Banton blast is based on Fawlty logic
JOHN Cleese has been coming off his long run this week and quite a sight it has been unless you happened to be Tom Banton on the receiving end.
The Fawlty Towers star and Somerset cricket fan lined up the county’s England batsman for a good thrashing with a verbal tree branch for having the temerity to put the Indian Premier League ahead of the Bob
Willis Trophy final.
When Somerset take on Essex in Wednesday’s final at Lord’s, Banton will be with the Kolkata Knight Riders instead.
“Shame on you, Tom,” opined Cleese – who, having dismissed Denis Compton in his youth, knows a wrong ’ un when he sees one, adding that he was “appalled” at Banton’s priorities.
Superficially it looks like a 21- year- old trading loyalty for a quick smash- and- bash buck when he should be helping Somerset.
But for very good reasons beyond his own bank balance Banton is right not to renege on his IPL contract.
The Bob Willis Trophy is not the elusive county championship Somerset have craved forever and the English game is in a financial hole.
The ECB this week announced that 62 jobs are to go and there would have been more but for the decisions of players such as
Banton to play in the IPL. The deals on offer there are lucrative. Eoin Morgan was bought for £ 550,000 at the IPL auction this season; Sam Curran for £ 590,000. Not all of that money lines the pockets of the players – the Board of Control for Cricket in India pay a cut of up to 20 per cent to their primary employer. With 13 English players involved, that is a welcome back- door source of income to English cricket.
On its own Banton’s £ 110,000 deal will not release a fortune but every penny helps.
The wider question is whether, after cramming four series into a shortened summer, England’s players should be heading straight off to the United Arab Emirates – where the tournament is this year – for more cricket. In other words is the IPL in the UAE OTT?
The physical demands are not the issue but the mental ones. In swapping one bio- bubble for another the players will have to contend with more claustrophobic restrictions.
However, they will play with new team- mates, at fresh venues and, blessedly, live away from a cricket ground for the two- month duration of the IPL and will miss no international cricket.
England hope to play a one- day series in South Africa before Christmas and to tour Sri Lanka and India in the New Year but there can be no certainties.
If the virus has taught us anything it is to be prepared to change our plans. Best then for the players to play now when they know that they can.
Cricket’s return has given succour to the shrivelled soul this summer. The final game of the men’s international calendar on Wednesday was magnificent in every respect except the result.
So play on gentlemen and fill your boots. And if that helps to bale out the game back home so much the better.