Reggae Reggae Sauce in the Cucumber Sandwiches or Stanford Super Series - Success or Failure?
Friday, October 31, 2008 : Twenty20, Stanford Files
Jonathan Agnew, a man who would be naturally sceptical about toast, said today in relation to the ECB not agreeing to the IPL's demands
... English cricket chose the confrontational route, and we find ourselves isolated with only the dysfunctional and bankrupt West Indies Cricket Board and a maverick Texan for companyJonathan Agnew
. The fact is the ECB were 'confronted' with a demand from the BCCI for English players playing for the ICL to be banned from English Twenty20 competitions. Fearing an avalanche of restraint-of-trade actions, the ECB refused.
Another journalist who has been ranting about anything that shows Stanford or the Stanford Series in a bad light, is Guardian writer Sir Derek Pringle. Yesterday he announced 'the Stanford Series and the September quadrangular at Lord's ... is due to be reviewed' by the ECB. Not surprisingly, in business, a review of any major event is seen as standard practice. Anyway it looks like the Quadrangular will be in May or early June at least.
I can imagine a small part of the press box where Jonathan Agnew as Dame Hilda Bracket exclaims aghast to Sir Derek as Dr Evadne Hinge, 'There's Reggae Reggae Sauce in the Cucumber Sandwiches Evadne'.
This series isn't Test cricket. It isn't being played at Lords either. Stanford wants to make the game more attractive and accessible to the new fans who don't know one end of a black bat from another. This is a Twenty20 match being played at a small private cricket ground in the Caribbean, where spectators have more of an informal party atmosphere. I can't imagine Chickie's Disco under the Mound stand, can you?
In short the Stanford Super Series has not been an unbridled success, but it is far from the disaster some would have you believe.
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