Watching T20 in India like watching an Elvis Presley concert: Somerset Boss

By Rahul Bajaj
for Cricketain.com

Published: October 21, 2009

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London: Somerset chairman Andy Nash is completely bowled over by Twenty20’s astonishing popularity in India saying that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) needs to take a cue from the BCCI and market the format in a similar manner in England.

“What I have seen in India is Bollywood, whereas we are more Under Milk Wood,” Nash said, referring to a Thomas Dylan play for radio. “If you compare the match we played against the Deccan Chargers, the spectator experience was like an Elvis Presley concert.”

“I think back to Twenty20 finals day at Edgbaston and it was like watching Des O’Connor. It was very flat and very uninspiring,” the Somerset boss told ‘Telegraph Sport’.

Nash said there was a huge difference in the way Twenty20 is promoted in India and England and the gap needed to be bridged. “We have to think long and hard about how we improve the customer experience. When you go to India and sit in a stadium that is full, the contrast between that and the way we offer up T20 cricket could hardly be starker,” he said.

Nash said he did not believe in blindly copying the Indian model but insisted things need to improve in England. “I’m not saying we need the full Bollywood treatment. That might not be right, but we have to do better than we have so far. In Twenty20 cricket we have been shown a clean pair of heels and we have a lot of work to do to get ourselves back on their level,” he said.

“I used to think we had done well to get 6,000 Somerset fans in England. We have to set ourselves much more ambitious targets for reaching fans in India and work out how we reach out to them. Cricket is business in India and our business is cricket,” Nash said.

He also thought that the English cricket board had not succeeded in cashing in on the newest slam-bang format and he blamed their orthodox mindset for that. “People have said T20 is yet another English invention which we have allowed others to capitalise on. We have been slow to move but we are trying to move a juggernaut which is the England and Wales cricket set-up,” he said. “A lot of members are still on smelling salts that we are playing with a white ball.”

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