Shane Warne was interviewed by Kevin Mitchell in the Guardian outlining his vision for Twenty20 cricket. With the Allen Stanford saga hitting the game as it tries to welcome more and more money Warney said that the authorities should focus purely focus on the IPL and stop trying copycat events. They should accept the IPL having got the competition right. The future of Twenty20 is far from set in stone for my money but lets see what Warney thinks . . .
“Playing for your country has to be number one. But, if common sense prevailed, the IPL would run for four weeks in April, with a week either side when there was no international cricket. Every player in the world would be available. Instead of everyone trying to copy the IPL, because it worked, they should support it and say, you know what, this is a great advertisement for this brand of cricket, worldwide. Twenty-four million viewers watched the final. Now there aren’t many sporting events where 24 million people watch it.”
Warne’s Royals won the inaugural competition, and he led them in his laid-back, inspiring way. Their match-day preparation entailed hanging out in the hotel swimming pool until 45 minutes before the 2.30pm start, getting to the ground at 2pm, tossing up and playing. Easy.
“The IPL is just pure, intense. You don’t need all the other stuff. I don’t believe in coaches in international cricket. When I finished, I had nothing else to prove. The enjoyment [wasn't there]. I was whinging about a lot of little things. If you could just turn up the night before and play, then I’d still probably be playing. But there’s too much other rubbish they carry on with these days, jump tests, fitness things, all this absolute crap. To me, cricket is a simple game. Keep it simple and just go out and play. None of these team meetings and dissecting players on computers.”
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