The Essex captain, a bubbly character who is in his benefit year, was answering questions, usually with a deal of humour, at the end of the evening at the Grand Hotel.But he was speaking from the heart when asked about the influence of the overseas stars in county cricket: ‘I think they are becoming more and more mercenary.
And the money spent on getting them to play in a county side, £40,000 plus – a lot of money in cricket terms – would be far better spent developing young talent.’Irani, a member of England’s ill-fated World Cup campaign in South Africa last year was prompted for his opinions on several serious subjects inbetween light-hearted banter about his former England team-mate Phil Tufnell – and Jersey batsman Rob Tewkesbury who he had met earlier in the day.That the England players were pressurised to make the highly-political decision whether to visit Zimbabwe in the World Cup obviously disgusted the all-rounder: ‘I was one of the senior players there, but the effect on the younger lads was terrible – how could they be expected to make a political decision like that?’The rise of Twenty20 cricket pleases Irani and, perhaps surprisingly, he does not see its possible spread as a problem to developing Test players.
‘It’s really condensing the best of one-day cricket, and what it does is put you under pressure straight away – right from the first ball.’You simply can’t take your time and play yourself in.
But performing under pressure like that is something that England crickets need to improve on.’I think Twenty20 has been great for the game – crowds and players – and the Aussies are sure to take it up.’On a similar theme, he admitted to favouring a return to the three-day county game as opposed to the four-day version, although he did mount a robust defence of the compeition.’The county game gets a lot of stick, but not from the foreign players – they think it is an excellent competition.’It is competitive.’
