Waugh joins Olympic Twenty20 push

Steve Waugh said the 1998 Commonwealth Games was the "time of my life".

Steve Waugh, who led Australia to a Commonwealth Games silver medal, is part of a growing group of current and former players who have supported Adam Gilchrist's push for Twenty20 to be part of the 2020 Olympics. Gilchrist raised the idea on Monday and since then a series of big names, including Kumar Sangakkara, Sourav Ganguly and Stephen Fleming, have climbed on board.

Waugh, a mentor of the Australian Olympic team in Beijing, said the idea was "definitely worth pursuing". "If you want to globalise the game then you have to look at including countries like China and the United States, and getting cricket into the Olympics will fast-track that move," Waugh told the Press Association.

In 1998 Waugh captained Australia at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur and said it was the "time of my life". "Winning the silver medal was one of the highlights of my career," he said. And he believes Twenty20 will become a "worldwide phenomenon" over the next few years.

"The Olympic Games would provide the perfect platform to showcase the game to a larger audience, drawing in new fans and helping drive cricket development in emerging cricket countries," Sangakkara wrote in the Times of India. "The snowball effect this could be enormous. 2020 may seem like a long way away but we need to start the process now.

"From a player's perspective, the privilege of competing at an Olympic Games would undoubtedly be a highlight of your career."

The proposal has also received backing from Fleming, Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Yuvraj Singh. While Fleming and Gilchrist have retired from internationals, they are both involved in the Indian Premier League and see huge potential in the Twenty20 format.

"The Olympics would be the greatest vehicle to spread the game worldwide and it would be a logical fit," Fleming said in the Australian. Ganguly also took a global view of the possible development.

"It will help the players to be part of a worldwide movement," he said in the Deccan Chronicle. "Cricket is an exciting sport and should definitely be part of the Olympics."

Laxman said representing India at an Olympics would be a "great honour" while Yuvraj felt it was an excellent initiative. "Should cricket make it to the Olympics," he said, "it would be significant, especially to our country where the game is most loved."

Gilchrist said his proposal was a "call to arms for the game's administrators" and James Sutherland, Cricket Australia's chief executive, is excited by it. "When you think of the Olympics, you also think of the big nations like the US, Russia and now China," Sutherland told the paper. "Those regions are clearly potential growth opportunities for cricket and we see Twenty20 at the Olympics as a superb vehicle."

For cricket to be included in 2020 it would need to be approved by the International Olympic Committee in 2013. The game received Olympic "recognition status" last year, but it faces a battle with other sports, such as golf, karate and baseball, to become part of the programme.

Clarke attacks BBC as Sky extend deal

The excitement gets to Giles Clarke at the announcement of the new Sky TV deal.

The ECB has announced a four-year extension to its existing television contract with BSkyB and Channel Five in a deal worth around £300 million (US$600 million).

The current contract expires at the end of next summer, and the new agreement will keep all live home English cricket at Sky until the end of 2013. Channel Five retains the rights to show highlights shortly after the close of each day's play.

"We held extensive talks with all broadcasters and were determined to be as flexible as possible in terms of our packaging and scheduling to allow the maximum number of bids for cricket from all areas of the broadcast industry," ECB chairman Giles Clarke said. "The ECB recognise and are grateful for Sky Sports' loyalty to the sport - both at home and when the England team tour overseas.'

It had been expected that BBC and Channel 4 might submit rival bids, but in the event neither showed interest. Channel 4 were aggrieved at losing out in 2005 and the company is in a less robust position that it was four years ago.

The BBC's decision to stay out of the process left Sky effectively unchallenged. When BSkyB was awarded the contract at the end of 2005, the ECB, with Clarke at the forefront of negotiations, was lambasted in many quarters for not keeping broadcasts on terrestrial television, but it is likely to get a much easier ride this time because of the lack of interest from mainstream broadcasters.

Instead, Clarke trained his guns on the BBC for their lack of interest. "Now is the time for a real debate on the future of public sector sports broadcasting, which I know is under consideration and under review," he said. "All these people interested in cricket buy TV licences, and surely they should have a right to expect that the public sector broadcasters mount bids for the nation's summer sport, as they do in the case of one of them for 12 other sports?"

An ECB spokesman suggested that the BBC's lack of interest stemmed directly from their re-acquisition of the rights to Formula One motor racing, which requires a commitment of 16 weeks a year. "Just how many people play Formula One?" said Clarke. "If the BBC is to remain part of this it must answer to the millions of cricket fans in England and Wales how it prioritises its investment in sports rights."

The BBC, however, hit back with indignation at Clarke's comments. "We've always said any bid for live Test cricket was subject to value for money and fitting into scheduling," said a spokesman, "In our view neither of these criteria were met. We have consistently argued that not having cricket as a listed event puts it out of the reach of all terrestrial broadcasters. That's the ECB's choice and they are entitled to it, but it's absurd to blame the BBC for this outcome."

At the weekend, Scyld Berry, the editor of Wisden, wrote in the Daily Telegraph: "Children in far more than half the households in this country will grow up without ever having seen [Andrew] Flintoff, or any other England cricketer, perform live. (And so uncool is it to watch highlights that fewer than a million watch those on [Channel 5]). How can any sport prosper when its role-models perform in purdah? No doubt the ECB will blame the BBC for not making a substantial bid. But the game's authorities should negotiate the best bid, not the biggest."

The new Sky deal will include the Stanford quadrangular Twenty20 tournament in England as well as the EPL when it starts in 2010.

At the same time Five have agreed a deal for a highlights package to be screened at 7.15-8pm. There will also be, for the first time, Welsh language television coverage of five matches involving Glamorgan on S4C with five matches plus the Welsh Village Cup.

No fear for Bopara ahead of Test return

Ravi Bopara: ready to dogfight for England.

Right at this precise moment, Michael Vaughan is probably not putting too much thought to his Test comeback, but if he is, then the identity of his successor in England's middle-order might give him a grain of comfort. Back in December last year, Ravi Bopara made his debut in Sri Lanka, and was dropped after a frazzled return of 42 runs in three matches, including ducks in each of his last three appearances. He's now preparing for his comeback at The Oval on Thursday, as Vaughan steps aside with a series tally of 40 runs from same number of games.

Since that disappointment, however, Bopara has reinvigorated his credentials in a prolific year for Essex. He has made 976 runs at 51.36 in first-class cricket, including three centuries, and is averaging over 100 in the limited-overs game. "It's fantastic to be called back into the Test side," he said "It is something obviously I had a goal for, I aimed for, and I worked hard towards it in the latter part of the winter. I knew what I needed to work on and I went for it. It is nice to be called back to this arena again."

"This summer has been very good for me in all forms of cricket," he said. "It has all been pretty prolific compared to the rest of my years. The biggest change for me this season is I have been in fearless mode, I have just been going out to play in the way I want to play, and I've not thought too much about the game. I know people say 'think about what you are doing' but I haven't done too much thinking, to be honest. I have just played the ball, and if it's there to hit, hit it, if it's not, don't."

That sort of an attitude carried Bopara to the World Cup in the Caribbean in March and April last year, where he was one of England's few successes in a disappointing campaign. By the time his Test debut came around, however, the tension of his elevation had got to him, and he was unable to reproduce such free-flowing form.

"The challenge for me is to continue it with an England shirt on," said Bopara. "The thing that all good Test players do is take what they do for their counties and replicate it on the international stage. That is what I am going to do if I get a chance to play Test cricket again for England. I am going to go out and do what I do for Essex, nothing different, it's the same ball game, just different players."

"I don't have many regrets about Sri Lanka, to be fair, because it happened all so quickly," he said. "I didn't actually go out and change the way I played, but the Sri Lankans were too good for me. It just didn't go the way I imagined it to go, and that was because of good pieces of bowling sometimes, and other times my own error. But it is important to move on quickly. If you hang on to it too long you find yourself in a hole and dig yourself deeper and deeper. You just have to assess what you need to do, pick out the little points and go and do them. Don't look back, just move forward."

To that end, the current climate couldn't be better for a young player seeking to make his mark in the international game. The series is gone, but there's a new captain in situ, and a chance to make a fresh impression. "For me it is a fantastic opportunity," said Bopara. "We know the series is over, but we still have pride to play for and if I play it will give me the chance to put something on the board, and go into the winter with something positive under my belt."

As for Kevin Pietersen's new role, though he has been cautiously welcomed in some quarters, Bopara has been an instant convert to his style. "He's the new captain and he's already rubbed off on me," he said. "You learn off guys like that and I have been lucky to have had very positive people around me. Mr Gooch has been with me for a very long time, and I have been around in this England changing room with the likes of KP next to me. He's a good mate of mine and we talk a lot."

"I am going to go out and play for Kev," said Bopara. "He has a tough job on his hands, because we all know the England captaincy is not an easy job. I want to do well for Kev and do well for England, so that is all I am thinking about. The vibe in the dressing room is very positive and very honest. Kev has been around a lot of good captains, to learn off them. We know he is a positive bloke and that he likes to play his cricket positively, so that's a nice thing to be part of."

A positive approach is certainly something that Bopara intends to take to his second coming in Test cricket. "When you go through lows you come out a different person," he said. "You become a more positive person, I wouldn't say careless person, but a more fearless person because you've been there.

"It's just like if you let a dog roam on the streets eventually they become fearless, you know? They are out on the streets, they know the streets, and you become fearless because you have been through so many downs. That is how I feel right now. I am not saying I have been through a lot of low stuff, but I feel as if this time I just don't fear this."