Cricket: Sir Allen Stanford's Millions Breathe New Life Into the Sport

Twenty20 cricket has taken the world by storm with the glamour and excitement that surrounded the Indian Premier League’s inaugural competition.

The days of five long back-to-back days watching batsmen spend hours tentatively protecting their stumps, only to excite us with the odd boundary every half hour, or a bowler sending one down that narrowly misses. Now we can turn up and be done in a few hours or less, weather permitting.

The guys at the England Cricket Board who came up with the idea for such a limited-overs game were true visionaries, because now cricket has a chance to move away from its past stereotypes and into the 21st century.

Anyone can play the Twenty20 form of the game and make an impact, and as is likely to happen, the potential for global commercial exploitation is endless.

Some fans were shocked to learn of the salaries on offer to some of the more well-known participants of the IPL in May, given that some cricketers played less than a dozen times in six weeks.

But when you look at the majority of footballers playing in the Premier League in England, IPL is still dwarfed in comparison.

Still, with the ability to bring in so much corporate sponsorship, it is inevitable that salaries will inflate, ownership of a player becomes more valuable, if they are one of the big names in world cricket.

While cricket as a sport may be dominant in a few select places in the world, Twenty20 has the potential to expand from its few heartlands in western Europe, southern Asia, Australasia, West Indies and Africa, particularly into the European and American markets, where cricket struggles to make any kind of impact, but where significant financial gain could be made.

As the ECB announces a £50 million deal with American billionaire Sir Allen Stanford, to play just five Twenty20 games over five years, cricket has been catapulted into the money.

We could argue all day about whether a £500,000 appearance fee is justified for an innings where you could be at the crease less than five minutes and a couple of hours spent fielding, but it’s no different to being given millions to drive a car or play any other ball sport at a professional level.

With Stanford’s money, everyone wins, from players to coaches and support staff to the cricket boards. If that money is properly invested into the sport at the grass-roots then I am very happy to see it continue.

Stanford is super-rich, but by no means the richest person in the world. Bigger and better offers could come along. But if it means those in high-ranking positions at various organisations and clubs within the sport become incredibly rich, like in other sports, without supporting the development of the game, I don’t think I can support the introduction of the additional money wholeheartedly.

Cricket is currently the second most popular sport in the world based on supporter numbers, and with the current success of Twenty20, by the time the second ICC World Twenty20 tournament is over in 2009, it could be the most popular.