There are only a couple of weeks to go before the start of the English 2008 County Championship season and a cloud of uncertainty hangs over cricket betting enthusiasts and the cricketing community. Since the formation of two Twenty20 competitions, the Indian Cricket League (ICL) and the Indian Premier League (IPL) the threat of English players deserting the county game and signing up for the lucrative Twenty20 teams has caused much concern among the authorities who are now threatening all manner of sanctions to halt this exodus.

The controlling authority for world cricket, the ICC, sanctioned the formation of the IPL to combat the threat to their authority posed by the rebel ICL. Money talks though, and a number of players have signed up for the IPL despite having contracts to play within their own home competitions. Hampshire professional, Dimitri Mascarenhas, is the first English player to sign up for the IPL. He has been signed for £50,000 by Jaipur and will play for them for some of this summer and over the next two years. Hampshire will be compensated for the loss of Mascarenhas for six games and are said to be happy with the situation.

More worrying, though, is the effect that these changes will have on test cricket. The Indian leagues offer huge earnings for cricketers and a maximum of 44 playing days in a season. Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain, who has signed up for the IPL, hits the nail on the head when he wonders where it will lead. Players will have more time to spend with their families and have the money to retire early. Undoubtedly all cricketing authorities are going to have to monitor the situation and perhaps establish their own Twenty20 leagues. Perhaps they will then be able to control the influence of Twenty20 on the world game so that test cricket doesn’t disappear altogether – a possibility that would disappoint fans of online betting everywhere.