All aboard the cricket gravy train

Think of the affront that the ageing owner of a country house might feel if he found that his Gainsborough had been replaced by a Damien Hirst. Cricket, a sport that has always been more enthralled by its history than its future, is about to change radically, with the best players, out to make a buck, leading the way.

At 7.00 local time this evening in Bangalore, the Royal Challengers will take on the Kolkata Knight Riders in the debut match of the Indian Premier League.

A Twenty20 tournament with a global broadcasting deal topping $1bn for ten years, the IPL has mascots, cheerleaders and razzmatazz galore. Most important, it has the financial incentives that the longer form of the game lacks. Top Test cricketers from around the world - apart from England, so far - have climbed aboard the gravy train.

Shane Warne, who had been set to captain Hampshire in the county championship this summer, promptly accepted the rupee offered by the Rajasthan Royals. "This is not going to be a six-week wonder," he has written. And he's doubtless right.

The IPL's advocates are selling it as the logical consequence of the game meeting market forces. In January the ownership of the eight franchises was auctioned off for sums of up to $110m to consortiums backed by industrialists and fronted by Bollywood actresses. Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert's son, bought part of Warne's side.

Then in February, the franchises themselves bid from an American-style draft for players. Getting a couple of months' work out of a commercial asset such as Mahendra Dhoni, India's dashing wicketkeeper, worked out at a giddy $1.5m. England's big-hitting Kevin Pietersen, if and when he is allowed to join, is said to have been offered $2m.

When Pietersen and other England players finally join the circus is the big question. The England and Wales Cricket Board has done its best to hold the IPL at bay, refusing to alter its traditional Test schedules to allow players room to manoeuvre.

But Pietersen and others are chomping at the bit and it is hard to see how the ECB can maintain its current stance: that England players may only join IPL teams once the 2009 Ashes series against Australia is out of the way. In other words, not before 2010.

As if to turn the screw on the ECB and its traditions, the Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford announced this week that he was offering to fund a £20m prize for the winner of a 20-over 'Stanford Challenge' between an England team and a West Indian all-stars side next spring. The ECB has been typically purse-lipped in response; the players are licking theirs.

Cricketers suddenly have a sense of their worth. ·