Play for Lancs, likes good music

Bio: play cricket, big music fan,love joy division,led zep,smiths,etc,etc,etc

Best tweet: Bleep test in the morning, oh shit

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ECB
http://twitter.com/ECB_cricket
Bio: News and live cricket scores from England and Wales Cricket Board. Plus general cricket info and updates every day on the cricket scene

Not as boring as you'd think.

Best tweet: Swann no longer an ugly duckling

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Sachin Tendular
http://twitter.com/Sachin_rt

Monosyllabic tweets from the Little Master.

* Have updated this one to what I'm assured is the correct account

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Yuvraj Singh
http://twitter.com/yuvsingh09/

Engaging stuff from the Indian bruiser and KP nemesis

Best tweet: http://twitpic.com/voru9 - Eliminating negative ions through the feet - treatment with Dr Jatin

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MS Dhoni
http://twitter.com/msdhonis

Indian skipper intermittent tweets some interesting stuff

* Also updated this one

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Robin Brown
http://twitter.com/robinbrown78

Updates from me, often about Sefton Park CC and cricket in general. Not the former Zimbabwean coach.

Surprise ICC Tournament Success

It will come as little surprise to those who know me that I’m not the greatest fan of Twenty20 cricket. Nor am I very often impressed with major international cricket tournaments. However, the two combined last month to prove me very wrong. I’m not sure I’ll be wrong forever as I’m almost certain the ICC will overegg the golden goose; this is probably already happening with the next World Twenty20 in the West Indies, where the 50 over World Cup of tedium was played out in front of empty grounds only 2 years ago, only a matter of months away. Not forgetting the ICC Champions Trophy in the South African spring (host to the inaugural World Twenty20 all of 21 months ago as well as the IPL) crammed into a calendar which has already squeezed four nips into a pint pot. For now, however, I feel happy to look on a few positives.

The World Twenty20 worked well because the entire tournament matched the format; fun and quickfire. The whole thing was done and dusted in three weeks leaving little time for dead matches – a curse of all sports but especially the way previous cricket competitions have been organized you would imagine the ICC looked upon them as a unique selling point. It was helped by the first game being a massive upset as the Stuart Broad gifted the Dutch victory, the surprise of the Australians going out at the first hurdle (especially with the shadow of the Ashes looming over the tournament for the old enemies) and the eventual victorious captain coming out to say that they weren’t taking it too seriously. It may also have been aided by English conditions offering a little more to the bowler to make the game a slightly fairer contest between bat and ball.

The tournament was supported by large and enthusiastic crowds at the three grounds used and was exceptionally lucky with the English weather – not one game a total wash-out. Of course, England is the ideal place to hold a large cricket tournament so far as crowds are concerned with its immigrant populations from most cricketing countries, and an Aussie working in every other pub in London but it was still good to see. The only problem was the earlier games were often less well attended as the more partisan fans were only interested in seeing their own team or people couldn’t get out of work. It would also have been nice to have spread the tournament to other corners of a country which will boast 9 Test grounds by 2011. Hopefully in due course this will become possible as the tournament becomes more established, though in doing this the ICC will probably see the opportunity to lengthen it to 3½ months.

Another plus point was the concurrent Women’s Twenty20 which sidled in nicely as both a fabulous warm-up for the men’s final at Lord’s and a fabulous advert for the women’s game which has certainly improved massively since the cloudy memories of watching Rachel Heyhoe-Flint lead England to a World Cup victory sometime in my childhood. It’s good and somewhat surprising (to me at least) to see England leading the way there too.

The Twenty20 format also works far better in a TV highlights package which is a godsend for those of us who decline the Sky subscription. It is pretty obvious that it will be much easier to cram 3 hours’ action rather than 7 into an allotted hour, despite the supposed non-stop action of the format. Having said that, the international brigade of commentary ‘experts’ who landed the gig were just about trite and useless enough to make you think the usual Sky team do a good job. Apologies here to Ian Chappell who I thought did make some excellent comments, though anyone can be made to sound intellectual when sitting next to David Lloyd as he’s screaming “41 off 8 balls and only 2 wickets left!!! Can they do it?? It’s bedlam in here!” as the camera pans to people leaving early or, worse, the pathetic dancing girls who appeared to employ a typically English ambivalence in their routines. Also, anyone verbally using the phrase “T20”, which all the TV pundits were guilty of, needs to take a good look at themselves. Before doing themselves in.

Although there are still a few issues with the way the tournament plays out and the format of Twenty20 is still too one-dimensional for me personally – a clutch of early wickets and it’s game over, how about doing away with the 6 over powerplay which heightens the chance of a wicket with close catchers? – it was an excellent example of what cricket can give to the global masses who will probably never understand the nuances of the longest form of the game. Now the serious business of the Ashes is on though, does anyone really care?

First XI Cricketer Seen at Decent Gig Shocker!!!

OK, it was only Jeff Lewis; hardly cutting edge stuff but likewise you can't imagine him appearing on the Radio City playlist anytime soon.

However, to be sharing the Barfly with someone who’s actually quite good at cricket initially led me to doubt my own far from impeccable taste in music. Is James Cain the exception who proves the rule that the better you are at cricket (and most other sports it would appear) the less credible your music taste? Or is he just a wannabe third-teamer?

The club darts tournament walk-ons offered a good snapshot of the theory: first-teamers happily strolling out to Tom Jones and Shaggy, lesser cricketers milking the crowd with Nick Cave, PIL, Alice Cooper. Informal games of cricket amongst the chalet lines with the indie fops at All Tomorrow’s Parties have left me feeling somewhere approaching akin to Garry Sobers. Watching the Twenty20 Cup on Sky reveals a litany of aural travesties as players’ favourite songs. Unfortunately we know better than to think it’s all just a massive jape on their part.

From this you could conclude that they play ‘Proud’ by Heather Small or something equally banal in the first team dressing room before they take to the field. It's evidently the kind of inspirational stuff we middling-to-indifferent tryers are lacking.

TMS, Sky and cricket commentary: whimsy versus whinge

It's become something of a cliche to say that it's preferable to listen to TMS on the radio while watching the TV footage with the sound turned down, but that's only because it's so prevalent.

This has been common for years, and the reasons behind it are clear when the TMS commentary is compared to TV commentary. For every Johnners, Fowler, Boycott, Aggers, CMJ, Selvey and Marks on TMS there's a Willis, Botham, Knight, Hussain, Greig or (worst of all) Mark Nicholas to endure on TV.

BBC commentary wasn't too bad, with the avuncular Lewis, Benaud, Peter West and token opposition commentator (Ian Smith, Colin Croft, Barry Richards among others).

Things took a turn for the worst with Channel 4's coverage, introducing the horrifying prospect of Mark Nicholas as anchor and frequent commentator. Recruiting Benaud, Boycott and Simon Hughes were good ideas. The pairing of Nicholas with Dermot Reeve was unbearable.

But C4 had nothing on Sky. Sky is where retired cricketers go to serve out their days, offering bitter and dour pot-shots generally devoid of insight or humour.

Whereas Aggers may pass lyrical comment on the state of the weather, Botham will whinge about it. CMJ may offer a vaguely dismayed comment on a poor umpiring decision, like a disappointed schoolmaster; Willis will slate the ump personally. Boycott ribs; Holding attacks. Blowers may spot a sedentary seagull; class clown David Lloyd makes a thinly-veiled reference to some bird's tits.

Elsewhere Atherton sounds like he wants to be somewhere else, albeit with the odd welcome wry remark; Hussain spends all of his time pleading with England to get 'real aggressive'; Nick Knight is blandness personified and Gower is like an ineffectual teacher, forever trying to prevent another tedious Botham rant about administrators.

Last summer Botham actually went as far as to suggest he hoped the day's cricket would be called off, so he could go and play golf. What an astonishing remark to broadcast to hundreds of thousands of fans forced to pay to watch cricket by the government's craven kow-towing to Rupert Murdoch and the idiots at the ECB.

Survive these multi-faceted attacks of miserableness, bile and personal agendas and – like an end-of-level boss – Bob Willis appears.
















Presumably because he's too miserable and clearly barking for commentary, he's confined to the studio like a sporting Miss Haversham, only one whose trousers don't fit properly.

Willis never has a good word for anyone, and has made snide rants his stock-in-trade. He calls Pietersen the 'dumbslog millionaire', a funny pun that's undermined by its inherent spite.

There's an idea, clearly shared by Willis, that his depressing opinions somehow constitute a kind of refreshing straight-talk.

Anyone of that opinion has simply mistaken Willis' misery, and eagerness to complain about every possible facet of the game, for verity.

Meanwhile, clearly being lined up as a replacement to Charles 'handbag' Colville is Ian Ward, a kind of Colville/Nicholas Mini-Me.

The sheer ineptitude of Ward as a journalist, exacerbated by his furrowed-brow posing as if he were a latter-day David Frost deconstructing Nixon, was exposed in a confoundedly bad interview with Shane Warne, where the Aussie leg-spinner protected Ward like a batsman protecting a tail-ender, producing interesting answers from Ward's embarrassingly by-the-numbers questions.

The interview heralded Warne's imminent arrival on Sky as a commentator, where he may inject some life into the moribund proceedings, but once again Sky's habit of simply choosing the most high-profile cricketers to fill commentary positions is clear. Expect Michael Vaughan soon.

In short, Sky's commentary effort is truly awful. Common themes among the team are the need for attractive cricket on the pitch and off, but as a whole they have forsaken any effort at entertaining or informing in favour of a 'the-world's-gone-mad' brand of populism, occasionally offset by Lloyd's village idiot routine.

Sadly, there's a quite unwelcome, albeit so-far limited, Sky-ification of TMS going on, benchmarked by the sacking of Mike Selvey.

Last summer the new producer, who is apparently liked by no-one, unveiled an absolutely huge list of recently-retired or benefit-year county cricketers, most of whom have played for England.

Meanwhile, a slew of generic Five Live commentators have joined the ship, some of whom clearly are not sufficiently familiar with cricket to pass comment with any authority.

Whether there is some kind of new-boys network at play here, or a favour to a particular agent or simply a sledgehammer attempt to jazz up TMS – the equivalent of trying to sex up I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue – is unclear, but the parade of monotone voices stumbling through summarising stints was not encouraging.

Two new summarisers, Derek Pringle and Angus Frasier, are at the forefront of the ex-cricketer-turned-journalist movement of recent years, where they purvey their own brands of misery.

The news that both would be in the commentary box simultaneously last year elicited the response from the outgoing Selvey: "That'll be a laugh."

It's a depressing state of affairs that cricket journalists are being phased out. Phil Tufnell may supply some laughs, but the remorseless trudge of boring county cricketers and excitable genera-journalists from other parts of the BBC will kill off what makes TMS special as surely as a ban on fruitcake in the commentary box.

It's tempting to assume that any changes greeted with dismay from loyal followers is simply indicative of a mindset stuck in its ways and resistant to any change.

This is quite simply not the case with TMS, where the quality is clearly suffering. Hearing Blowers trying to cope with the influx of new voices last summer was oddly sad.

BBC radio has form with these kind of sweeping changes, seemingly in pursuit of an imaginary demographic and reeking of the Beeb's pointless attempt to compete with commercial stations.

With Radio 2 and 6 Music also hurtling towards the anodyne mainstream, the obvious conclusion is that the changes are an attempt to smooth off the corners of interesting radio stations and shows. In the case of TMS it could well kill it.

Humour, insight, irreverence, nostalgia, anecdotalism. These are the things that define the quality and popularity of TMS.

It's no coincidence that these are the things entirely lacking in Sky's clinical, downbeat fare. It's whimsy versus whinge.

Take them away and there's just another boring cricket report staffed by former cricketers with no understanding of broadcasting, or broadcasters with no understanding of cricket.

Sky, like Channel 4, is a write-off, but who will we listen to if TMS continues its descent into the same pits of prosaic and miserable fare?