da aposte e ganhe： India’s first ever domestic Twenty20 competition is taking place, and hasreached the business end
da spicy bet： Anand Vasu in Mumbai16-Apr-2007
Fans will need to show up at the venue if they want to see India’s big stars in action in the inaugural Twenty20 tournament © AFP
India’s first ever domestic Twenty20 competition is taking place, and hasreached the business end, with the top ten teams – two from each of theNorth, South, East, Central, and West zones – battling it out in twogroups in Mumbai and Ahmedabad. India’s big stars – Sachin Tendulkarto Sourav Ganguly to Rahul Dravid – are playing in the competition,yet the fan cannot watch this on television.”We have not sold the rights to the Twenty20 championship,” RatnakarShetty, chief administrative officer of the Board of Control for Cricketin India (BCCI), told in Mumbai. “This tournament was not part ofthe original tender [for TV rights to domestic cricket],” he said. NEOSports, which won the rights to broadcasting cricket in India, were committed to telecasting 74 days of domestic cricket, an obligation they have already fulfilled.But, with fan attention flagging after India’s early exit from the WorldCup, there was an opportunity to showcase the Twenty20 event in a big way.”At the last minute it was not possible to do this. There are many thingsto work out, starting from production schedules,” Shetty said. “We are running thisedition on an experimental basis, with the World Cup also going on at thesame time. At least it gives the selectors a chance to look at how theplayers perform.”For the BCCI, this tournament represents to some extent a change of heart. When the regime currently heading the Board took over in November 2005 they hadunequivocally stated that the BCCI was not interested in taking part inTwenty20 cricket. Subsequent meetings with theICC in Dubai have softened their stance somewhat.The success of Twenty20 cricket – commercially and in termsof ground attendance – in England, South Africa and even Pakistan has evidently not been lost on the Indian board. Also, the ICC’s inaugural Twenty20 World Championship, due to be played in September in South Africa, promises to be a high-profile and permanent addition to the cricket calendar. Given India’s extremely limited experience inTwenty20 cricket – they have played just one Twenty20 international,against South Africa on their most recent tour, which they won by sixwickets thanks to a clever performance from Dinesh Karthik – the BCCIneeded to put in place a tournament at the domestic level.The format has state teams playing each other within theirzones, with the top two teams from each zone – Mumbai and Gujarat(West), Tamil Nadu and Karnataka (South), Railways and Madhya Pradesh(Central), Bengal and Orissa (East), Punjab and Haryana (North ) -qualifying for the next round. This has been split into two groups withPunjab, Orissa, Karnataka, Railways and Gujarat playing in Mumbai at theBrabourne Stadium and the Wankhede Stadium and the rest playing in Ahmedabad at the Sardar Patel Gujarat Stadium in Motera. The top team from each group will play thefinal at the Brabourne Stadium on April 21.
