International innovations

The Leicestershire Cricket Club and a group of backers have established an international Twenty20 club competition. New Zealand and Australian teams are not involved at this stage, but the English domestic champions will be involved along with a Pakistani invitational team, a Professional Cricketer's XI and Mark Richardson's Lashings side. Given the popularity of Twenty20 cricket in most parts of the world it doesn't seem that we are too far away from a Champions League or Super 12 for club cricket.

Meanwhile the Asia-Africa cup pits a side made up of Asian players against a side made up of African players. This seems more like an attempt to create equivalents of the Lions rugby side, and most of us know how unsuccesful that has been recently. Like the Best vs the Rest games in Australia later this year, I suspect this competition won't have much of a long term future. Amalgam sides never seem to play with much passion.