Cricket to the Max in the South Pacific

December 15, 1999

One of the things immediately apparent when surveying cricket in the South Pacific is the ability of the locals to hit a ball. There are some big hitters in the islands!! And what is also quiet clear is that population size, facilities and lifestyle all combine to mean that longer versions of the game are not really ideal. Test cricket certainly has no place and even traditional One Day cricket is a little too long. Most the islands already reduce their games to 30 overs a side or even less.

So the fact that the ICC is now officially endorsing a "Third Generation Game" of cricket is great news for these smaller countries. The official version is a mixture of Max Cricket from New Zealand and Super 8's from Australia called, understandably enough, Super Max. The game can be played in a number of forms but the key elements are that it is shorter (either two or three hours), uses all the traditional cricket skills and is action packed (hitting zones behind the bowler allow batters to double their runs).

Martin Crowe being interviewed by Fiji One TV © Getty Images

Martin Crowe invented Max Cricket in New Zealand and with Sky TV has developed it to the stage where it is a regular feature on the domestic calendar .This month New Zealand played the West Indies in a full Cricket Max International and the game is now becoming very popular.

Crowe is also an ICC Development Ambassador for the East Asia Pacific region and last weekend accompanied Andrew Eade to Fiji to discuss the possibility of launching a major Cricket Max Tournament there. The idea is an exciting one with a social tournament for club teams running alongside a special international tournament featuring representative teams from New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific Islands. The setting would be the fantastic Denarau Island Resort just outside Nadi where a specially designed ground would be built next to the ocean and the games would be televised by Sky TV.

Plans are only preliminary at this stage but with Sky TV, the Denarau Resort, Fiji Cricket and the ICC all behind the idea in principle there is a good chance it could go ahead. Plans would be for the first tournament to be held in April 2001. And that could be the launch pad for the "Third Generation Game" to spread through the South Pacific. One only has to look to the success of Rugby Sevens to see that the shorter version game has great appeal.

© ICC