Chasing the Twenty20 millions
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By Hugh Hammond
cricket20 |
Updated: Friday, July 11th 2008, 15:27 GMT
Just like in other sports where money has become a major influence cricket as started to see the down side to counties chasing the Twenty20 millions.
Yorkshire will be counting the costs the most after being found guilty of a serious breach of the regulations after being booted out of the Twenty20 Cup on Thursday evening for playing an unregistered player in a group game.
The player at the centre of this Twenty20 storm is 17 year old Azeem Rafiq who played in the crucial group match against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge which Yorkshire won to qualify for the knock out stages ahead of Nottinghamshire.
Yorkshire are set to appeal against the ruling but after a damming verdict handed down by the ECB their hopes of playing against Durham in the last of the remaining quarter final matches seems very small.
The waters remain murky about what to do next, well in some camps they do.
The most sensible option would be to reinstate Nottinghamshire who would take Yorkshires place against Durham but because everybody wants a piece of the Twenty20 millions Glamorgan are insisting that it should be them who play Durham because they finished with more points then Nottinghamshire because the Trent Bridge site “lost” against Yorksire.
You see money does strange things, this as got nothing to do with Glamorgan yet they are banging their drums demanding to play Durham, they can smell the Twenty20 millions.
The facts are simple, Yorkshire fielded an unregistered player in a crucial group decider, the team they beat were Nottinghamshire, the team who missed out on a quarter final spot were Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire have been kicked out of the Twenty20 Cup and it’s only right that the team who lost out now go through, it’s the only fair way.
They may not see it the same way at the SWALEC Stadium but fairs fair, and besides if anybody feels disappointed about not qualifying it should be Hampshire who finished fourth in the South group with 11 points and still didn’t qualify, just in case you was wondering that’s one more point the Glamorgan got.
Hang on doesn’t that mean Hampshire should qualify?
Hugh Hammond is a senior writer for cricket20. |
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