Tony Munro

When no less an authority than Wisden Cricketer's Almanack says the game started in Estonia in a pub, then you're probably also entitled to believe the national captain's nocturnal activities had something to do with the high number of locals playing cricket.

Tim Heath, the captain, is alleged to have attracted dozens of native-born Estonians to cricket during visits to Tallinn's nightclubs, and perhaps he did, but that might be glossing over the Estonia Cricket Association's (ECA) comprehensive schools programme.

It is from this the ECA hopes to attract the next wave of players to eventually replace the seven Estonian-born players representing their country in the European Division Five tournament in Corfu this week. Among the locals are three 19-year-olds: top-order batsman Marko Vaik, opening bowler Kalle Vislapu and Gleb Bihanovs, a medium-pacer and lower-order batsman.
The trio are usually joined by about 20 other players who were born in the Baltic state and play in the fledgling four-team national league each week. In all, there are 50 registered Estonian players. There'll be further development when a schools tournament will be held at the Tallinn Hippodrome, the main venue for cricket, on September 20.

Meanwhile, Estonia will leave behind the familiar Notts matting pitch in Tallinn for the turf wickets of Corfu where they hope success in unofficial tournaments carries over to the real thing. Last year, Estonia won the inaugural Euro Twenty20 tournament in Carmel, North Wales, defeating the Czech Republic twice, Russia and a Cricket Board of Wales XI.

The Division Five tournament also includes Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Sweden and Turkey.

Estonia Tim Heath (capt), Murali Obali, Vineeth Govind, Shiva Arunanchalam, Kristian Kogeman (Estonian), Mart Tamooja (Estonian), Gleb Bihanovs (Estonian), Marko Vaik (Estonian), Kalle Vislapu (Estonian), Andres Burget (Estonian) (wk), Andrus Kambre (Estonian), Richard Barnwell, Martin Dungay.

Tony Munro

All four league teams in Estonia will comprise almost completely of locally born players following a nine-minute segment about cricket on national television.

"We now got well over 50 Estonian-born players on the books this season," enthused Estonian Cricket Association official James Ramsden this week.

The explosion of Estonian native-born players followed the feature on the current affairs show 'Pealtija' in February where several members of the Estonian national squad spoke of what it meant to them to play cricket for their adopted country.

Ramsden added that two non-league 'development' teams would be introduced to meet the demand from the new recruits. "They will play each other, as well as the league teams on a friendly basis. There is a very big possibility that one of these teams will be an all-womens' team."

The league, comprising four teams from the capital, Tallinn, kicked off last night with the first game of the Twenty20 section of the league between Kalev, the premier of the last two years, and Reval. Together with Tallinn CC and Old Boys CC, the four teams also contest a 50-over competition.

Ramsden said the Estonian Cricket Association was hopeful some junior development may take place outside Tallinn. "We've recently been to some schools outside of Tallinn to demonstrate cricket, and we're attending a PE teachers’ summer camp in Tartu to demonstrate cricket and hopefully sign up some schools from all over Estonia."

Back in Tallinn, improvements are being made to the Hippodrome field, with two double-bay nets being installed as well as a company being contracted to roll and do professional grass cutting to protect the outfield.

It will be an important season for the Estonian national team. They makes their debut on the official European representative scene when they compete in the Division Five tournament in Corfu in September. They return to Wales in July for the now annual Carmel Twenty20 tournament, as well as playing unofficial matches against Latvia and Lithuania. They also plays in the Helsinki Sixes.

The ECA regularly hosts touring teams, and would love to hear from you if your club is interested in visiting Estonia. For more information on Estonian cricket, click here.

By James Ramsden

	Oliver Slovodetsky bats for Reval © James Ramsden

Kalev Cricket Club retained their Westons Estonian Premier League trophy in dark and windy conditions last week, beating Reval CC at the Tallinn Hippodrome by 60 runs. Looking at the dark clouds looming, it was always going to be an important toss to win, and Reval's stand-in skipper Oliver Slovodetsky had his first decision of the day to make when he won the toss. He decided to make full use of the cloud cover and put Kalev into bat. Kalev batted solidly for the first 15 overs out of the 35, putting on 40 for no wicket. Slovodetsky then turned to his spinner with instant success. Phil Marsdale did what the experienced fast bowlers Obli and Shiva couldn’t do and dismissed the Kalev openers in successive balls. Shiva then followed up the impetus with a wicket in his final over to leave Kalev on 47 for 4 off 17. This brought to the crease Hazelhurst and Mike Tiffin, the South African overseas player, who went about making up for lost time. Hazelhurst scored a quickfire 35 before holing out on the boundary and Tiffin remained undefeated on 68 after a few other useful lower-order scores. Kalev finished on 174 for 8 off 35 overs.

It was disappointment for Shiva as he remained one wicket short of the target he had set himself at the beginning of the day. Still, with five an over and the ball not swinging, it was still all to play for.

Alas Reval never not going. Uko Nurges fell in the very first over after Vineeth Govind found some swing to rip out his off stump. Skipper Slovodetsky had to watch as two more departed in the next over and he soon found his team at 24 for 3 off ten overs. Despite some lusty blows from the skipper and Shiva, it was never going to happen for Reval as Slovodetsky fell for 48 and Reval tumbled to 114 all out. Vineeth finished with an impressive bowing tally of 4-13-6.

So Kalev skipper Andres Burget will be looking for a hat-trick next season, and he and his team have really laid down the benchmark for inter-league cricket in Estonia. Speaking after the game he said he had thought Kalev had blown their chance when he lost the toss in the morning. “I was so proud that my boys kept it tight on the field, because we know that on their day, Reval are more than capable of hitting 10 an over, never mind five. I'd like to thank Oliver for giving us such a good match, and would like to say to James Ramsden, that if it wasn't for the fact that he was sitting out the match with a groin injury, if he was playing today, I still think we'd have got him out first ball.”

The Estonian cricket league has now finished for the season, although winter nets will begin in November.

Tony Munro

Possibly the biggest year in the history of cricket in Estonia will reach its climax today when Kalev CC, the defending champions, and the club with the largest number of native-born players, meets Reval CC in the final of the domestic league at the Tallinn Hippodrome. As befitting a final, the third meeting of the two teams this season (honours are one-all) will be played under more testing conditions, 30-overs-a-side, at the 125m x 120m ground, which sits within a racecourse.

Kalev CC is captained by Andres Burget, one of 15 Estonians in the four-team league, where all sides are based in the capital Tallinn. Estonian Cricket Association (ECA) officials are hopeful the league, first played last year, can expand next season to Parmu and Tartu, with as many as eight sides. (Click here for the ECA website.)

Also among the ECA development's plans for next year is to have cricket in some format played in six selected high schools in Tallinn. That possibility was increased by the recent acceptance of the ECA as an Affiliate member of the International Cricket Council, and media attention gained with Estonia's win in a Twenty20 tournament involving teams from eastern Europe.

Two of the board members of the ECA are in the Kalev’s starting XI - captain Andres Burget and slow left-arm bowler Kristjan Kogerman. Reval, captained by James Ramsden, will be looking to complete a remarkable season; they won four successive matches after losing the first two games. Ramsden, unfortunately, will miss the final after sitting out the second half of the season owing to groin surgery.

Past form
It's all square with one win for each side against the other. Kalev won by six wickets in the opening game of the season with Vineeth Govind taking a career-best 5 for 20. In the second meeting it was a thrilling last-ball wicket for Andrus Kambre that won the game for Reval by four runs.

Key players
With Ramsden out of the side, it will be up to Oliver Slovodetsky to marshall the players on the field and open the batting. If Shiva Arunachamlam is in the mood for it, he could be a potential match-winner with bat and ball. For Kalev, Burget will juggle his bowling to get the best out of Vineeth Govind and Mike Tiffin, and will be looking for Kogerman to play a big innings with the bat.

Milestones
Reval’s Siva Arunachamlam will be looking to take three wickets this Saturday to make it a remarkable 36 wickets from 36 matches this season (all competitions).

It’s been a good week for Estonia, with membership to the ICC closely followed by being crowned Euro Twenty20 champions at the weekend. The final of the invitational competition was a close affair, but they beat the Czech Republic by four wickets with one ball remaining.

Croatia, who are in European Division Two, came fourth although they didn’t have their best team out. They lost the third place play-off to the Wisniewski XI, who were representing Poland.

The 5th and 7th place play-offs were washed out.

Guernsey have become the 34th country to be granted Associate membership of the ICC after their application was unanimously approved during the annual conference in Dubai.

Vanuatu had also applied but they failed to meet the necessary playing requirements as they had not beaten two existing Associates in competition. Mozambique withdrew their application.

A further three countries from the Europe region - Bulgaria, Estonia and Turkey - were granted Affiliate status, taking the ICC's total member count to 104.

Next week's ICC annual get-together promises to have more than its fair share of politicking, posturing and controversy. But, unless there is a major about-turn, it should also be a watershed for the Associates and Affiliates.

In 2009, income from the ICC's six-year media deal with ESPN-Star, worth over US$1 billion, kicks in, and while the game's big boys will still keep the lion's share, the rest will see substantial increases in their incomes.

Although the ICC draws considerable flak on many fronts, it is quietly committed to promoting the game in as many countries as possible, and it does that by means of a myriad of competitions and initiatives. Most do not warrant much media attention, but they are there and they work.

Until now, the gripe of the smaller countries, and especially those bubbling just underneath the top flight, has been about the inequality of the way in which the game is financed. That was never more apparent than when it came to earnings from last year's World Cup.

Ireland got a flat fee of US$125,000 a year for four years for taking part, and on top of that they received another $50,000 for reaching the Super Eights. However, because of the extra costs involved in their progression, not least because their players are not professional cricketers and their absences from their full-time jobs had to be underwritten, Ireland's success actually left the board out of pocket.

Zimbabwe, on the other hand, turned up, tied with Ireland and never threatened to progress after being thumped by Pakistan and West Indies. For those three matches, Zimbabwe Cricket received US$11 million, their share of the pot as a Full Member.

The top six Associates receive no more than US$500,000 a year - some substantially less - to fund their entire operations. Out of that they have to pay all their cricketing and administration costs. Only those with a low cost of living, such as Kenya, can hope to maintain a professional squad on that kind of money.

The gulf between the haves and have-nots is further widened by the limited sums Associates can earn from sponsorship and media contracts. Zimbabwe can exploit home series against, say, India to carve out lucrative TV deals worth millions, and on the back of that, attract shirt- and other corporate sponsorship. As highlighted by Scotland's failure to secure any TV deal for their forthcoming ODI against England, the Associates struggle to get such income streams.

The new deals will provide a substantial increase for Associates, especially for the countries who are pressing for space at the top table. Until now the share has been roughly equal, rewarding Netherlands and Kenya on par with Thailand and Fiji. The new system will see more demarcation between the top Associates and the rest.

The leading ten could earn as much as US$1.5 million a year from 2009. There will then be an onus on them to professionalise their administrations, but several of them are already well down that route. They will also be more accountable - the ICC does not want a repeat of the mess that came following a spike in Kenya's funding earlier in the decade.

The second-string Associates will also get more - around US$160,000 as a base figure - but then again the demands on them are less. Even Affiliates will receive US$15,000, with the opportunity for more should they make a good enough case. There will also be more cash in the pot for participating and hosting competitions.

There have never been more opportunities for development outside the Full Member countries, but there remain some nagging worries.

The main one is how to bridge the gap between semi and full-blown professionalism. Almost all the Associates rely on dedicated amateurs, both on and off the field. As the number of ICC competitions has increased - and they have to be welcomed - the pressure has begun to tell. Scotland and Ireland particularly have already found players cannot meet all their commitments, and even the increased income will not allow them to employ a full-time squad.

"So much of putting players on full-time retainers depends on how many fixtures we can command," Warren Deutrom, Cricket Ireland's chief executive, said. "At the moment, all we can promise the squad in 2009 is a World Cup qualifying campaign, eight FP Trophy matches, an England game, and probably some Intercontinental Cup matches. Of course, we hope to have more, but can't be sure at the moment.

"Our top players are already plying their trade in county cricket, while others have full-time jobs which they may not wish to give up. The actual number of players that the coach will want to put on a full-time contract, or else the number that even want to have one, may not be that many."

The other quandary is how to get them fixtures. Kenya, widely regarded as the leading Associate, have found it almost impossible to get Full Member countries to visit or host them. As a result they invariably play other Associates. Good for the win-loss ratio, not so clever in providing the kind of experience that no amount of money can buy.

These issues will need to be addressed, but for now the future has never looked so promising beyond the Test world.

Three countries have applied for ICC Affiliate membership and two more to be upgraded from Affiliate to Associate membership.

Bulgaria, Estonia and Turkey’s applications for Affiliate membership will be considered by the ICC and its annual conference in Dubai at the end of June.

Guernsey and Vanuatu have applied for an upgrade to Associate membership which, if successful, will mean a substantial increase in the funding available to their national associations.

Consideration of Vanuatu's application is subject to it meeting the playing standard criterion in its matches against existing Associates in the World Cricket League Division 5. An ICC team is inspecting the facilities in Guernsey this week.