2008 at The Rose Bowl - The Year of Twenty20!

THE YEAR OF TWENTY20

It’s traditional, isn’t it? One sniff of Auld Lang Syne and every writer in the country starts banging on about next year. My only defence is that 2008 is going to be a very exciting one at The Rose Bowl – and I was lucky enough to be able to talk to Rod Bransgrove about it.

Pretty early on in the conversation, Twenty20 raised its head. “For some reason we have not cottoned on to Twenty20” Rod told me. “One of Paul Terry’s major challenges for next year is to reverse the cycle of importance, if you like. Twenty20 is the most important competition we enter – it’s certainly the most lucrative. The winners next year will be playing at The Rose Bowl and the two top teams should be going forward into a Champion’s League where the prize money is astronomical.”

It will be a hard transition to make; Rod recognises that the status of a county cricket club depends on its championship performance, but that isn’t where the money lies any more. It will be a balancing act for the club to raise its Twenty20 game without the County Championship results suffering.

And what of our captain?  As usual, rumours have started to circulate that Shane Warne will not return for another season. “I’ve spoken to Warney about it once or twice” says Rod “and we’re going to talk about it again in the New Year. He’s looking at other things in his life at the moment, but he’s very keen to come back and obviously we’re very keen to have him back! It’ll be the last year, so I’d really like something special to happen.

“We can’t have any other overseas players next year and I’m not really sold on bringing in so-called Kolpaks. We’ve got Sean Ervine who’s probably the best Kolpak player in the country. I think we’ve got a good enough squad of players – we were there or thereabouts last year until the final furlong.” Rod is, like all of us, bitterly disappointed we didn’t do better from our strong position in all remaining competitions at the middle of August. “Somehow the foot came off the gas,” he says. “And if we really do aspire to winning things we can’t afford for that to happen.”

Of course, if Shane Warne doesn’t come back, as well as the captaincy, Hampshire is short of an experienced spin bowler. Rod is quick to point out that we have two promising young spinners coming through, but both of them have been short of first team cricket. “It’s a contingency we have our eye on” he assures me. “We’ve talked endlessly about contingency planning so I still think we’ll be in pretty good shape.”

So that’s the cricket sorted out, but what changes can Hampshire fans expect to see at the ground itself? The full planning application for the entire development project has been completed, and will be determined over the next three or four months. Once the final planning is in place, tendering will start with firms of builders, so it is likely that during the 2008 season most of the work will be behind the scenes. However the home season is due to end a little early so that the diggers can move in promptly in September.

Finally, I asked Rod what he is most looking forward to next year and there is quite a wish list. “The last opportunity to see Shane Warne; to seeing Kevin Pietersen a bit more if we can. I’m looking forward to the development of our younger players, as always: Greg Lamb, Liam Dawson, David Balcombe and the others – we try to give them all a chance. I’d like us to win something. I get quite personally involved with it all; I know all the guys and I live their aspirations with them. For example, I’m loving what Carbs is doing at the moment with the England Academy team; and seeing Goober being called up for England was just amazing – and for Dimi to hit those five sixes at The Oval – those are wonderful feelings.” But then the businessman returns. “Of course, I’m looking forward to winning a bid for a Test match and announcing what our first Test match will be. And deep down, I’d like to announce some nice profitable business results!”

Not much to ask for then… it seems that if Mr Bransgrove has his way, 2008 could be quite a year!

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