England Cricket / Ralph Ellis / 16 October 2008 /

In terms of results on the pitch, the Stanford series will be a flip of a coin. Which makes England's current price far too short, says Ralph Ellis.

So Rio Ferdinand thought England's football team under Sven Goran Eriksson turned into a circus. Maybe. But roll up with all the WAGS, fashion, photographers, bling and Beckhams and it still wouldn't be a patch on the Big Top that the cricket team are moving into in the West Indies in the next couple of weeks.

Here comes the Stanford Super Series, an event that might have sounded a great idea back in the summer when they were worrying about the growing march of the Indian Premier League, but looks positively out of place now. Does it bother you whether our cricketers collect a winner-takes-all jackpot of 20 million dollars? Thought not.

With unemployment growing, the banks running out of cash, and all the other doom and gloom on the news we want sport to be taking our minds off money at the moment rather than rubbing our noses in it. Two England wins and a couple more Wayne Rooney goals make you feel good. If England's cricketers were to maintain their dramatic improvement by winning a series in India that would be fantastic. If they earn themselves a bundle of cash then good luck to them but are we really bothered?

Probably not but that's not stopping the publicity machine beginning to crank into action. And here's a curious thing - Sky have got the TV rights to the Stanford Series so the Rupert Murdock papers will be pushing its merits like mad. But this morning's Daily Mirror has got the first look at the black bats that will be used.

They've got a picture of Paul Collingwood and Matt Prior inspecting the newly created Slazenger bat, with wood specially bleached to give the 'fade to black' effect that was one of Sir Allen Stanford's big ideas to promote his financial services firm. And an interesting set of pictures on the development of bats through the ages.

Collingwood is cheesily quoted: "It is going to be an exciting match for everyone and having black bats adds to that sense of something different. Our kit and bats are very important to us and it was actually after getting a new bat mid-summer that things really started to turn round on the pitch for me. Hopefully that will continue for a one-off performance with these black bats."

Now two things: first, if kit and bats were that important to Collingwood he wouldn't want to use anything different to the one that helped rescue his Test place in the summer. And secondly, nobody will have a clue what difference the new equipment will make until they actually play with it.

All of which confirms that the Stanford series will be a flip of the coin as far as results are concerned, which makes [1.7] for England to win much too short a price. Normally you might not want to think on emotional grounds about backing against your own country, but this is a circus and not proper sport - and with the Superstars priced between [2.26] and [2.54] this morning if you can get them matched at around [2.5] it could at least give the chance to pick up your share of the financial bonanza!

Five things you might not know about cricket bats

1. The first recorded mention of a cricket bat comes from 1620 - when it appears it was used to bludgeon a fielder to death and stop him catching the ball!

2. Bats were shaped like hockey sticks until around 1770 when the laws changed to allow the bowler to loop the ball through the air rather than roll it on the ground

3. There were no laws about the size of the bat until 1771 when a player called 'Shock' White marched out to begin his innings for Ryegate with a bat the width and height of the stumps

4. The first willow bats made in the 1880s were almost black - they were produced from the heartwood of the tree

5. Dennis Lillee's attempt to use an aluminium bat never caught on. Rules state now that the blade of the bat must be made solely of wood, although several modern makes have carbon fibre handles.

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