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You can't blame the likes of Darren Maddy for joining the Indian Cricket League

Pablo Luna - Moonlighting for Betfair. Pablo looks at the career of Darren Maddy up to now and considers the impact the Indian Cricket League can have on the county game

In Sport you have a tier of nearly men, journeymen and utility men who though they contribute at their discipline, fall short of being class. They are the building blocks of sport and we should not dismiss them lightly. Darren Lee Maddy (born 23 May 1974) is one of those men. He is a decent cricketer who has played for Leicestershire and Warwickshire with 3 Tests and 8 ODIs for England to his name. Considered lucky to have won one Test cap, it was a brief and miserable association. In those eleven games he managed a solitary fifty and that was against a club side called Zimbabwe. He also played 4 Twenty20 matches for England.

Although enjoying some success in county cricket for Leicestershire between 1994-2006 he became branded as a solid one-day player. His career stalled until the advent of Twenty20 where he exploded into life and by the end of 2006 he was the first player in the world to score 1,000 runs in that form of cricket. He was also a prolific wicket taker and an excellent fielder but by then he had fell out with Leicestershire and signed for Warwickshire. On 25th April 2007 he became captain of Warwickshire after just one game of the domestic season, proving he did have a certain something to offer.

Maddy made his debut against the touring South Africans. His first class batting average had been steadily declining since he made 1,187 runs in the 2002 season. He made three first class centuries in the period from 2003 to 2005 and one of those was against Durham UCCE (see cricinfo.com). In the 2007 season Maddy's form improved with his move to Warwickshire. In the 4-day format of the game he scored four centuries and two fifties where he averaged 46.82 which compares favourably to his career average of 33.15 (his Twenty20 average, where he excels, is also 33.11 which proves he has under-performed in Championship cricket).

On 29 September 2007 he signed up to play in the rebel Indian Cricket League (ICL) which is a Twenty20 format thus ending any hope of an England return - but who could blame him? He was never going to play any more matches for England anyway and who would deny him a nice little earner (reportedly £50,000 for a maximum of a month's work) before his career ends? Brian Lara and Inzaman ul-Haq had already signed with a flock of others including Paul Nixon, Vikram Solanki and Chris Read of England.

The ECB put pressure on players not to join and other national boards have threatened to ban anyone that does. Robert Griffiths, the leading QC who represented Darrell Hair in his case against the ICC, said that any county stopping the players from going would be guilty of "unlawful restraint of trade" if they are uncontracted in the winter. Maddy said that he had support from Warwickshire and the Professional Cricketers Association and that had put his mind at rest.

Is this league just a bit of fun, should it be taken seriously, is it the start of something new? I doubt the longevity of the ICL but county cricket would be wise to acknowledge the threat. No one knows if the ICL will work or be accepted worldwide but it is sure to be interesting. I am watching the space.

There are those who believe that this shortened version of the game (which is on the rise) will destroy and replace the 50 over game within the next ten years. Cricket needs to get more competitive if it is to seduce more spectators and consequently more money, so perhaps a changed format is the answer? Twenty20 is a way of achieving what 50 over cricket was meant to do. The nature of the Twenty20 game means both teams are often in the hunt until the last over. What do you think? Will it help the betterment of the game?

Betfair betting exchange punters are following the ICL with the next games being played on 12 December 2007 between Chennai Superstars and Delhi Jets starting at 1230 IST and Hyderabad Heroes and Kolkata Tigers starting at 1800 IST. It is worth a look...

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