USACA targets massive player growth "American cricket"

USA news

USACA targets massive player growth

 

USA Cricket Association (USACA) chief executive Darren Beazley has announced a goal of increasing the number of recreational players in the country to 50,000. The target is the chief aim of USACA's strategic plan for 2014-16, which was unveiled over the weekend.

According to 2012 ICC Development Programme data, USA has 32,066 players, including 17,820 registered in hardball leagues. USA had 26,935 amateur players in 2009 according to ICC data, meaning that there was a 19% increase in playing numbers over the last three years. For comparison at the Associate level, Ireland had a 113% increase from 18,969 to 40,414 players in the last three years according to ICC data. Achieving the 50,000 target in USACA's three-year strategic plan would require a 56% rise in participants, but Beazley says it can be done through recruiting more women and junior players.

"US cricket has really been crying out for a plan," Beazley told ESPNcricinfo. "This is not going to be the panacea, that's for sure. It's only really a road map for the next step. I wanted to make sure it was collaborative, clear and gave people a direction and I think it does that.

"I think it's achievable. That's going to come from a real focus on getting more girls and women playing, and getting more kids eight-years-and-up playing, and really trying to ensure over the next three years that the standard of competition that the seniors play in is a good quality and is split into grades, so you have an A grade, a B grade and a premier league."

Currently, USA has only 930 junior players registered in hardball leagues with about half of those playing in the NY Public Schools Athletic League, the only high-school cricket league in America. Beazley would not elaborate on how many junior players he wants as part of the 50,000-target, but said that more must be done to produce similar style programmes and structures as opposed to introductory clinics. From that standpoint, Beazley's plan differs greatly from the work done by the US Youth Cricket Association (USYCA), which has focused on donating startup cricket sets mainly for use in gym classes to get children exposed to cricket for the first time.

"It's one thing to get lots of people tasting the game. It's another thing to get them playing competitions week in-week out," Beazley said. "We want kids to experience in a school or in a camp environment, but the big push is then how do we get them to play in a six-to-eight-week competition because that's where you learn your cricket. On that basis, we're probably forgoing huge amounts of numbers just going out and doing lots of one-day and two-hour clinics because that's not sustainable long term. It's good and it gets kids exposed to the game but it doesn't have any sustainable or observable outcome at the end. What we're doing is forgoing huge amounts of numbers to make sure that we put in place structures."

Beazley indicated that high performance manager Andy Pick and other staff that may come on board will be crucial in executing the plan. He said increasing sponsorship and corporate support will enable more staff to be hired and hopefully will also allow USACA to establish funding pools for facilities development and a high performance center.

"It's great to have the plan, but on the next phase - and it's why we've been working on it so long - we're going to start to roll out the resourcing plan, which will look at human resources and financial resources to make sure that we can actually deliver on the plan," Beazley said "USACA as an organisation has to grow. We can't do it with two or three staff.

"If cricket in this country is going to be around in 20 years, then we need to go out and commercialise it. In order to do that, when a commercial company wants to have a good look at you, they're going to say, 'What do you stand for? What are your values? What are you trying to achieve?' That's what 2013 has been all about. It's been trying to define what USACA is all about. It's about trying to, as an organization, work out what it is that we want to achieve and then communicating that to our members and to the broader cricket community."

Beazley believes USACA will be able to develop revenue streams by, among other things, selling broadcast rights to next year's USACA National Championship, set to be held at a new facility in Indianapolis. An increase in funding is identified as an important part of the strategic plan, which states that USACA should have a "commercial plan developed that reduces current reliance on ICC funding". About 75% of USACA's annual revenue comes from the ICC. At the same time though, Beazley doesn't want stakeholders to be entirely dependent on USACA to alleviate funding issues locally.

"What we don't want is USACA to be seen as a big cash cow or the bank because we're not," Beazley said. "We're a charitable organisation. We're here to help and guide. We don't have massive pots of money but what we do have is expertise."

Ultimately though, Beazley said in order for USACA's strategic plan for 2014-16 to succeed, it will be up to local volunteers to buy into it and contribute the manpower necessary to pull it off.

"The people that are on the ground are going to be critical in doing this," Beazley said. "We're not going to be able to have 500 people on the payroll to deliver this. We just couldn't do it. Some volunteers work massive hours and are prepared to give that and that's the sort of people we want."

It's a peaceful and sunny spring day in upstate New York, far from the hustle and bustle of Manhattan. The rest of the state outside of the five boroughs of New York City is an alternate universe of sorts. Much of it is quaint and quiet, with gently rolling hills and sprawling green pastures.

Cross River is a town in this alternate universe, situated in Westchester County, about 15 miles north of Chappaqua, home of Bill and Hillary Clinton. A group of sixth graders at John Jay Middle School are using the afternoon to embody that spirit of living in an alternate universe. While their peers do warm-ups for lacrosse, athletics and baseball practice, about 20 kids have seized the centre of the football field to play cricket for the very first time, with new equipment provided by the US Youth Cricket Association (USYCA).

"It was awesome and it was a great experience," 12-year-old Lily Gengler said. Lily was the only girl in the group of kids, but wore one of the biggest smiles after the day was through. She said she'd love to play the sport again and when asked why, three of her classmates jumped in and chorused, "Because it's fun!"

USYCA president Jamie Harrison is one of the men responsible for delivering that fun. Harrison, a 46-year-old Maryland native, first encountered cricket as a history teacher three years ago when he took his class on a field trip to Virginia. A historical re-enactment of a cricket match caught his students' attention and by the end of the day, the discussion on the bus ride home revolved around runs and wickets instead of the founding fathers.

Harrison wanted to support his students so they started the first high school cricket team in Maryland in 2009. Unfortunately, it was shut down in 2010 in the wake of the economic recession. Harrison's passion didn't die, though, and less than a year after founding and becoming the president of the USYCA, he has become the point man for schools across America looking to learn and play cricket.

"In the last month, I've gotten email requests from schools in 50 different school districts across the country," Harrison said. "Anchorage, Alaska, wants cricket sets in their schools. The last count was, in over 25 states we've had schools get cricket sets from us, or at least they put the request in."

The USYCA is committed to donating at least one set to any school that makes a request. This has helped eliminate an obstacle for some schools that otherwise would not have had the opportunity to experience cricket, such as Highland Park, William Paca and Kenmoor Elementary Schools in Prince George's County, Maryland.

"These schools are all low-income schools," said Charles Silberman, a physical education teacher who has taught cricket at all three aforementioned schools. "They deal with poverty issues. Some of them are really struggling, their families are struggling. So something like this that doesn't have a cost barrier to get into is really exciting."

For schools at the other end of the financial spectrum like John Jay, there is always the option to purchase more sets.

Harrison has been shrewd in making the right connections to forward his cause. He reached out to Cricket Australia, who put him in contact with the company that produces cricket sets for the Milo in2Cricket programme, who donated 500 sets to USYCA for distribution. Harrison also got Damien Martyn, Nathan Bracken and Mike Young to speak up for the USYCA mission. Bracken's Twitter page currently features him and his son wearing USYCA t-shirts.

All this help is making an impact, and Harrison hopes that more goodwill is on the way in order to keep up with the increasing demand from schools that have caught the cricket bug.

"Those 500 sets are going to be exhausted sometime this summer," Harrison said. "They'll be all shipped out. We're going to have to find someone who is willing, either from a completely altruistic standpoint or because they see the vehicle we can become for them… someone who is willing to donate so we can purchase the next 500 sets, because the schools are asking for them as fast as we can send them out. I'd love to see USACA and the ICC get involved and say this is a worthy cause and this is going to make a difference in bringing cricket to the United States and making America a cricket-playing nation."

It's one thing to send cricket kits to the schools that request them. It's another to actually show up and explain how they're supposed to be used. The USYCA does its best to contact a local cricket club and coordinate with them to personally deliver the kits while giving a brief tutorial on both the history and rules of the game.

At John Jay, the instruction was provided by Rakesh Kallem, president of West Haven CC in Connecticut and a board member of the USYCA, and his West Haven CC club mate Satyapal Salla. The two men drove 90 minutes in order to put on a demo, where they emphasised having fun rather than bogging the kids down with terminology.

"The focus has been to bring awareness but not to expect too much from these kids yet because they are still trying to pick up a game," Kallem said. Most of the kids said after the demo that the hardest thing to understand was running with the bat instead of dropping it after hitting the ball. Other baseball tendencies could be observed, as they begged to be the next "pitcher", and cocked the bat above their shoulder before taking a swing.

On the flip side, the sixth graders quickly picked up on the fact that it was okay to leave a ball alone if it wasn't going to hit the stumps. There were hardly any run-outs either, as the communication between players after hitting the ball was impressive, as well as the patience and understanding to know when not to run. The fielding and catching were superb, showing that kids who grow up developing good hand-eye coordination in other sports can transfer that easily into cricket.

"I thought it was a lot more complicated, but when they explained it, it made life and everything a lot easier," Gengler said.

Kim Mammoser, the physical education teacher at the school who contacted the USYCA to come and put on the demonstration, was encouraged by the game after watching it being played for the first time. Even though she originally intended to have the cricket kits just for intramurals and recess, she wants to start putting the game into her PE classes too.

"I just think it requires everyone to be on board," Mammoser said. "It just keeps the kids moving more with the sprinting back and forth, game strategy, communication. As far as character building between the kids goes, they need to work together to get the ball in. I think it would be a good addition to our programme."

For Jamie Harrison and the USYCA, making sure cricket becomes a good addition not just at John Jay Middle School but at schools across America is the top priority.

The USA Cricket Association announced on Tuesday the appointment of former England Under-19 and Canada coach Andy Pick as USACA High Performance Manager in a move aimed at helping the USA form a more professional administrative cricket structure. Pick has been serving as the ICC Americas High Performance Manager since 2009 and will still be partially employed in that role as he splits his workload between the ICC Americas office in Toronto and USACA's headquarters in Florida.

"There is a lot of natural talent in the USA," Pick said in a USACA media release. "In the past, the pathway from talent discovery through to players becoming established international cricketers has not always been clear. Having been involved in high performance planning and delivery for the last 14 years, I hope I can make that pathway more accessible and transparent."

The official announcement of Pick's new role with USACA was hinted at through his more frequent appearances around USA teams and programmes in the past six months. In March, he was in Florida for USA's unofficial three-match 50-over series against Bermuda ahead of ICC WCL Division Three and was present as a sounding board during selection meetings to pick the squad that went to Bermuda a month later for the tournament.

In June, he organised and oversaw the inaugural USACA U-19 Selection Combine, which was designed as a new method to select USA's U-19 squad for the ICC Americas U-19 Division One tournament. In the past, USACA had used domestic tournaments as a selection mechanism. Pick was in constant contact with USACA chief executive Darren Beazley while at the ICC Americas U-19 tournament and at the conclusion of the July event, he drove from Toronto to Miami to work with Beazley on a plan for the USA senior team to prepare them for the 2013 ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier in November.

"USACA is extremely pleased to have the support of an experienced cricket administrator such as Andy Pick to provide a dedicated focus on establishing the correct structures and processes to ensure USACA identifies and develops talent, wherever talented men and women reside across the country," Beazley said in the release. "His intimate knowledge of cricket in the USA and of our playing lists will be very important, particularly as our men's team commences preparation for the ICC T20 Qualifer in Dubai in November."

Pick has been a regular source of guidance and assistance to the USA through his ICC Americas position. In the winter of 2011, he spent time in New York and New Jersey organising weekly training courses for the region's junior players and coaches. He also set up a coaching clinic in March 2011 for the New York Public Schools Athletic League, the only high school cricket league in USA.

In April 2011, he organised a month-long training stint with reigning English county champions Nottinghamshire - where Pick played from 1983 to 1997 and also served as bowling coach - for USA players Muhammad Ghous and Adrian Gordon. Four months later, Pick and ICC Americas colleague Wendell Coppin conducted a 10-day training camp in Barbados for the USA Women's team to aid their preparation for the 2011 ICC Women's World Cup Qualifier in Bangladesh.

In October 2010, Pick stated in an interview with ESPNcricinfo that he was impressed with the "abundance of natural talent" in the USA, but was worried that structures were not in place for proper development. "If I'm brutally honest, they have at the moment little framework beneath it to continue providing and developing their best players. That is part of my role, to try to work with the US to see if we can help rectify that situation." With his new role at USACA, Pick now has more control and authority to carry out that mission.

Bangladesh news

Bangladesh disappointed at Test ranking

 

Bangladesh captain Mushfiqur Rahim was disappointed to see his team slip to 10th in the Test rankings after Zimbabwe entered at No. 9, having played enough Tests to qualify to the table.

Zimbabwe's victory against Pakistan also meant that they were lifted to 34 points, a significant lead over Bangladesh who have ten. From the time they reinstated themselves as a Test team, Zimbabwe have won three out of 10 Tests. Bangladesh have played 11 during the same period, winning just one.

"It is normal for a team to go up the ranking table when they do well," Mushfiqur said. "For us however, it is very disappointing that they came back two years ago and crossed us. We have a great opportunity to beat New Zealand in the upcoming Test series. Even if it doesn't better our position in the rankings, we will know that we have committed fully."

There was a lot of interest among the Bangladesh players during the fifth day of the second Zimbabwe-Pakistan Test. Having played so much cricket against each other, there is a sense of camaraderie between the two sets of players apart from the strong rivalry.

Allrounder Shakib Al Hasan said Bangladesh have to follow Zimbabwe's example in October when New Zealand arrive for a two-Test series. "Zimbabwe has played well and it is reflected in their rankings," he said. "We have to do the same and that has to be against New Zealand."

Fast bowler +Mashrafe Mortaza added that domestic competitions should be taken seriously as well. "We need to play more first-class cricket, and give more priority to the National Cricket League," he said. "Batsmen will have to improve on scoring a century and bowlers have to try to bowl much better. Because we play so few Tests, we have to make best use of the opportunity."

Though most of the players have been doing well individually in the Dhaka Premier League, Mushfiqur hopes to play a four-day match after they are released by the clubs.

"There's nothing better than match practice, and some of us play together in the clubs," he said. "I am hoping for a longer-version match just after we leave the league, ahead of the Test series. If that doesn't happen, we would like to train on the Chittagong wicket.

"We had passed on a message to the players that performance in the Premier League will be vital for our preparation against New Zealand. It will give us the self-confidence."

Sorry, but the rankings reflect performance & as long as the BCA doesn't support the first class system, prepare for this type of disappointments in the future. In a country with such a rich talent pool & passion for our game, the grass roots level is not being catered for & many potentially brilliant players are not being developed. I was staggered, when I went there, how many gifted young players there were, where have they gone as they grew older? Bangladesh should be rightly disappointed with their rankings. It has been more than 12 years since the granting of test status to them and they haven't done anything substantial other than win a few ODI games and convincingly defeat Zimbabwe in bilateral games. Most of their cricketers barring a few names don't look good enough for international cricket. It is indeed time for a push in the right direction. They need to start playing a lot away from home to begin with. On the bigger note, their first class structure needs a complete make over. A lot of hard work ahead for them but in Mushfiqur Rahim, they have a confident young captain who can at least instil some positive values in the younger players of the team. 

Its silly to still brag on about Bangladesh's first 6 years in Test Cricket when none of the current squad have even played back then. Since that BPL in 2012 we have seen a change of attitude from a lot of these Bangladesh players from negative to positive and that has brought in great competition to oppositions and wins over India, Sri Lanka and the West Indies 6 times in the small amount of ODI games they have played since 2012. Almost and should've beaten Pakistan in those 2 matches in Asia Cup. Though test matches will be a long rocky road in the the 6 test matches Bangladesh have played since 2012, they have not lost either of them by an innings, won 1 and drawn 1 away with 2 record high scores being broken and made player reaching its first double centurion. This New Zealand series coming will once and for tell us whether Bangladesh's success in the last few years is all a big fluke or they have finally come out of that minnow tag. This is the youngest team of all teams btw.

England v Australia, 5th NatWest ODI, Ageas Bowl

Watson leads Australia to winning finish

As in the Ashes, Shane Watson saved his best until last to enable Australia to end their almost four-month stay in England with silverware as they wrapped up the NatWest series with a convincing 49-run victory. Watson's 143 provided nearly half of Australia's total and his stand of 163 with Michael Clarke, who battled through with his troublesome back, was the defining period of the match and series.

England's chase only ignited when Ravi Bopara and Jos Buttler were adding 92 in 13 overs; perhaps it was the autumnal chill which descended and left spectators huddle up in jacks that prevented an early spark. But by then it was a monumental task, even for Buttler's nerves of steel. Kevin Pietersen was run out in the third over and any remnants of a chance, however slim, disappeared when Eoin Morgan departed straight after the halfway mark of the innings.

Australia were clearly the better team over the three-and-a-bit ODIs that the weather allowed and this trophy, although low down in the priority list when they arrived in late May, will be some solace for Darren Lehmann - who wasn't even in charge when the Champions Trophy squad landed at Heathrow. Australia really have been here that long.

That is not to say there are no benefits England can take, and in this match it was the bowling of Ben Stokes and debutant Chris Jordan - who replaced the injured Steven Finn - as they shared eight wickets. Stokes finished with 5 for 61 having struck early in the innings and then during Australia's collapse of 7 for 87. Both young pace bowlers were sharp, hitting 90mph, and held their nerve against flashing blades.

As in Cardiff, Australia struggled at the top and tail of their innings but this time the central plank provided by Watson and Clarke was so dominant it made a crucial difference. It appeared a rain break in the 10th over might derail their innings when, on resumption, Stokes struck twice in consecutive balls to leave Australia 48 for 3. But England's inexperienced attack could not keep up the pressure as Clarke and Watson feasted on some wayward bowling during their rapid partnership.

Watson reached his eighth one-day hundred from 87 balls in a muscular display of hitting and then latched on to Joe Root's sixth over, which cost 28, the most expensive by an England bowler in ODIs, including three massive leg-side sixes. He was threatening his best score against England - an unbeaten 161 at the MCG in 2011 - but edged behind to give Stokes his fourth wicket.

Stokes claimed his fifth two balls later when Mitchell Johnson lobbed back a return catch and along with Jordan and Boyd Rankin, the latter superbly economical on another good batting pitch, provided a positive glimpse at some of England's depth. Jordan had managed to open his wicket tally in his second over - after being driven twice by Aaron Finch in his first - when he beat Phillip Hughes for pace and the left-hander top-edged to midwicket.

Jordan returned in the batting Powerplay, taken early by Clarke in the 29th over, with Australia at the peak of their scoring rate and removed the Australia captain when he clubbed to mid-off for 74 five balls after Rankin had dropped him in the same position. Clarke had not been convincing at the start of his innings, as England tested out his back with the expected short-pitched attack, but was given early scoring opportunities to get his innings underway and was rarely under a run-a-ball. His straight drive for six off Stokes stood out.

The problem for England was that the combined 10 overs of spin from Root and James Tredwell went for 96; Watson immediately aimed Tredwell over midwicket in a four-over spell that proved his only one of the day. If other sides have been taking notes, Tredwell will need to "batten down the hatches", as he put it the other day, in future series.

Overs 21-30 of Australia's brought 93 runs - a scoring rate considered impressive for the final 10 of an innings - and at 202 for 3 after 30 overs anything seemed possible, but a combination of some laziness from them and resilience from England gave the final 20 overs a very different outcome, to the extent that Australia did not use up their final five deliveries.

Australia rued their late collapse in Cardiff, but it never had the feel of a repeat here. The Pietersen-Michael Carberry opening partnership has not hit it off in this series and for the second time it ended through a breakdown in communication. Pietersen was beaten but Matthew Wade could not take the ball cleanly and it bobbled to short fine-leg. Carberry started to make his way up the pitch, but only made a positive call a few seconds later, by when there was not enough time for Pietersen to make his ground.

Carberry's hometown innings - and perhaps, even, his last for England - was ended by the DRS after Rob Bailey had turned down an appeal from James Faulkner. Joe Root, who laboured for his 21, dragged on against the quick and thrifty Johnson when playing without footwork and most shambolically Luke Wright - a last-minute replacement for Jonathan Trott, who suffered a back spasm - was run out when he did not even attempt to ground his bat going for a sharp single.

Adam Voges gained an lbw decision against Bopara with his first ball, only for DRS to show it was sliding past leg stump, but he claimed the key wicket of Morgan when the England captain was drawn out of his crease and Wade did not add to his list of errors.

For a while, as Buttler and Bopara started picking off boundaries at will, a grandstand finish was not out of the question until Faulkner, from round the wicket, cleaned up Buttler. Seven balls later Bopara rifled a catch to cover off Johnson's first ball back to give him his 200th ODI wicket. That was that, barring the finishing touches, but for anyone who is feeling misty-eyed at the end of England-Australia contests, don't worry: it all starts again in 66 days.

 

England v Australia, 5th NatWest ODI, Ageas Bowl

England v Australia, 5th NatWest ODI, Ageas Bowl

Series win means a lot to team - Clarke

It was fitting for a one-day series that has felt distinctly unloved that Michael Clarke was presented with his trophy in front of a near empty Ageas Bowl on a chilly September evening.

For a few reasons this series, although played in front of near full-houses, has not felt as though it has captured the imagination. The weather, which ruined two matches, England's decision to rest five key players and the general fatigue that follows an intense Ashes campaign were all contributing factors.

However, Michael Clarke was not going to allow such excuses to dampen his delight at claiming a trophy, their first in any format in England since winning the one-day series in 2009 by 6-1 margin.

"For a lot of people this series doesn't mean a lot, but to this team it meant a great deal," he said. "We haven't performed as well as we would have liked as a one-day unit in the UK over the past couple of years and all the boys have worked exceptionally hard. It's a great reward for that hard work. Everyone in our changing room was extremely excited and so we should be, we deserve this win."

Clarke was doubtful for the deciding match after another flare up of his chronic back problem, which has been a talking point throughout the tour. Although not moving entirely freely - and he admitted the back was "pretty sore" after the match - he contributed 75 in the series-defining stand of 163 with Shane Watson.

"I certainly wouldn't have taken the field if I thought I was going to let the boys down," he said. "If I couldn't perform at my best I wouldn't have taken the field, but I certainly didn't want to miss this game. My back was certainly sore over the last few days and it's quite sore now, but we won so it was worth it. It was nice to contribute as well, I had the easy job standing at the other end to Watto - the way he played made my job a lot easier. It's a nice feeling to be sat here as winners of the series."

For Watson, who became a figure of fun during the height of his lbw and DRS issues in the Tests, this was a pleasing way to conclude a tour where, barring a niggle at the tail-end of the Durham Test, he has been able to stay injury free. "It's always nice when you day turns out well," he said. "Everyone knew how important it was to win the one-day series. It's a really exciting time in Australian cricket to see how we are evolving."

Clarke will now return to Australia - which may not feel like home after such a stretch overseas - but only for two weeks before, fitness permitting, he takes the one-day squad to India for a seven-match one-day series. That does not seem ideal ahead of another Ashes series, although care is being taken by the selectors not to repeat the mistakes of 2010-11 when a similar trip meant very little preparation time for the Tests, but Clarke sees this one-day team as an equally important element.

"The India series is pretty important to is, we want to get back to No. 1," he said. "We need to get more consistent away from home and this series was a good start."

Eoin Morgan, meanwhile, was left to reflect on England's self-inflicted damage in the first half of the run chase with the run outs of Kevin Pietersen and Luke Wright for ducks which undid an impressive final 20 overs with the ball.

"At one stage, they looked like getting about 350," he said. So to restrict them to under 300 on a very good wicket, we felt it was a chaseable total. It was disappointing not to get closer, or even over the line. Two run-outs don't help. We lost wickets throughout the whole innings, didn't have a substantial innings from any individual or a big partnership."

 

"Otago won by 8 wickets" Watch live Faisalabad v Otago, CLT20 qualifier, Mohali

Faisalabad Wolves 139/8 (20/20 ov)

Otago 142/2 (17.5/20 ov)

Otago won by 8 wickets (with 13 balls remaining)

+Misbah ul Haq +Pakistan Cricket +Cricket Australia 

Faisalabad Wolves will bat first in the opening match of the Champions League qualifiers, on what captain Misbah-ul-Haq expected to be a good batting track in Mohali. Otago Volts captain Brendon McCullum disagreed however, citing grass on the pitch as evidence there may be movement for the fast bowlers early on.

Fast bowling is a strength for Volts, who have New Zealand seamers Neil Wagner and Ian Butler among them, in addition to the McCullum brothers and Test opener Hamish Rutherford.

Misbah and Saeed Ajmal are the recognisable names in the Wolves side.

Volts have been training for the tournament in Sri Lanka for the last few weeks, but Wolves have had a more rocky approach to the tournament, having only been granted visas to travel to India four days before this match. The teams will seek at least two wins from their three qualifying games, in order to secure a place in the tournament proper.

Faisalabad Wolves: 1 Ali Waqas, 2 Ammar Mahmood, 3 Asif Ali, 4 Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), 5 Khurram Shehzad, 6 Imran Khalid, 7 Mohammad Salman (wk), 8 Ehsan Adil, 9 Saeed Ajmal, 10 Asad Ali, 11 Samiullah Khan

Otago Volts: 1 Hamish Rutherford, 2 Neil Broom, 3 Brendon McCullum (capt), 4 Aaron Redmond, 5 James Neesham, 6 Nathan McCullum, 7 Derek de Boorder (wk), 8 Ian Butler, 9 Neil Wagner 10 Nick Beard, 11 James McMillan

The Champions League Twenty20 is an idea that works on paper, but its iterations so far have been unloved and not that profitable, making it the useless younger brother of the IPL. Yet the presence of the Faisalabad team, which will now receive some much-deserved attention, provides the competition with the sort of narrative the IPL can't. The story of how they got here is reminiscent of a typical sports movie.

A digression here. Pakistan has two major domestic T20 competitions. In the first half of the season, we have the Faysal Bank T20, a typical 14-team affair, like many elsewhere in the cricketing world. In the second there is the Faysal Bank Super 8 T20 (no one has yet attempted to abbreviate it), where the best eight teams from the Faysal Bank T20 play each other. This was the tournament that Faisalabad wonto make it to the Champions League.

The two-competition calendar ought to be considered too much of a good thing, and would probably have Pakistan's old Test-loving-journos in a tizzy were it not for the fact that it makes complete sense. The second tournament came into being in 2010-11 (which is why Pakistan have had 12 domestic T20 champions in nine years), because of the complete absence of international cricket in a country where the three most popular sports are cricket, complaining and cricket. Furthermore, neither of these competitions takes more than ten days to finish. So, bizarre as it may sound, the PCB got something right.

All good sports movies require an interesting and dominating antagonist; in this case there were three. Antagonist No. 1 was Karachi Dolphins (the better of the two Karachi teams). They are a combination of Real Madrid, because they have half the country's media rooting for them, and Liverpool, because their fans always tell you that this is going to be their year, and it never is. Dolphins have been perennial bridesmaids, having lost the finals in six of the 12 competitions held so far (only Sialkot have more appearances).

Antagonist No. 2 was Lahore Lions (the better of the two Lahore teams, and locally referred to as the Lahore Loins), who had had recent success - including winning the T20 competition in the first half of the season - and the best team on paper. Their top five - Ahmed Shehzad, Nasir Jamshed, Mohammad Hafeez, Kamran and Umar Akmal - are pretty much the top order of the national team. You could even argue that this wasn't their best possible batting line-up since the arrival of Hafeez led to two better players, Mohammad Yousuf and Abdul Razzaq, withdrawing from playing for Lions. Rest assured, a full-strength Lions team (with that batting line-up and a pair of teenage left-arm quicks) would have been Pakistan's best option for any significant performance in the Champions League.

Antagonist No. 3 was the Great Empire itself, Sialkot Stallions. Few, if any, teams have dominated their country quite like Stallions. They had won seven of 11 competitions going into this event, including a run in the late noughties where they won five years in a row, going unbeaten for 25 matches. Their success was based around the batting of Shoaib Malik and Imran Nazir, and more recently Haris Sohail - players who excel on Pakistani pitches, especially when the bowling is below international standard. Sialkot also understood the golden rule of T20 cricket: that it is better to have a quality bowling attack than a quality batting line-up, and their colours had been donned by the likes of Rana Naved, Mohammad Asif, Abdur Rehman and Raza Hasan.

Meanwhile our protagonists, Faisalabad Wolves, had once been mighty, having won the first edition of the domestic T20 in 2004-05, and followed that with a win in the predecessor to the Champions League - theInternational 20:20 Club Championship, held in England in 2005, featuring the best two teams in England and the champions of Sri Lanka, South Africa and Pakistan. Nobody remembers it because this was in the days before India cared about T20.

	In the movie version, Misbah will probably be played by Kevin Costner or Nicolas Cage, reprising the role of a man devoid of human emotions such as love or happiness

Between then and this season's domestic championship, Faisalabad didn't win a trophy. Prior to the start of this season they lost their third-best player, Hafeez, and for this competition (until the final) they didn't have the services of their best player, Saeed Ajmal. Their second-best player now is Khurram Shehzad, a poor man's Hafeez (which really is saying something; except that Shehzad realises he isn't an opener). Their fast bowling trio (Sami Niazi, Asad Ali and Ehsan Adil) is more English than Pakistani - no blood, sweat and tears for them. Their captain, unsurprisingly, is Misbah-ul-Haq, often characterised as the antithesis of inspiration, and they have ten role players who had till then won a combined total of less than 20 international caps. In the movie version, Misbah will probably be played by Kevin Costner or Nicolas Cage, reprising the role of a man devoid of human emotions such as love or happiness. But like in all fairy tales, this ragtag group gelled under the old has-been to achieve the improbable.

India A v West Indies A, 1st unofficial ODI, Bangalore

Yuvraj hopes ton sparks new beginning

Hours after marking his comeback to competitive cricket after four months with a century that set up India A's comprehensive 77-run win over West Indies A in Bangalore, Yuvraj Singh looked a relieved man. Perhaps the elation of blasting 123 off 89 balls against what he termed an "international attack" hadn't sunk in. Looking considerably lighter, and feeling like he had a massive load off his shoulders, Yuvraj hoped this knock would spark a new beginning.

Yuvraj came into this game having not played since the IPL in May. However, his road to a comeback started before that in January, when he last played for India. Ignored in the interim due to poor form and fitness, Yuvraj sought to get his fitness back with a rigorous program in France. He was given a lifeline by the selectors when named captain of the limited-overs squads in the ongoing matches against West Indies A. Expectations were high, and he delivered with a brutal century.

"I always had the belief that when I'm feeling well from inside, when I'm feeling mentally good, I'm going to do well," Yuvraj said. "It's taken a lot of time because the body has gone through a lot. You just can't go through such a disease (cancer) and come back and say 'okay, I'm going to be a 100%.'

"It's just getting better and better with every off-season I've spent. I'm just happy with the way I hit the ball today and hopefully I can carry on this form in the coming months."

Yuvraj said he paid a lot of attention to his fitness over the last few months, and credited his stints in France and the National Cricket Academy for getting him back on track.

"The doctors said it would take me about a year to get fully fit. My body's improved a lot. I was focused on training, where I had my weaknesses, on my lung capacity, my diet, in my off-season with Zak [Zaheer Khan]," Yuvraj said. "And, Tim Exeter, whom we trained with (in France), has done wonders for me and Zak in terms of getting back." Yuvraj walked in in the 12th over after India had lost two wickets for 47.

Despite the match being reduced to 42 overs, Yuvraj didn't let the pressure of the run-rate get to him, and bided his time initially. He scored his first boundary off the 39th ball he faced, and accelerated once he passed his half-century. He needed just 20 balls to get from fifty to his century, and by the time he was dismissed, he had smashed eight fours and seven sixes.

Asked if he was a bit too cautious initially, Yuvraj said the pacing of his knock was not too dissimilar from any of his other international centuries. The last time Yuvraj passed three figures was in a Ranji match against Madhya Pradesh last December.

"I've been working on my batting and skills in the last couple of weeks. I just wanted to take some time at the start and attack when I needed to," Yuvraj said. "I think most of my centuries are like this only. Take a few balls to get to 30-35, and then try and up the tempo."

Yuvraj shared stands of 100 and 125 with Mandeep Singh and Yusuf Pathan respectively, and the partnerships were crucial in propelling India A to a commanding total after the West Indies seamers made life tough for the top order. Mandeep was positive in his 67, looking for boundaries while Yuvraj looked to settle in. Yuvraj credited the younger Mandeep for taking the pressure off him.

"Once a batsmen batting with you is set, it allows you to take a bit of time in the middle. It was a fresh wicket, it was doing a bit in the first couple of overs. Robin [Uthappa] and Mandy [Mandeep], they gave us a good start. It allowed me and Yusuf to cash in in the end. Mandy dominating at that time really helped me take my time and get settled in."

He also praised the opposition's bowling attack, who were not as bad as their figures suggested. "I think it was a complete international attack," Yuvraj said. "[Andre] Russell has obviously played for West Indies, Ronsford Beaton - that kid looks really special. He looks the future of West Indies fast bowling. He reminded me of Curtly Ambrose. Obviously, Curtly was great. I think he has a lot of potential, and I think they had a very good attack."

Having failed to make the cut for the three unofficial Tests, Yuvraj said he was happy living for the moment. "Look, I got an opportunity to play. I don't know about four-day cricket; Test matches. I'm just happy I'm playing."

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The sovereign republic of the BCCI

The Indian board is setting a precedent by ignoring the FTP, and thus seemingly reserving the right to do with international cricket as it pleases

At one point in his excellent new book on the modern powerhouse of Indian cricket, The Great Tamasha, James Astill stops to wonder whether India is becoming "an oligarchy, a democracy stage-managed by a corrupt super-elite". One might harbour exactly the same thought about cricket.

Consider this: under the ICC's Future Tours Programme, the BCCI was scheduled to visit South Africa between November and January for three Tests, seven ODIs and two T20Is. Except that in July the BCCI began to dicker about the schedule, in the same way as six months earlier it had refused to be pinned down on the matter of a schedule for a tour of New Zealand, also listed in the FTP.

Never mind that South Africa and India, first and third on the ICC Test rankings, represent probably the best cricket we have a chance of seeing in the present environment. Never mind that Cricket South Africa, like New Zealand Cricket, is an organisation whose finances depend acutely on television revenues, of which the presence of an Indian cricket team would afford them a share; in fact, that was the point. Then the BCCI announced that India will play two home Tests against West Indies, not part of the FTP, partly overlapping with the time previously allotted to the South African tour. It is now possible there will be no visit to South Africa at all.

On all this, there was no elaboration whatsoever, official or unofficial. In positing nine possible explanations for the Wisden India website, Suresh Menon observed that the BCCI had gone beyond its usual domineering ways and was "functioning like a secret society". All that seems agreed is that the BCCI and CSA have a feud. We know this because CSA's chief executive, Haroon Lorgat, has offered to apologise, which apparently BCCI's locum president Jagmohan Dalmiya thinks is a good idea without troubling to specify for what - something that transpired when Lorgat was running the ICC, one must assume. Dalmiya was certainly sorely grieved when Lorgat shifted the India v England match from the badly incomplete Eden Gardens during the 2011 World Cup.

The other salient fact is that the BCCI has its annual general meeting coming up on September 29, the overpowering presence at which will be its il capo dei capi, N Srinivasan, temporarily restricted by the betting misadventures of his son-in-law in the IPL but still the master string-puller. Since the May allegations about Gurunath Meiyappan, and about spot-fixing in the IPL, the BCCI has lurched about like many a debauched and embattled political regime.

Quick private inquiry to exonerate all concerned - thank you, former judges Chouta and Balasubramanian! Rehabilitation of former enemies it is now expedient to embrace - sorry that we once expelled you "for life" for corruption, Mr Dalmiya! Morale-boosting tributes from selected kiss-ass courtiers - congratulations, Mr Shastri, on a Sardesai Lecture that had it been delivered in North Korea would have brought a blush to the cheek of the Dear Leader!

The decision to superimpose West Indies' visit on what should have been the trip to South Africa is double the fun. There's crude populism - hey everyone, let's cheer for Sachin's 200th Test! There's gratuitous gunboat diplomacy - if you want our money, Mr Lorgat, you better beg for it! And it coincides nicely with the meting out of "justice" to the previous regime - that means you, Mr Lalit Modi! Because that general meeting has already been designated for imposing a life ban on the IPL's Icarus-like founder after a three-year investigation found… well, not as much as it wanted. After all the initial finger-pointing, the BCCI's star chamber had to work pretty hard to make the crime fit the pre-ordained punishment, because in the end he has really only been convicted of the high-handed unilateralism for which he had always been known, and in which the BCCI had previously indulged him. Perhaps his misdeeds lie elsewhere; perhaps the charges themselves achieved the desired end anyway.

****

To be fair to the BCCI, cricket administration is hardly to be associated with transparency and accountability anywhere. It is the domain of self-constituting national monopolies. Cricket boards have no shareholders to appease or voters to placate. The cricket-loving public, in whose name administrators sometimes purport to govern, are diffuse, unorganised, and care little about who's running things, providing they enjoy a bit of what they want every so often - whether that's semi-regular ebullitions for Sachin in India, or the maximum Ashes cricket in Australia and England. Unlike players, bound tight by codes of conduct, boards essentially police themselves, with all that that entails. What some regard as cricket's overall governing body, the ICC, has the barest powers of oversight, and receives from most of its directors only perfunctory attention: they have not visited its headquarters for nearly 18 months, preferring to meet in a resort at colossal expense while complaining that the council costs too much.

This is actually a subtext of the present imbroglio. None hold the ICC in such conspicuous contempt as its largest member, the BCCI having declined to sign the FTP and now setting a precedent in ignoring it altogether. The casus belli was the Woolf Review, a thorough examination of the governance of world cricket initiated by Lorgat, which in February 2012 made high-minded, far-reaching and arguably unrealistic proposals for turning the ICC into a full-fledged governing organisation with independent directors.

The BCCI was having none of it. The ICC govern in the interests of cricket? Not on Srinivasan's watch. And as it happens, a tiny chink of light is available to study this by: it's a copy of the minutes of the ICC's January board meeting, which has for many months been passing surprisingly unremarked on what we might call Modileaks - Lalit Modi's idiosyncratic but entertaining website.

	The BCCI is an organisation with many more problems than are sometimes acknowledged - full of ambitious people pulling in different directions, operating in an uncertain political, commercial and legal environment, shaped by a turbo-boosted economy that has bestowed its benefits unevenly and whose impetus is currently faltering

For connoisseurs of shambolic governance, these minutes contain much to savour, but let's confine ourselves to two nuggets. Firstly, at section 6.2, you will find an attempt by ICC ethics officer Sean Cleary to raise Clause 3 of the council's code of ethics which binds ICC board members to act as, amazing to say, ICC board members. Let the minutes record: "Mr Srinivasan explained that he did not agree with that principle and that his position was that he was representing the BCCI." Singapore's Imran Khwaja, one of three Associate member representatives on the executive board, then pointed out the bleeding obvious, that "this matter needed to be resolved one way or another in order to avoid directors technically being in perpetual breach of the Code of Ethics and for the ICC to be seen as a credible organisation and an effective Board". And, of course, everyone then stepped delicately round the multi-billion-dollar elephant in the room.

In order to convey his point, Cleary rather bravely invoked examples of ethical failures at FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, and Union Cycliste Internationale: "He emphasised that the current version of the Code of Ethics binds everybody, but that if it is flouted by all, then it becomes meaningless." Yet rather than an address what might be regarded as a pretty fundamental point, Srinivasan responded by calling on Cleary to investigate "certain matters, which relate to the former Chief Executive, Mr Lorgat".

What this means, who is to say? Innuendo now swirls around Lorgat in much the same way as it did around Modi, with nobody showing much interest in clearing it up - not even journalists, happier these days to feed a swirl of rumour than do anything so vulgar as unearth a fact. Anyway, precisely nobody was prepared to point out the manifest absurdity of Srinivasan's position - the board member who openly scorned the code of ethics in his own case demanding that it be applied to someone else.

Secondly, at section 9.3, ICC legal officer Iain Higgins attempts to lead a discussion of the FTP agreement, whereupon Srinivasan explains why the BCCI refused to sign it. Let the minutes record:

"Mr Srinivasan explained that the BCCI's position was that it wished to retain the right to unilaterally terminate the FTP Agreement: a/ in the event of certain financial or structural changes emanating from the implementation of certain recommendations from the Woolf Report; and b/ should it be required to use DRS in any bilateral matches. In the meantime he explained that the Indian national team would continue to play the fixtures in the FTP Schedule, but he noted that it was finding it difficult to continue the commitments because there are so many events in the calendar."

Well that's jolly nice of them, then.

Incidentally, although Modi is being a little cheeky posting these minutes online, there's really no reason for them not to be freely available. They concern matters of significance to every cricket fan, and contain no information that could be described as commercial-in-confidence. An administrative class that took transparency and accountability seriously would make all such deliberations public. We are in a day and age of whistles being blown left and right. Yet we know more about the internal policies of the US' super-secret National Security Agency - thanks to Ed Snowden - than we do about the attitudes and purposes of those who run cricket. So let's get it out there, shall we?

The BCCI represents itself at the ICC in open defiance of the council's code of ethics, and deigns to play other countries only in an unspecified "meantime", reserving the right to set the whole of international cricket at nought if anything should happen it doesn't like. If it won't acknowledge it publicly, then we should spread the word ourselves.

****

For the moment, international cricket under the foregoing conditions quite suits the BCCI, preserving its freedom to reward those in favour, to punish those out of favour, and generally to intimidate the equivocal. Those favoured at the moment evidently include the West Indies Cricket Board, whose captain was among those who obligingly changed their vote on the ICC cricket committee away from Tim May of the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations to Srinivasan's water carrier Laxman Sivaramakrishnan.

The BCCI gave the WICB a nice fat tri-series three months ago; now the WICB has returned the compliment by volunteering to provide extras for The Tendulkar Show. NZC now also enjoys a crumb from the rich man's table, a truncated visit by India being not only confirmed but brought forward, now that its mettlesome chairman and ICC executive board member Chris Moller is about to depart.

The out of favour obviously include CSA, despite the fact that four years ago it was CSA that made possible IPL 2 at the 11th hour. The trouble was, of course, that this abetted the BCCI's previous regime, the Modi-Pawar-Bindra alliance, rather than the present mob, the Srinivasan-Dalmiya-Sundar Raman junta; given the latter's manicheanism, that probably constitutes giving aid and comfort to the enemy. (In the annals of cricket administration, by the way, the relocation of IPL 2 must now be eligible for some sort of hall of shame, given its legacies of crises and ill will at both CSA and the BCCI.)

As noted, CSA is acutely beholden to the BCCI. The members of its superb Test team are in their playing and earnings prime, and understandably eager to play in the IPL. The country's six professional franchises depend heavily on the BCCI-led Champions League, in which CSA, with Cricket Australia, is a minority shareholder. Rightly or wrongly, some in South Africa sense that the BCCI's long-term aim is to prostrate an on-field rival, perhaps also by levering CSA out of the Champions League and replacing it with the ECB, thereby pauperising South African first-class cricket. So while the wranglings of administrators can seem as remote to the everyday fan as supersonic fighters in the stratosphere, they are, under the influence of an over-mighty BCCI, forming part of a more worrisome pattern. And what happens when Srinivasan's unspecified "meantime" expires?

****

From your more militant apologist for Indian power in cricket, response to observations like the foregoing usually condenses to: well, tough luck; you ruled; now we rule. Yet this misunderstands the nature of the change in cricket's patterns of governance. In the hundred years and more that authority emanated from Lord's, cricket was run along the lines of an English public school, at least as defined by Lytton Strachey: anarchy tempered by despotism. Under the economic dominion of the BCCI, the world is converging on the opposite model: despotism tempered by anarchy, the anarchy coming mainly from within India itself. For the BCCI is an organisation with many more problems than are sometimes acknowledged - full of ambitious people pulling in different directions, operating in an uncertain political, commercial and legal environment, shaped by a turbo-boosted economy that has bestowed its benefits unevenly and whose impetus is currently faltering.

At an operational level, ironically, the BCCI is an increasingly impressive and efficient organisation, which probably deserves more credit for what it does and how it does it: allegations of player corruption in the IPL have been dealt with capably and expeditiously. At a governance level, however, it is an arena of self-advancement and self-aggrandisement.

External fights the BCCI is inclined to pick, like the current feud with CSA, sometimes look like the phoney foreign war confected to distract from an American president's personal peccadillos in Wag the Dog. "The president will be a hero," says the political fixer. "He brought peace." Someone quibbles: "But there was never a war." Explains the fixer: "All the greater accomplishment."

Certainly the BCCI annual meeting is being treated with outsized importance. Dalmiya has deferred consideration of the dispute with CSA until afterwards: "What we will decide we will decide only after the AGM. We are very busy with our AGM at the moment." Hey, never let the triviality of competition between the world's two best cricket teams stand in the way of something really important, like a meeting of administrators! But if we accept the BCCI at its self-estimation, there is a logical conclusion to this, in which international cricket, especially Test cricket, dwindles independent of its relations with India.

For some time, there have been essentially two tiers of cricket: the tier involving India (significantly lucrative) and the tier that doesn't (where, with the exception of the Ashes, the rewards are so thin that Sri Lanka can hardly afford to play Test matches any longer, and Zimbabwe and Pakistan must play consecutively at the same venue). The latter can only weaken further; the former is ripe for rationalisation.

One of the most fascinating passages in Astill's book is an interview with BCCI vice-president Niranjan Shah, the board's longest-serving member, who runs cricket in the region of Saurashtra, thanks to a membership populated with friends, relatives and cronies that has not changed in 20 years. From his secure vantage point, Shah regards the cricket world simply as an irritation. Why does India have to send cricket teams abroad anyway? The IPL lights the way: all should come to India as supplicants.

	In the years in which authority emanated from Lord's, cricket was run along the lines of an English public school: anarchy tempered by despotism. Under the economic dominion of the BCCI, it is despotism tempered by anarchy, the anarchy coming mainly from within India itself

At the moment we are getting money only when there is an international game. So I think IPL is the first step on this issue. Like in baseball, America is not worried whether other country is playing or not. Because cricket is a major game here, so we should not depend on whether England or South Africa come to India to get money…

ICC is trying to control us. That's my feeling. Most of the other boards do not like that we make so much money and that their revenue depends on whether our team goes to play them. So the whole thing has been reversed. For cricket the only market in the world is India. The market is here. So we will control cricket, naturally.

Shah isn't exactly one of cricket's leading-edge thinkers, being remembered at the ICC for his fervent denunciations of T20 during Malcolm Speed's period as chief executive: he declared it an abomination to which India would never be reconciled. Yet Astill came away from their conversation with the feeling that Shah represented the BCCI's "majority view". This may or may not be true. What it more likely reflects is the prevalence of a view at the BCCI that the cricket world's only proper attitude to it is one of homage.

For the time being, as it negotiates a broadcast deal for the cycle of events beyond the 2015 World Cup, the ICC is relatively secure. But it is also in the throes of reviewing its group structure, specifically the use of the British Virgin Islands by its development arm, and its revenue-distribution model, including how it will handle the allocation of its next lot of rights monies. Late next year, too, an option is exercisable on the ICC's headquarters under which it can be "put" back to the building's developers, Dubai Sports City.

The council could emerge from the process a very different-looking entity, most likely a smaller one, relocated to somewhere like Singapore and reduced to a kind of provider of auxiliary services, although still available to blame when things go wrong. Such a step would be unobjectionable to most cricket publics, who identify the council mainly with fiascos - overlong tournaments, unintelligible playing conditions, the DRS passim.

That would leave the way open to a long-awaited extension of the IPL season. In the IPL, the BCCI created a mighty sporting product that was also a rod for its own back. The league in its original specifications and duration was only a marginal commercial proposition for franchisees: why invest in a sporting brand name in order to leave it inactive for nine or ten months of the year? As soon as private capital entered cricket, the rules were different - its impact has simply been deferred, not avoided. The one thing of which we can be fairly certain is that the interests of cricket will be the least concern of anyone with influence over the decision. The predominant motivations will be individual ambition, commercial advantage and potential political gain, and by the time we're told what has happened, there will be nothing to do about it.

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