World 20/20 won’t repeat mistakes of World Cup

May 30, 2009 Sports

West Indies battle Aussies next Saturday

Fidel Edwards

Dwayne Bravo

Chris Gayle

ICC’s tournament director Steve Elworthy believes that the allure of international competition will enable next month’s World 20/20 to rise above the fears of overkill that are currently circulating in English cricket, but warned that the ECB will have missed a trick if they fail to use the three-week event to attract a new audience.

The tournament starts on Friday June 5 when hosts England face Holland while the West Indies, led by their IPL players; Chris Gayle, Fidel Edwards and Daren Bravo, go into action the next day against Australia. West Indies play Sri Lanka on June 10 in their other group ‘C’ match.
Elworthy said the ICC had learnt lessons from the disastrous Caribbean World Cup in 2007, and were also mindful of overloading the calendar with too many marquee events.
But regardless of the hype and glamour of the recently completed Indian Premier League, he insisted that tickets for the World Twenty20 were proving extremely popular in what he described as a “unique summer” for the ECB.

“The key point with any product is the exclusivity,” said Elworthy. “You want people walking away at the end of a match wanting more, you want them to say: ‘I can’t wait for next season because I can’t wait for the next 20/20 competition’.
“There’ve been a couple of very big competitions in a fairly short space of time, but it’ll settle down. It is a massive summer of cricket for the ECB, but it’s a unique summer. It doesn’t happen very often to get the Ashes and a world event in the same year and hosted by the same board.”
Elworthy was appointed by the ECB in January, having successfully overseen the inaugural World 20/20 in September 2007 which was won by India in his native South Africa.
“The IPL is a fantastic domestic product and its success is widely recognised. But this is nation versus nation, and everything we are doing goes back to that pride of pulling on your shirt and representing your country.” said Elworthy.

Elworthy says the ICC is still heeding the lessons learnt at the 2007 World Cup, which featured 47 matches in 51 days, unrealistic ticket prices and dull cricket between ill-matched teams.
“Twenty20 is a development product,” said Elworthy. “It is for attracting new markets and new spectators, who will hopefully go on to play cricket and participate. You’ve got to be able to get to the youth market, because what you’re trying to achieve is dictated to you by your ticket price.”
“You can’t have an elite ticket price and expect it to be attended by loads of families and kids,” said Elworthy. “The structure of our ticket prices there was one of the key successes [of the 2007 tournament].”
Elworthy is adamant that English fans will flock to the event, even though the Ashes remain the dominant attraction.

“Twenty20 in this country is extremely popular and we expect 95-98% capacity at the key double-headers, and we are well on target in terms of our goals of over 80% attendance across the entire tournament.”
“All the venues have been supportive,” he added. “Our ticketing strategy didn’t want to alienate the current markets and clientele that the venues have, but we wanted to reach new audiences and get new faces to the ground.
All the dug-outs and DJ boxes and dance podiums, those have become part of the 20/20 brand, and they’ll be delivered at all these venues.