(Tony Cozier argues that advent of the IPL has thrown the future direction of cricket into confusion)
By Tony Cozier
In MUMBAI
It will become the biggest sport on the planet in 10 years, supplanting even football, Sir Allen Stanford proclaimed last week.
While Twenty20 cricket taking over London’s Wembley, Rio’s Maracana and Barcelona’s Nou Camp before global warming turns those iconic football stadiums into giant swimming pools, far less in 10 years, is far-fetched fantasy, it is easy to comprehend the source of the Antigua-based Texan billionaire’s hyperbole and his intention to put his money where his mouth is.
It is only two years since the immediate impact of the shortest form of the game on English cricket prompted Stanford to pump nearly US$40 million each into two seasons of his own Twenty/20 Tournament at his own ground alongside Antigua’s international airport.
