Record county bounty at stake

1/3

The Rose Bowl will turn into cricket's version of the Super Bowl tomorrow, when the south coast venue stages the most lucrative matches in the history of the county game.

The two finalists in tomorrow's Twenty20 climax will either join the Indian-orchestrated Champions League in October - and fight for a first prize of around £2.2m - or, as seems increasingly likely, be entered for a similarly well-monied global event in the Middle East.

And for the winner of the competition there is now the added attraction of being invited to Antigua in late October as warm-up acts for the 1 November £10m challenge match between Sir Allen Stanford's West Indies All Stars and England - which could mean another £30,000 per man.

The English champions of the shortest form of the game will therefore put themselves on course for a possible payday in excess of £2.5m, unquestionably the biggest county bounty ever.

Essex against Kent and Middlesex v Durham would have been important Twenty20 Cup semi-finals a year ago but the riches now on offer give it far greater significance.

"The Twenty20 competition has certainly captivated everyone around the county," said Middlesex coach Tony Radford. "Even my mum - who is not a big follower of the game - is always on the phone checking how we are doing."

The only cloud hanging over the Rose Bowl has been India's continued insistence that no county containing 'rebel' Indian Cricket League players could be allowed to join the Champions League.

Middlesex and Essex are 'clean' but both Kent and Durham would be barred if a compromise were not found.

There is still optimistic talk, however, of an England Cricket Board driven alternative event, which could also include domestic teams from around the world. By the looks of it, the only real losers tomorrow will be the two beaten semi-finalists, who each receive £10,000 and will not qualify for any of the big-money games.

The Twenty20 Cup winners collect £42,000 and the runners-up, £21,000. But that is of course just the start for those two teams, so it is no wonder all four counties are determined not let talk of money affect their cricket.

"Lots of things are being mooted and it's all very exciting," said Kent chief executive Paul Millman. "But I know captain Rob Key and the guys are just concentrating on getting to the next stage.

"I guess it's a bit like some of the England cricketers and talk of them playing in the Indian Premier League. That must be all very exciting as well but no doubt they are waiting to see whether they get invited rather than starting to count the pennies ahead of time."

As for the Champions League issue, Millman added: "We've been very conscious of taking things in stages and if we've got a problem we'll solve it. Until there's a problem we are not going to beat the air and worry about it. In the dressing room and around the club it's simply not an issue."

Over at Middlesex, the veteran bowler Shaun Udal is another hoping to benefit from cricket's financial revolution, but money cannot buy what the game has in store for him.

Twelve months after the crushing disappointment of being left out of a Lord's final with Hampshire and thinking his days as a professional cricketer were over, the 39-year-old former England spinner is heading for Twenty20 finals day with a new county.

Ironically, it is all happening at the Rose Bowl - Udal's home ground until the county decided it was time they got by without their ever popular veteran bowler.

"I couldn't have written a better script," said Udal. "I wasn't even picked by Hampshire last year for Twenty20 cricket and I was very disappointed about that. So to be going back to the Rose Bowl as one of the semi-finalists is a dream come true."

In a further twist, Middlesex's opponents are Durham - the team Udal would have played against in last year's Friends Provident Trophy Final at Lord's if Hampshire had not left out their former captain on the morning of the match.

"Let's just hope we do ourselves proud and we get through," said Udal, whose middle over bowling partnership with Indian left-arm spinner Murali Kartik has played a big part in propelling Middlesex to their first finals day.

Having reached only one quarter-final in the previous six years, the Crusaders won eight of their 10 group games before beating Lancashire to reach the semis.

It was that match against Andrew Flintoff's side that saw Dawid Malan, another of Middlesex's Twenty20 heroes, come to the fore.

Not 21 until September, the Roehampton-born batsman wrecked Lancashire with a brilliant innings of 103, from 54 balls, in the Cup quarter-final after Middlesex had been 20 for four. And he did this after scoring a century on his Championship debut just a few days before. Nevertheless, Durham, with England's Paul Collingwood and Steve Harmison, will start as favourites, but the astonishing cash incentive will clearly focus the minds of both sets of players. "I'd be lying if I said the money people are talking about had not been mentioned to a certain degree," said Udal.

"But certainly not to the point of it being the be-all and end-all.

"If you make it into your big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow then you'll be too concerned about what might happen instead of worrying about the white ball coming towards you. I'm just looking forward to being part of a fantastic day."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in