'Knockabout' that is now moving into a new league
May 31 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal
An evening of 20-overs-a-side cricket is nothing new to local clubs but the latest incarnation to hit the region’s top league should be radically different to what they were once used to. Stuart Rayner reports
IT has been the talk of the cricket world in 2008, now Twenty20 is coming to the North East’s leading league – or rather coming back.
For decades 20-over-a-side cricket was a staple of the local game, a quick, easy format which allowed amateur players to squeeze in a meaningful midweek match after work.
The formation of premier leagues as part of Lord MacLaurin’s “Raising the Standards” blueprint in the late 1990s was meant to put a stop to that in favour of more “proper” cricket but now the tide appears to be turning again.
Ten years on, the shortest form of the game is back in fashion and the North East Premier League is determined to capitalise on its exploding worldwide popularity. The NEPL has launched its own Twenty20 competition which begins in earnest with June’s qualifying rounds. In keeping with the format’s glammed-up image, it will embrace many of the gimmicky aspects of the format, including coloured clothing and balls, music, nicknames for some teams and fielding restrictions. The league hopes it can excite new interest in the game from new and younger supporters.
The financial explosion from the Indian Premier League has caused many a premature obituary to be written for Test match and County Championship cricket, but NEPL chairman Keith Robson hopes the format can stimulate interest in his own competitions.
“The coloured clothing is very exciting to the kids,” he points out. “And Twenty20 is interesting to spectators who aren’t totally fascinated with the game.
“At Chester-le-Street (where he is also cricket development officer) we’re having games on a Friday night because we have 80 or 90 kids at the club that night and it would be good to get them along to watch some cricket.”
Certainly attendances at county games, where the ever-expanding Twenty20 Cup has been played at the height of summer since 2003, give cause for optimism. Thanks to its popularity, Test grounds have experienced the phenomenon of selling out for county matches – something almost unheard of for decades. Admittedly Durham are yet to need the “sold out” signs at the Riverside but the county’s hierarchy firmly believes that will change if they can finally end their status as county cricket’s worst Twenty20 side – something they hope South African all-rounder Shaun Pollock can help them do this year.
Although the England and Wales Cricket Board “invented” Twenty20 five years ago, its popularity has taken off massively since the inaugural World Cup in South Africa last autumn. With the eye-watering amounts of money being poured into India’s premier domestic Twenty20 competition and television vehicle, the IPL, England’s top players and their employers at international and county level want to jump on the gravy train, with talk of space being cleared in the county fixture list for more matches in future.
Some might see the NEPL as simply hitching themselves to the latest bandwagon, but Robson believes the concerns which signaled the death knell of the 20-over game at this level in 1998 no longer exist.
“The reason the ECB were against 20-over cricket in the first place was because they said you have to have practice provision,” he recalls. “As Premier League clubs you have to practice. But this does not impinge on that. When Twenty20 first came in I think they (the ECB) thought they’d invented something we’d been doing for years! But I think cricket, like any sport, has to move on. We can’t bury our heads in the sand.”
Teams will play in groups of three, the winners of each qualifying for “finals day” on July 27, when two semi-finals and a final will be played at the ground of one of the teams involved (probably to be determined by drawing a name out of a hat). The league’s aim is to make it both a prestigious occasion in the local cricket calendar and a popular family day out.
Coloured clothing and balls come at a cost but the NEPL has done its best to minimise the extra expense for its clubs, and Robson hopes the new competition can be a testing ground for innovations which can be transferred to its more established competitions in future.
“Our Twenty20 competition is being sponsored by Cricket First and we’ve retained Northern Rock and Banks as our sponsors for the other competitions,” he says. “Cricket First are supplying the balls so the costs to the clubs aren’t too great.
“The Premier League itself might look at coloured clothing for our Banks (League) Cup games in future. It’s been well received by the clubs. This season we’re going to use pink balls but in the future we might go to white balls and black sightscreens.”
