DESTROYIN' THE JOINT

Three words guaranteed to upset any West Indian. But not that joint, mon:

West Indies greats say Twenty20 is destroying cricket, call for international ban

JUST a month after the West Indies claimed the Twenty20 World Cup, three of the country's greats have called for the ICC to show some "balls" and scrap it as an international sport and stand up to India's might.

Comments

[Matt]

Joel Garner and Viv Richards had their hand out for the Stanford Twenty20 money. The money has run out - the tune now changes ...

At least Holding is consistent. Make that man ICC president.

[Tony Tea]

What was it Paul Keating said about premiers? Never get between a sportsman and a bucket of money?

[Carrot]

Is it just me, or is that not what they're saying at all? It seems to me that they're saying "Twenty20 is good, but there are some issues in how it needs to be managed, and the BCCI can't call the shots all the time". Someone's gone deliberately overboard on that headline, but I guess we can't be surprised by that.

You'd be pretty hard-pressed to argue that Twenty20 hasn't been good for West Indian cricket. More than one player has suggested that without the Allen Stanford support, Caribbean cricket would be in a much worse place than it is right now - and that was largely through the implementation of a Twenty20 league. With that has come a greater interest in the game in a region where it had been on the wane for years, and better performance and success in other forms of the game. The West Injuns are one of my favourite sides at the moment, after being an international embarassment for years. They pounded the Kiwis recently and are pounding the Bangles as we speak - let's hope for more improvement. A strong West Indies side is good for cricket.

[Tony Tea]

Viv sure does hate T20.