World Series part II

How to fill the gap between one Twenty20 competition in India — the unofficial Indian Cricket League (ICL), which finished on Sunday — and the next — the Indian Premier League (IPL), which starts on April 18? Simple: have another one in between.

Today, the ICL World Series begins, a triangular tournament between the pick of the players from the eight ICL franchises. One team will represent India, one will play for Pakistan and the third will be made up of the rest and be coached by an Englishman, John Emburey, left. The hastily-arranged World Series has caught some of the players on the hoof. "It means staying around for another week and lots of the players had made arrangements to leave by now," Emburey said, "but there is a demand for it."

Emburey coached the Ahemdabad Rockets in the second ICL series. Despite winning their opening game, they finished last, which he blames on his international players underperforming. Murray Goodwin scored 43 runs in seven innings, Damien Martyn 83, Wavell Hinds averaged 21, while Heath Streak's bowling was expensive, yet Emburey says his less heralded young Indian players rose to the occasion.

"The lack of practice facilities has been the big problem," Emburey added. "The BCCI have made it very difficult for us to play at anything other than municipal grounds and the practice facilities have been shared between the teams, but hopefully this will improve."

The ICL staged its first Twenty20 tournament before Christmas, taking some of the wind out of the IPL, which is backed by the Indian board. Emburey said that crowds for the matches, played at only three grounds, have been "mixed but excellent at the games in Hyderabad with up to 20,000 watching". The former England off spinner added that the TV viewing figures for the ICL, helped by the partnership between Zee and Ten Sports, have been impressive. "There have been more people watching the ICL on TV than were watching the India v South Africa Test series," he said.

Hyderabad Heroes won the ICL final series 2-0, beating the Lahore Badshahs by six runs on Friday and then winning the second final on a bowl-out on Sunday after both sides made 130 in 20 overs. Emburey said that the unofficial tournament was proving to be most popular with Pakistani fans, perhaps because of its stance against the Indian board and because the Badshahs, captained by Inzamam-ul-Haq, were made up solely of Pakistan internationals. "Most of the biggest crowds have been for Lahore and there have been as many Pakistani flags in the crowd as Indians," he said. With India making stacks of money from Twenty20, the ICL, it appears, has been Pakistan's way of restoring national pride.

They will have another chance to cheer on their heroes in the week-long World Series, in which the three sides play each other twice before a final on April 15. Chris Cairns will captain Emburey's Rest of the World XI and he has assembled a strong-looking side including Shane Bond, Ian Harvey, Marvan Atapattu and Lou Vincent. "All we need is a good spinner for the crucial middle overs," he said. "If only I was a bit younger."

Comments

[The Hon K Rudd]

Patrick,

I love your marvelous ban qiu articles regardless of their chang du.

They have sustained me no end during this very jian ku overseas tour I'm doing.

I think Rusty must have taken some of Ann's gao xing yao wan!

Anyway, keep up the good gong Patrick and don't be too ai shang about the criticism. Sorry about the odd relapse into Mandarin here, I've been to so many countries in the last week, I hardly know which way is qi.

[Daniyal]

We Pakistanis had been deprived of international cricket. After Aus refused to tour Pakistan. So getting to see cricket specially 2020 cricket which is what most of us play and like to watch.

[Patrick Kidd]

Sorry Rusty. This was a story that I actually planned to get into the paper but it got bumped out because some footballer did something not very interesting, so I ran it in full in case some people would be interested. Am away from desk today, but will return with pith tomorrow.

[Rusty]

PS. I notice King Cricket seems to be suffering from the same affliction - what about some pithiness?

[Rusty]

Patrick,

either your posts are getting longer or my attention span is getting shorter. I'm recently finding it a little tiresome wading through some of this stuff. If you're want to write articles, can you put a synopsis first for us ADHDs?

Perhaps I'm a fit candidate for for Twenty20 viewing after all.

[Suresh Kumar]

Hi Patrick Kidd:
You can watch all ICL matches live on www.cricketnirvana.com

enjoy!

[ashi]

go world xi!