Yorkshire set sights on T20 jackpot

The Yorkshire supremo has been delighted with the team’s efforts in 20-over cricket, which have fired the club to the brink of Finals Day in Cardiff on August 25 and to within sight of qualification for the Twenty20 Champions League in South Africa in October.

Yorkshire are two wins from booking their place at the global event, which they would reach by beating Worcestershire in today’s quarter-final at Headingley Carnegie (4.15pm start) and then by winning a semi-final in Cardiff.

The winner of the Twenty20 Cup and losing finalist go through to the Champions League, which offers US$2.5m (£1.6m) to the victor, a total prize pool of £3.8m and a guaranteed participation fee of £128,000.

The rewards hardly need spelling out – particularly to a club circa £20m in debt – and although Graves stressed he is not counting his chickens, he said Yorkshire’s stunning form had given them a real opportunity not only of domestic glory but of gaining entry to cricket’s most lucrative club competition.

“We need to beat Worcestershire first – and no one is taking that for granted by any means – but the rewards are obvious if you get through to Finals Day and then on to the Champions League,” he said. “If you win the Champions League you’re talking $2.5m, so there’s money to be made, although perhaps not as much as people might think.

“If Yorkshire won the Champions League, you’d have to take out the cost of the flights and hotels and the rest would be split between the club and the players.

“We haven’t yet worked out what that split would be because the first target is simply to get to Finals Day, and you can’t take anything for granted in this form of the game because it’s so unpredictable and someone can come along and change the course of a match in the blink of an eye.”

In stark contrast to the Champions League riches, the winners of the English Twenty20 earn small fry by comparison.

The players’ pool for the Twenty20 Cup winners is £123,000, while the successful county receives just £60,000.

“We wouldn’t really make anything out of winning the Twenty20 Cup once you took the various costs out of it,” added Graves.

“You’ve got all the cost of going down to Cardiff, the accommodation and so on, and there’s quite a lot of expense involved.

“The big prize is if you can get to the Twenty20 Cup final because, regardless of whether you win that or not, you go to the Champions League.

“After that, it starts to become a different ball game financially.”

The fourth edition of the Champions League comprises 10 teams and is unfathomably structured.

Because the Indian, South African and Australian cricket boards effectively control it, their teams receive direct entry to the tournament proper whereas the other sides have to participate in a qualifying event that is part of the overall competition.

Confirmed entrants for the main tournament are four Indian Premier League franchises in Kolkata Knight Riders, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians, the winners and runners-up of Australia’s Big Bash (Sydney Sixers and Perth Scorchers) and the winners and runners-up of South Africa’s MiWay T20 Challenge (Titans and Highveld Lions).

The two English finalists, along with Auckland Aces, Trinidad & Tobago, Sialkot Stallions, plus the winner of next month’s inaugural Sri Lankan Premier League, take part in the qualifying event, from which the two leading teams join the other eight sides.

The whole shemozzle runs from October 10-28 and the matches will be played in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Centurion and Durban.

Graves is correct to suggest that Yorkshire’s first priority is simply to get past Worcestershire, who, along with Derbyshire and themselves, are the only counties never to have reached Finals Day since the Twenty20 Cup began in 2003.

Someone’s unwanted record is going to go tonight, and Graves naturally hopes it will be Yorkshire’s, who had the best record of any team in the country in the group stages with seven wins from 10 games.

“I just hope we can keep our good form going,” he said.

“It’s been a breath of fresh air, to be honest, and really good to watch.

“For the first time ever in this competition, I think we’ve had a game plan and everybody’s played to it.

“It’s been really fantastic to see, and I think that Mitchell Starc and David Miller have been two really good overseas signings for us, but all the players have done tremendously well.”

Yorkshire are hoping for a five-figure turnout but plenty of tickets will be available on the gate.