In an age where every conceivable piece of information is available at the click of a button, details of the pop group United Colors of Sound are impressively sparse.
In an incredibly low-resolution image of the band found in the far reaches of the internet, there appears to be 10 members; From the grainy YouTube footage of those performing the official 2003 Rugby World Cup anthem at Twickenham alongside UB40, there appears to be only five. But none of that quintet is the radio host and singing coach of TV talent show Carrie Grant, who was certainly part of the group at one time. Or was that her?
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The answers to such questions are actually secondary to the mystery of how on May 8, 2003, on a rooftop bar in London, two of the countless members of United Colors of Sound rested their hands. on the unlikely shoulders of John Crawley and Chris Adams, while another wielded a budget bat in front of the county’s cricketing kings.
Add to that the laughably bad “lookalikes” of Elvis Presley and Austin Powers – a misnomer of epic proportions – and it’s an image that hasn’t stood the test of time five minutes after the photographer first pressed the shutter button. to endure. now, 21 years after it was used to promote the inaugural ECB Twenty20 Cup campaign.
“I remember cringing when it came out,” Adams says. “We were used to doing unusual photo shoots for sponsors, but this struck us as strange.”
It didn’t feel like it at the time, but in the midst of such an unremarkable musical company, cricket was about to change forever.
In the dusty boardrooms of the England and Wales Cricket Board, there has been a desire to modernize the product for some time. The impending end of tobacco sponsorship in British sport provided an excuse to scrap the long-running Benson and Hedges Cup and replace it with something with greater mass appeal.
Armed with a research budget of £250,000, funded by Channel 4, the leading cricket broadcaster of the time, the governing body organized more than 30 focus groups and surveyed 4,500 people of all ages, backgrounds and demographics to understand what they wanted from domestic cricket in England. . The verdict was slightly more accessible, both in terms of delivery and time frame.
Building on a format that club cricketers had played on weekday evenings for generations, the idea for a 20-over tournament developed and the wheels were set in motion for a form of play that within twenty years would usurp the entire structure of the sport . .
The new competition passed a vote of 11 votes to seven among the 18 first-class counties (Glamorgan, Middlesex, Northamptonshire, Somerset, Sussex, Warwickshire and Yorkshire were initially unenthusiastic, if you were wondering) and those eminent cricket reporters time were flown to then ECB President Lord MacLaurin’s holiday home in Valderrama, Spain, to sell them on the idea. It was through a group discussion with the journalists that the name Twenty20 first came up.
In May 2003, the first season of professional T20 action was upon us when Stuart Robinson, the ECB’s marketing manager, invited the media to the luxurious Kensington Roof Gardens in central London for what might be described as infamous as this launch photo shoot wouldn’t have been so ridiculous. forgettable.
“My God, I don’t know why we ended up with those entertainers,” Robinson laughs. “We did the best we could within the budget we had. I remember going shopping to buy a Twenty20 Cup trophy and having about £1,500 to spend, or maybe not even that much. It was nothing. I went to the local sports trophy shop and asked them for the largest trophy I could get for that amount of money.
An oddity that did not go unnoticed by the press attending the event was that the ECB’s top brass left their ties behind for the presentation. A new era had truly begun.
Sussex captain Adams and his Hampshire counterpart Crawley were given top spot for the photographers as their upcoming match on June 13 would be the first professional match ever played in this format. Not that anyone involved had any idea how far T20 would go.
“It was all a bit of fun,” says Adams. “Swing hard and if you win a few games, that’s great. If not, don’t worry about it because it probably won’t exist in two or three years. I remember I had to go out for a hat-trick ball for Wasim [Akram], which is never something you really want to do. But the match was a lot of fun.” Adams survived that performance, but Sussex lost by five runs as the new tournament flourished.
The provinces were given a free hand to promote their games as they wished and used a variety of methods to attract new audiences, from bouncy castles and hot tubs on the field to strapping a rubber duck aboard a remote-controlled car and to drive it to the outfield to guide the hitters. rejected without scoring.
From there, things evolved quickly. The rest of the cricket world soon launched their own domestic T20 tournaments, with the Indian Premier League at the top of the global pyramid, and a biennial T20 World Cup, the latest edition of which starts in the West Indies and the United States on Sunday. In four years, T20 cricket will end its extraordinary growth when it becomes an Olympic sport.
What are the chances that United Colors of Sound will play at the opening ceremony?
No easy options for provinces
That’s why Colin Graves wants to end Yorkshire’s status as a members-owned club. Cue mock surprise. Who saw that coming?
When the former ECB president returned for a second spell at the helm of the province earlier this year, he insisted there were “no discussions or plans to change the mutual status of the club”. What a difference three months makes.
Yorkshire’s financial position has long been perilous and Graves has now told members that “swift and decisive action” is needed to prevent the club from “fighting for its survival”. His answer is to join Durham, Hampshire and Northamptonshire as a private entity.
This would require explicit approval from the majority of Yorkshire’s 6,000 members, which may not be easy. While researching my book Batting for Time: The Fight to Keep English Cricket Alive, I came across plenty of members across the country who would rather see their club reduced to the status of a national (small) province than hand over power to a private organization. investor.
Yet Graves is not alone in his wish and other provinces are also actively exploring the idea. Money is needed and there are no easy options.
Quote of the week
“Wow, this could be cool” – Will Jacks tells ESPNcricinfo his thoughts on realizing he was 88 not out with seven runs needed for Royal Challengers Bengaluru to beat Gujarat Titans in the IPL. He promptly hit the next two balls for six and finished unbeaten on exactly 100.
Memory strip
“India versus Pakistan has always been so emotionally crafted that the laws of probability don’t matter, and in the first World Twenty20 final it defied all predictions,” our correspondent David Hopps wrote after the first T20 World Cup final in 2007. “India won that one. , lost and eventually won by five runs, when the man who had threatened to defy them at the last, Misbah-ul-Haq, sank disconsolately on his haunches at the bowler’s end. You can read his report of a dramatic match here.
Do you want more?
The making of Jimmy Anderson: James Wallace talks to some of the people who raised the English legend in his teenage years.
Jofra Archer is back to give England some extra attention ahead of the men’s T20 series against Pakistan, reports Ali Martin.
And England’s Raf Nicholson completed a clean sweep in their three-match Women’s T20 series against Pakistan.
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