The Champions Trophy or mini-World Cup in Colombo has a very laudable objective: raising funds for the game as a whole and its development. What better way of providing money for cricket other than getting the best players in the world together to play the game? If the funds are going to help the game's grassroots to develop and also push it forward, I am all in favour because it's a very important process.
There are some people who criticise the authorities for spending a decent proportion of the money raised from these tournaments in areas that are perhaps not traditionally associated with cricket. They would rather spend it all to develop the game in countries where it is already strong. I am not one of them because I have seen first-hand what a great job cricket can do in what might be termed unlikely venues.
I have been to Thailand where every year they hold the Chiang Mai Sixes. On the face of it, it's a tournament where everyone goes mainly to have a good time and also play some cricket. Fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But there is also more to it. As a result of the Sixes, a member of parliament in Thailand saw the game and realised that it could be a force for good. She made sure it was introduced in schools, the idea being for children to become involved in a new game i.e. cricket, and hence become less inclined to get into drugs and other such social problems common all over the world. What they need now is money to develop the scheme and, hopefully, some icc funding derived from the Champions Trophy may be pushed that way to help.
Whenever I and other ex-players go to Chiang Mai, we take some bats and other kit to help the children there. It seems to be doing the trick because in the past couple of years I see that the number of children playing cricket in the area has doubled. To me, that's a very worthwhile cause because if sport can give children something to do and keeps them out of trouble, it has to be for the good. Furthermore, if cricket can be the sport that does the trick, so much the better and I can't see a problem whether it is in a traditional cricketing area or not.
The same sort of thing is happening all over the world and it makes me proud to think that our sport is having such a beneficial effect. I know there are programmes to take the game into mainland Europe. We saw the Dutch playing in the Champions trophy, and the Danes are keen cricketers as well. It's spreading too, and I have just heard of a case whereby the children of the warring factions in Kosovo—the Serbs and the Albanians—are together being introduced to cricket.
There is something else that I applaud coming out of this tournament. That is the extended television technology helping umpires. I have chosen my words carefully here, because I think the men in the middle have got to retain their authority, but they should also be helped whenever possible to arrive at the right decision.
Too many times in the recent past we have seen some shocking errors of judgement by umpires. In particular, there have been instances of the ball clearly pitching outside leg stump and yet the batsman being given out lbw. That cannot be right. If the umpires cannot get that correct and there is technology to help them, why not use it?
It appears that the trend is for more decisions to go to the third umpire and my belief is that you cannot turn back the clock. Cricket has to progress and this is one way of doing it. After all, it was not so very long ago that we were just about the only international sport that did not have two third-party officials. It has taken us years to get that right but I would like to think that we might now be able to push ahead with sensible ideas a little quicker than we have in the past.
All in all, I am a fan of the Champions Trophy. Perhaps the timing is a bit strange, coming so close to the World Cup as it is now—and I would not want to see this tournament detract from the Cup itself—but it has a lot going for it. Money for development, a test bed for innovations, and the chance for some players to get an opportunity in an international tournament that might otherwise be denied them as countries experiment with their line-ups. There is not a lot wrong with any of that.