David Foot column: Champions League – The apathy is deafening
It's immensely popular with the Asian spectators – and doubtless the bookmakers – as it makes its significant contribution to this staggeringly evolving game.
The exploits are screened round the world. Brian Rose, Somerset's director of cricket, not a man given to hasty judgements and overt enthusiasms, has spoken of its considerable glamour.
His county did well to get through the group stage, producing an early shock win over Adam Gilchrist and others of almost equal stature.
This tournament is, of course, awash with money. As the game has changed, there have been disproportionate rewards for less successful counties like Gloucestershire, Derbyshire and Glamorgan.
But cricket, has been given a new global appearance and purpose with the introduction of this frenetic excitement and its crash-bang ideas and structures.
How dare we knock it? Brian Rose's words ring true, maybe short term, maybe for ever. Modest county players find themselves competing against established Test cricketers.
The cameras are rolling, admission money is piling up. And the game is suddenly, belatedly a very good living, at least for the lucky players. Yet for the dozen teams, some with strange sounding names, this inaugural Champions League is still bringing from some an uncertain response. The glamour is there for those taking part. What about the others ?
The column found itself conducting its own very unofficial straw poll this past week. There was an odd kind of apathy. A surprising number weren't at all sure which teams were taking part or the way it was run. Back in England the cricket has often been reported in small type. It may be a joyful riot out in India. Not necessarily so back here. And what do our cricket authorities really think?
Younis Khan, the Pakistan captain, caused something of a diversion and talking point when earlier this week he appeared to resign after being accused of match-fixing (oh no, not all that again) during the Champions Trophy in South Africa.
Sticking with cricket, whatever possessed Steve Harmison to present the England selectors with what amounted to an ultimatum?
He apparently saw no future in carrying the drinks as an alternative to playing. But his protest was crass, appearing in cold print as verging on the arrogant. He was disappointed not to be in the party for South Africa.
At his best he has been fast and bouncy. But he has lost some of his natural physical merit. He has had to live with the memory, cruelly enhanced by TV, of that wretched delivery that ended up in front of second slip. Even worse, his Test career, once bolstered by Ashes success, could now be over for ever.
However talented the cricketer, it has to be a steadfast rule that he never makes the conditions.
Here is an irony, probably not lost on Harmison. In the last few days, another notable England bowler, Matthew Hoggard has had a seemingly unloving departure from Yorkshire.
Several other long-serving seam bowlers have said their good-byes, maybe feeling that their perspiring services might have merited more recognition of their worth. That was perhaps the case with Andrew Caddick who had hoped to go on hitting the deck for his adopted country a little longer.
Partings can be painful. They were with Somerset's Arthur Wellard, Horace Hazell and Harold Stephenson. So they were with the great Wally Hammond who simply drifted away and eventually to South Africa where he became a forgotten figure.
There was an ultimatum or two from Sydney Barnes, perhaps the finest bowler we ever had. He was moody and outspoken. He preferred league cricket and let a succession of county and England captains know. But he could afford to be off-hand: seven times he took all ten wickets in an innings
Gloucestershire had the inspiring Charlie Parker, son of a farm labourer and himself a bible-quoting commie. He could be fiery and feared no-one, especially cricket's grandees.
That was why he once grabbed Sir Pelham Warner by the neck in the lift cage at Bristol's Grand Hotel. Charlie was selected just once to play for his country, a wicked snub. This column was criticised for revealing that dust-up in the lift. Yet he was a good man, a marvellous slow left-arm bowler and someone held in great affection by all the Gloucestershire pros.
Footballers have presented their own incestuous dressing room ultimatums over the years. That reminds us of Craig Bellamy, bravely signed for a second time by Mark Hughes and now producing for Manchester City the best attacking soccer of his wayward and nomadic career. He has upset a succession of managers and fellow players, has broken curfews, taken on intrusive fans and built up an unenviable disciplinary record.
Bellamy now captains Wales. He retains the speed of an Olympic sprinter and tells anyone who cares to listen that the bad days are over. He assures us he isn't kidding.
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