Friends Provident T20 : Not so prominent

Amidst the ongoing FIFA World Cup in South Africa and the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka, the English domestic T20 competition is rallying on and hardly anyone, not even the hardcore cricket fanatic, seems to be in the know. Reasons for this range from poor marketing to match timings to, well, South Africa.

While the Indian Premier League (IPL) organisers ensured that every single country in the planet watched the tournament, the England Cricket Board (ECB) has done everything to ensure that no one in the United Kingdom, let alone the whole world, watches their tournament ” Friends Provident T20 ” . The “everything” includes scheduling 151 games of the Friends Provident T20 over a span of three months from June to August.

Friends Provident T20 Tournament

Eighteen participating counties are divided into two groups, North and South. The nine teams in each group play each other home and away amounting to 144 group matches, 72 in each group. This is followed by four second round matches, two semi-finals and one final. If 60 matches over two months in the IPL is considered overkill, there are no words to describe the FP T20 format.

Last month, the ECB chairman, Giles Clarke, accused Lalit Modi of planning a rebel league in the UK but what Modi actually proposed was a lean and mean structure featuring nine counties which had Test grounds, a fact which the heads of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Warwickshire, who were party to the discussion with Modi, would testify. A leaner structure would help attract more viewers to the T20 format in the very country that invented it. The Australian T20 Big Bash witnesses more than 50% occupancy in its stadia with fans rooting for their favourite local player. Channel 9, the telecast channel, presents the occupancy figures in every match and last season, the Melbourne Cricket Ground witnessed an occupancy of 49000+ for a Victoria-Tasmania clash while the same for the Australia-Pakistan game amounted to 94000 odd.

However not all is bad with the Friends Provident T20. If the sight of David Warner and Adam Gilchrist opening the innings together is one that you would die for, tune in to Middlesex’s games. If you have not had enough of Kieron Pollard yet, watch him in action for Somerset. If you are opposed to Sanath Jayasuriya’s exclusion from the Asia Cup for the sole reason that he is an impact player in limited overs cricket, you can watch him making an impact for Worcestershire. If consistency is what interests you, catch Nottinghamshire in action where the efforts of David Hussey and Dirk Nannes (and Stuart Broad, some time back) earned them four straight wins in their first four games.

Friends Provident T20 may appear pointless as its top two teams will not feature in the T20 Champions League later this year (probably for the reason that it will be held in South Africa). But when the IPL auction for the 2011 season gets underway, we might see a few more England players, like Craig Kieswetter(that is why I did not use the term “English”) winning IPL contracts.