The concensus at Steyning seems to be that the planned schedule for the Twenty20 tournament is crazy. Sussex sit pretty at the top of the Southern league and look in a good position to get through to the next stage of the competition after a Matt Prior inspired win tonight. The cause of contention is that the next stage is a quarter-final. A league - as everyone appreciates - is a far better way of finding out which team is best when compared against a one-off knock out competition. And yet the quarter-finals mean that Sussex could be a comfortable top in the league stage and then - Twenty20 being what it is (open to a fair bit of chance) - they could lose a one-off match in the quarter-finals on not even make the finals day.Scheduling for money once again, rather than considering that it might be nice if the best team wins. The top 2 from the North and South league should go through straight to the finals day.
But, totally unsurprisingly, it isn't just the ECB that are trying to cram in more fixtures for more money. The IPL franchises don't even try to hide their lust for money:
"The number one reason for adding teams and having more matches was having more revenue. If the number of matches is reduced, it doesn't work for me," a franchise official said. "We can address the problems [player fatigue] arising out of that; there is a solution. But reducing matches and the reduction of revenue is not on."
So to summarise, sod the players - we want our cash. I don't imagine people that think like this - as in England - could care less who wins unless it financially benefits them in some way.
How about a mini-league for the top 2 from the North and the South - that would give almost as many games (6, or 7 if you add a grand final for the top two) as the quarter finals approach (7).
ReplyDeleteI guess they like the "Finals Day" (2x semis and a final) - which is quite a good idea I think. However, you could revamp that into 3 double-headers for the mini-league played at large grounds around the country so the ability to watch the 4 best teams is spread around.
Sounds pretty good to me. Along with increasing the chances of the best side winning, they need to reduce the total games to ensure the future viability of Twenty20 (or people will ultimately lose interest), but they're too short-sited/greedy to realise that.
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