How can it get to six weeks before the start of the English county season and it still not be confirmed whether the Twenty20 tournament finalists will be able to play in the Champions League (CL)? An article on Cricinfo this week has suggested that the ECB did not respond in time to the invitation for two teams to participate in the 2010 tournament. This is aside from the fact that the tournament dates are set to clash with the finale of the County Championship, the 40-over play-offs and the England ODI series against Pakistan.

All these problems stem from when the ECB decided to reject the offer to become co-commercial right owners of the CL alongside the Australian, South African and Indian governing bodies. This has already cost the ECB millions in revenue. The decision effectively meant that we are simply ‘customers’ rather decision-makers. The reason for the original decision? Alan Stanford. We may as well have invested all our money in The Lehman Brothers at the same time.

All these issues are resulting in a growing feeling of resentment from the players towards the ECB. The CL is a huge pay-day for those who qualify. The ECB are refusing to accommodate the CL by means of rearranging county fixtures. Admittedly, this would be a logistical headache, but the aggressive posturing by the ECB by way of stating that the fixtures will not be adjusted not only irritates the players, but also fires a shot in the on-going power-battle between Asia and England. One feels that this is a battle that the West is destined to lose, taking into account the fact that other powerful nations have aligned themselves with India already.

So what are the consequences in England of lack of CL participation? Well, there are already signs of a shift in players’ approach to playing the game. Twenty20 specialists may become freelance cricketers, playing as overseas players for number of domestic teams, therefore increasing their chances of qualifying for the lucrative annual tournament. Such are the timings of the South African, Australian, New Zealand, IPL and English domestic tournaments, a player could conceivably play in all five of them, participate in the Champions League, retire from 50 over/1st class cricket and still be better off financially.

ECB and their problems aside, the way that the game is being run from the Continent is also concerning. The number of unofficial quotes and leaked reports that come from various sources, keeps everyone guessing as to what is actually going on, and draws into question whether anybody actual has any sort of planned agenda. Apparently this week, the ECB were informally approached about hosting the 2010 Champions League. (Surely, this would be hugely controversial if they also refused to budge on the County fixtures effectively not allowing the County teams to play, yet still finding the facilities to host). The very next day, Cricket South Africa announced that they were hosting the event, only to be later denied by Lalit Modi. No doubt the subject of who will host the 2010 tournament will drag on. It is scheduled to commence in about seven months time. When the venue finally gets announced, be sure to hear of an ongoing saga about security measures, and team safety. Will there be enough time to put everything that is required into place? Other major tournaments, (admittedly they often have two or four years of planning), seem to have everything in place much further in advance. The CL at this stage however, are unsure as to their venue and their participants. Fairly important commodities I suggest.

I am currently sat on the balcony of my sister-in-law’s apartment in Bangkok. We had the intention of stopping over to see the family here for a couple of days on our way back to the UK. However, due to the short-term nature rearrangement of the return flights, we find ourselves in Bangkok for six nights. It was going to be seven!

It ended up being not such a bad thing. I have been pretty ill over the last few days – antibiotics and everything! Trying to negotiate two stints of 11 1/2 hours flying, all within 24 hours, would probably not have been a good move.

My last Saturday in charge of the East Coast Bays saw me watching from my car as I undertook a self-imposed quarantine from the the rest of the team. As I drifted from cold sweat to hot sweat, and back and forth to the toilet, the performance of the pitch was just as depressing. After a number of weeks of growth and encouragement from our batting line-up, we reverted back to traditional Bays ways, by falling to 135 all out. Suburbs New Lynn, our opposition, were more ruthless in their chase than we were penetrating in our defense, and cruised pass the total before taking a 40 run lead into the second day. They were four wickets down, but would have been one if it wasn’t for their generosity in the run-out department, handing us three easy dismissals.

Over the last five weeks they have definitely missed my bowling and possibly missed my middle-order contributions with the bat over the last three days cricket. My philosophy as their coach on a Saturday has always been to leave it to the captain. I have contributed when asked but, once the warm ups have been completed, I have mainly switched on as a player only. This made my contribution from the sidelines largely inhibited and a very frustrating experience.

Back to normality in a few days then. Single figure temperatures, possible white precipitation. I look forward to digging out all my thermals from the loft in time for our preseason friendlies!

Well, my time in New Zealand will be coming to a premature end in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, my hamstring injury has continued to hamper me, and I have made the decision to return back to Northampton about a month earlier than planned in order to rest up from playing, get regular treatment and continue my rehab exercises.

I will miss many things here. Some of the most entertaining have been my trips to the gym. I have blogged about this in the past, but when you work-out by yourself it is a great opportunity for some ‘people watching’ as well as some deep-thinking.

My mood in the gym has a direct influence on my decisions. For example, if I am feeling extremely energetic, then for my run I will choose a treadmill next to someone who looks to have extreme athletic ability. At MISH, my regular gym, these type are very common. It is the base in NZ for many of the national representative athletes. When I’m running along side someone who has the same ability as me, as a minimum, it pushes me to run harder and further. Purely so I don’t embarrass myself and I prove to be of the same ability level as them. I don’t want to look inadequate.

The other extreme is when I feel a bit low on energy and self-esteem. There is sure to be a pensioner on one of the treadmills and all it takes is 10 minutes on a level that is double their inevitable walking pace. They have to go slow in order to prevent their hearts from exploding out of their chests. Even after a meager 10 minutes, the look of ‘ooo…. you are a strong young man’ is enough to boost my ego and move onto the weights.

I see the same people if I go to the gym at the same time each day. There is one gentleman whose attendance is admirable. The fact that I am always there to see him hopefully demands similar mutual respect. Every day between the hours of 12 and 1 he would be there working extremely hard.

My acknowledgment of him took the usual route. In the same way as when you visit a urinal and you must never ever chat to the stranger next to you and most definitely must not look down, there are rules. After about a fortnight it was acceptable to offer a nod of appreciation. Another week further on one may verbally greet one another. After a month, and a good month at that, I was in the position to ask him to ‘spot’ (watch over me) whilst I upped the ante on my weight-lifting. Even in this scenario chatter must be kept to a minimum. This is more for safety reasons that any other. If concentration was broken and niceties exchanged the lifting of heavy weights can become dangerous.

Now we were practically brothers, I was able to engage in further conversation. I almost regretted it. Jimmy was his name, and he was Northern Irish (a perfect stereotype for the New Zealand locals). He moved over here to work in IT and Telecoms for Sky TV. He doesn’t do this anymore. He still worked for Sky, but now worked in “censorship”.

“Oh,” I replied. “There doesn’t seem to be the same water-shed rules over here, as there are in the UK. Is that the area you mean you work in?” I had quickly noticed that day-time nudity and swearing was not uncommon on New Zealand TV and radio.

“No. Well actually,” (cue embarrassed giggle), “I work for the adult channels, and monitoring what hits the screens.” Stunned. My silence was perhaps deliberately interrupted quite quickly, as he noticed my jaw lowering to the floor. Jimmy went on to chat about how big an industry it was, despite the fact that law states they are not allowed to advertise the channels. This gave the conversation a more credible angle, and we went on the discuss business more generally and Jimmy reminded me his specialist area was actually IT and telecoms. However, until he was asked to join that department again, his job was basically to watch porn and assess its, err, quality.

I see Jimmy regularly, and he is more than happy to keep spotting me. It takes all kinds.

The Australian Open has never failed to enthrall me. I love Wimbledon, the history and the Englishness of it, but for me the Australian Open is cool. It seems more colourful and more flamboyant. Its definitely a warmer/sunnier climate and yet it is just cooler.

This tournament has demanded even more interest from me due to the success of Andy Murray.

The whole Scottish or British debate really does rile me. Partly because it is largely a Scottish phenomenon. It riles me because I consider myself British and despite the fact that Andy Murray does not endear himself to the general public as a personality, he is one hell of a tennis player and he is also British. Therefore I support him.

I will support England over Scotland when such an occasion arises and I would expect any Scot to reciprocate this. In the same way I support Colin Montgomery (incidentally, he also self-portrays as quite a grumpy man), Chris Hoy, and David Coulthard, I would expect the Scots to support Tim Henman, Justin Rose, and alike. Unfortunately, in general, this does not happen. The Scottish support is usually for the English teams’ opposition, or more specifically, support for English failure.

Why can’t we, as a British nation, embrace our various nations rivalry on such occasions as the Six Nations and the Commonwealth Games yet also come together and support our Great British heritage when individuals are competing in international tours such as the tennis, golf and motor-sport?

To be further controversial about the tennis, I read that in the Australian Open, as is also the case at Wimbledon, the men and women get paid the same amount of prize-money.

I do not wish to come across as chauvinistic in the slightest. I understand that the number of hours put into training by men and women are on a par, and aside from the majors, matches across both genders are a maximum of three sets. The amount of extra time a male tennis player spends on court does not really justify the inequality in pay that used to occur. Unfortunately, number of hours worked is not the major factor when determining rates of pay in this world. If this was the case then nurses that work 14 hour shifts and those who split 18 hour days between two jobs would earn the most.

The truth in tennis is the same as in the rest of the world. If you are faster and/or better than the person next to you at something, then you demand more money. I am not trying to define ‘better‘ tennis here. The TV revenue, ticket sales and TV figures go along way toward doing this for me. All of the above lead to money generated by advertising. It’s called supply and demand. The truth is that the majority of people, be they the general public or the director general for a TV company, would pay more to see or advertise during, a top flight mens match, than they would a woman’s equivalent. Its the same thing as the top male golfers demanding appearance fees in certain tournaments whilst the woman’s game hardly gets TV coverage. Effectively, the way it now works regarding prize-money in tennis is that if one person pays £50 to watch a women’s match and £75 to watch a men’s match, then the prize-money gets distributed as £62.50 each.

Of course, the prejudice that is shown in the way society differentiates between the two genders, in sport in particular, is not and has not been constant through time. It may well change. In fact, women’s tennis was becoming vastly more popular to watch, until it became so predictable with the Williams sisters dominating. If you take the marathon, the women’s world record has been fast approaching the men’s over the years. Over time, results and money invested may well demand equality. However, until that happens, at risk of offending many people, I feel that the male tennis players are missing out. Not so much at the pinnacle of the sport where players are multi-millionaires, but when the discrepancy filters down to where lower-ranked players are trying to make an honest living.

One thing that I do have on my trip to New Zealand is plenty of ‘down-time’. My professional priorities over here are the East Coast Bays Cricket Club commitments, my own personal training and my private coaching. The East Coast Bays hours of work are mostly in the evenings. My personal training takes up approximately two hours a day and the same can be said of my private coaching on the whole. This provides me with some good time through the day to do some ‘extra-curricula’ activities.

When the weather is good, we are spoilt for choice when it comes to cafes, beaches and heading out to relax with a coffee, good book and a swim. When the weather is poor, suffice to say that New Zealand TV is terrible. I am currently watching the movie ‘Enchanted’. This is not my choice. However, at 8.30pm on a Sunday evening, having flicked between the cricket and the Australian Open tennis all afternoon, I am lacking a strong argument to watch what I would like. So Enchanted it is. Is it a cartoon? Is it a comedy? Is it a musical? One thing is for sure: it’s not a classic. It’s comically cheesy at best. At worst it’s infuriately frustrating.

Talking of cheesy, has the musical drama ‘Glee’ hit the screens in the UK yet? I’m still trying to work out if this show is classic satire or the epitome of a stereotype.

I am in the middle of a two week break from bowling whilst I try to get over a niggle that has just niggled too much over the last few weeks. Luckily I have been the leading run-scorer in the two day competition for us, so my participation as purely a batsman was never questioned. Unluckily, I was promoted to open the innings, where we have had trouble every game this season. After three days of showers the wicket was sticky to say the least. I tried to leave well and get forward but after lasting six overs and managing to squeeze four runs from somewhere, I was bowled by one that moved in after watching several move away (past my outside edge).

The niggle is a slight concern at the moment, but I have decided that if has not cleared up in a couple more weeks, then I will come home a month early. This will give me six weeks of daily treatment and no pressure to bowl until the start of the English county season, and the best chance of being fully fit for Northants. If the injury does improve, then I look forward to staying out here until mid-March and building up some good stamina and bowling fitness outdoors whilst the rest of my county colleagues struggle with the cold weather and the not-so-realistic simulation of playing indoors.

I have a session of physio treatment booked in for early tomorrow, followed by a good gym session. I feel pretty energised after a relaxing Sunday on the coach. And I will probably find myself asleep quite early, judging on how this film is turning out…. zzzzz.