The Changing Face of Global Cricket

[braveneutral]

The Super Bowl is supposedly the world’s greatest spectacle. People often flock to the city that hosts this annual event for a week before the game begins, with many not even intending to watch the match, but to soak up the atmosphere of the occasion. It is a dramatic show first and secondly asporting event. The match itself is the climax of a week of partying that boosts the local economy without fail. In the olden days, and the same may be true now, food was packaged in the colours of the teams competing and it is the day that is second for overall food consumption in the U.S, a sign of the unique effect it has on businesses. The Super Bowl has come to signify the sport of American Football, for better or worse. It is a landmark event in the diaries of all with an inkling of feeling for the sport. Perhaps, it is slightly manufactured and purists may enjoy watching a college game far more, but for those that don’t follow the sport, it is an accessible and enjoyable way in.

The Indian Premier League, already in its fifth season, brings viewers from around the world into contact with the sport of cricket. There is the razzamatazz of the dancers and the music, the sponsors and the effervescent Danny Morrison. You see the highs and the lows and the stadiums feel like a six-week long party, the only hangover of which will only be the disappointment of the perennial failure of Kings XI Punjab. It is, in short, becoming to cricket what the Super Bowl is to American Football. It boosts the finances of an ailing game and brings only the best to Indian shores in a true spectacle of all that is good about cricket.

Test cricket won’t die, at least not yet, but any death of it will not be due to the IPL, it will be in spite of it. There is an argument that the best players miss out on Test cricket due to the IPL and that this is slowly killing the game, but that is not the fault of the IPL, it is often the fault of the boards for scheduling matches in this period. A period when they know that there is often no option but for the players to go to seek fame and fortune on the big stage. The exposure of viewers to the IPL, a form with the best players are playing, can only help to improve the fortunes of Test cricket in the long-run, as those who become enraptured by the IPL will not fail to see the beauty of the longer format eventually.

Another such argument exists that players would be better served by playing in domestic competitions that happen to coincide with the IPL rather than playing the shorter format which will do them no good. There are two fundamental reasons why this comes across as absurd to me. The first is that the players are making a life choice and using their skills to make sure that they do the best for themselves and their loved ones, by making the most of their abilities in what is their career. Could you really imagine turning down a (in most cases) significant increase in your salary due to some loyalty to another employer, some would, but not many. In some cases, those who play the IPL over a few Tests end up earning far more than they would have done by playing at the pinnacle of the sport. The second reason is simple, in our model, with the IPL as the Super Bowl, domestic cricket takes over the role of College Football, enjoyable and (to the trained eye) an enthralling contest, but lacking the excitement and the sheer spectacle of the IPL. I wonder how many American Football players would choose to play a whole season of the college game over a single Super Bowl? My guess is none at all.

Do I worry for the domestic game, particularly that of the English one? Yes, but not hugely. The number of players missing this season is not huge, and the effect of their absence is often over exaggerated. A few changes could be made by the ECB themselves to ensure that this effect is even smaller. For one, they could cut the number of games that are played in their own T20 competition. This may be at a small cost to their finances, but if they could arrange a format similar to the Champions Trophy, they may be able to ask for more money per game in the television rights. It would be shorter, but more intense, with more at stake and would mean that more games in the longer format could be played later in the season. Another option is to play the mid-length competition at the beginning of the season. There seems to be more and more focus placed on the County Championship and the FLT20, if the CB40 were to take place earlier, I don’t think that the counties would mind too much, neither, in all probability, would the fans. This would offset the loss of players to the IPL and would make the County Championship as strong as possible.

Cricket is changing, for better or worse, but we the fans and those in power need to adapt and embrace these changes. The IPL is becoming cricket’s Super Bowl and instead of going the way of other sports where only the premier competition thrives, we need to make the changes to ensure that the whole game can continue to flourish. Test matches are the blood of the cricket fan, but we need the heart, the IPL to keep it pumping.

[mikesiva]

An excellent blog, BN!

We need to work with the IPL, and learn to accommodate it, and not try to fight it....

This is quite a prophetic blog, considering it was written in April, before all the problems with KP hit the fan.

[Dilbert]

I feel that the arguement that IPL is killing tests is absurd because IPL needs successful big name players.... who only become successful and get a big name due to playing tests. So infact it is giving a boost to tests by ensuring people and boards take more interest in test series.

[meninblue]

With international stars also being selected in Big Bash, Friends Life T20, Bangladesh premiere League and Srilanka Premiere league; the options to IPL for fans are more. If any of the T20 tournament is missed by fans, they won't care much because there are enough options now. Pakistan players are part of Friends Life T20, BPL and SLPL so there is enough viewership at least for SLPL and BPL. The cricket crazy population in India and Pakistan is in millions. So the Asian T20 tournaments will survive and more sponsorship for other tourneys means more competition. Also we have to not that all such T20 tourneys are played in separate seasons. Big Bash in Dec - Jan, BPL in February, IPL in April - May and SLPL in August. it will not be long that Pakistan which has exciting T20 cricketers host a T20 tournament in slot of their own. England is not marketing Friends Life T20 or probably it seems they are not getting enough success in marketing their own T20 in spite of their efforts. Maybe T20 is not valued as a important product in England. Whereas the population of Asian nations mean that even if few percentage of cricket fans watch it, it is immense number of viewers. Also, IPL has gained the first movers advantage after they got down Zee's ICL. However, as we have observed other T20 tourneys are being marketed globally. The sponsorship of Mahindras is a strategic decision to popularize one of the most trusted Indian brand in Asia. SLPL has got a immense boost due to this sponsor. It is high time that Friends life T20 strike a contract for broadcasting FLT20 in Asia. Only then they will be able to market it effectively and draw best of players into it. Players like Morgan and KP would go for Friend Life if it is equally popular and ECB too gets rid of disputes.

[GGAS]

Great blog bn, hard to disagree with any of it.

[braveneutral]

Ta! Hadn't seen this had picked up!

[mikesiva]

Do I worry for the domestic game, particularly that of the English one? Yes, but not hugely. The number of players missing this season is not huge, and the effect of their absence is often over exaggerated. A few changes could be made by the ECB themselves to ensure that this effect is even smaller. For one, they could cut the number of games that are played in their own T20 competition. This may be at a small cost to their finances, but if they could arrange a format similar to the Champions Trophy, they may be able to ask for more money per game in the television rights. It would be shorter, but more intense, with more at stake and would mean that more games in the longer format could be played later in the season. Another option is to play the mid-length competition at the beginning of the season. There seems to be more and more focus placed on the County Championship and the FLT20, if the CB40 were to take place earlier, I don’t think that the counties would mind too much, neither, in all probability, would the fans. This would offset the loss of players to the IPL and would make the County Championship as strong as possible.

Cricket is changing, for better or worse, but we the fans and those in power need to adapt and embrace these changes. The IPL is becoming cricket’s Super Bowl and instead of going the way of other sports where only the premier competition thrives, we need to make the changes to ensure that the whole game can continue to flourish. Test matches are the blood of the cricket fan, but we need the heart, the IPL to keep it pumping.

What has happened now is that Notts have banned their contracted players from taking part in T20 domestic tournaments, but will that stop them going, or make county players less likely to sign contracts with counties like Notts?

http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cric ... 04754.html

"We continue to assess our options and opinions over the IPL," Essex's director of cricket, Paul Grayson, told ESPNcricinfo. "Any coach will tell you about the benefits of having a settled team and you just have to look at the success of Derbyshire last year to see that. They got off to a good start and went on to win promotion, while we missed our IPL players for the first seven Championship games and were always playing catch-up. Of course we can understand players wanting to take part in these leagues. It's a short career and who wouldn't want to earn as much as they can? We all understand that and not many of us would turn it down. And, to be fair to Ryan ten Doeschate and Owais, the players we will miss this year, they are absolutely committed to Essex whenever they are here. But maybe enough is enough. Maybe the time has come to put our foot down. We want our players to be 100 percent committed to Essex and we do have the option of refusing to issue No Objection Certificates if we feel that is the right route to go down. I suppose there is a worry that players might consider moving to another county if we did that, but these are the issues we are continually discussing." Grayson has previously indicated that the county could follow Nottinghamshire's example in the future. "The message sent out by Mick Newell, the director of cricket at Nottinghamshire, was very good," Grayson said. "He was saying, 'We're a big club and we have ambitions.' He has good players and he wants to make use of them to win trophies. We knew when we signed Owais that he was keen to play in these T20 leagues and we made a verbal agreement with him then. He is contracted to us from June until the end of the season and it may be that, after that, we decide that agreement doesn't work for us anymore. Who knows: maybe he could end up signing a T20 deal with Essex? We are going to see freelance players very, very soon and it could be that Owais is one of the first."

IMHO, it's up to Shah to decide who he wants to play for, and if at 34 he sees playing T20 tournaments as a better way of earning money than playing county cricket, then that's his decision, and it's probably a financially wise one. There are players like Scott Styris, Dirk Nannes and Kevon Cooper who are already concentrating primarily on the T20 leagues, so Shah would just be joining them. I think it's a good thing that cricketers have another way to earn a living - competition is good.

[meninblue]

IMHO, it's up to Shah to decide who he wants to play for, and if at 34 he sees playing T20 tournaments as a better way of earning money than playing county cricket, then that's his decision, and it's probably a financially wise one. There are players like Scott Styris, Dirk Nannes and Kevon Cooper who are already concentrating primarily on the T20 leagues, so Shah would just be joining them. I think it's a good thing that cricketers have another way to earn a living - competition is good.

On the same note BCCI should stop not issuing NOC's to Indian players who want to play in BPL. BBL, FLT20, Caribbean T20 etc. It cannot be one way like IPL comittee/BCCI is behaving. Essex has done what IPL has been doing to everyone.

[Kim]

"IMHO, it's up to Shah to decide who he wants to play for, and if at 34 he sees playing T20 tournaments as a better way of earning money than playing county cricket, then that's his decision, and it's probably a financially wise one"

Absolutely- once hes out of contract.

Essex are talking a lot about this and following the Notts banning route. Up to them but I have no syympathy over Shah. If you sign a player like him who has IPL commitments, you shoudnt moan about him playing in the IPL.

[rich1uk]

not sure how big a deal the shah situation is tbh

hes coming close to the end of his career probably , knows that his chances of getting back into the england setup are gone and wants to try and get himself a few decent paydays before he retires

i think players need to be careful as i'm still not convinced the proliferation of t20 cricket will last and whether audiences will continue to pay to watch what, if we are being honest, are in alot of cases fairly average players playing hit and giggle cricket. if and when the bubble bursts then lets hope that damage hasn't been done to the game through too many people and leagues trying to jump on what is a finite sized bandwagon

[mikesiva]

Even some England players are becoming restive....

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/con ... 04881.html

"If you ask any Englishman or Australian, 'would you rather score a T20 hundred or an Ashes hundred?' I know which one most people would go with," Prior told the BBC. "But guys are going to start looking at it. I know for a fact that players want to play in the IPL. You can't get away from the fact that there is an enormous amount of money at stake. I'm employed by the ECB, so I do what the ECB says right now. If that's when the Test matches are, then that's when the Test matches are. My priority is playing Test cricket for England and when I am needed to play Test cricket for England I will play. The IPL and these Twenty20 competitions are not going away. People love them and the players enjoy playing in them, so there are going to be more and more people getting frustrated at the lack of opportunity to play in the IPL. So things may have to change in time."

[rich1uk]

Even some England players are becoming restive....

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/con ... 04881.html

"If you ask any Englishman or Australian, 'would you rather score a T20 hundred or an Ashes hundred?' I know which one most people would go with," Prior told the BBC. "But guys are going to start looking at it. I know for a fact that players want to play in the IPL. You can't get away from the fact that there is an enormous amount of money at stake. I'm employed by the ECB, so I do what the ECB says right now. If that's when the Test matches are, then that's when the Test matches are. My priority is playing Test cricket for England and when I am needed to play Test cricket for England I will play. The IPL and these Twenty20 competitions are not going away. People love them and the players enjoy playing in them, so there are going to be more and more people getting frustrated at the lack of opportunity to play in the IPL. So things may have to change in time."

the key sentences from that quote are in bold mike

there isn't going to be a window for the IPL any time soon for the simple reason the BCCI dont want one as it will tie their hands over any plans they might have to expand it

[Kim]

I thouht this was the key: "Prior might also reflect on the reasons behind England's busy schedule. It is, in part at least, designed to meet the salary demands of international players as well as ensuring they have access to the best facilities and coaching. Any cut in the schedule would lead to subsequent cuts in the value of broadcast deals - which account for around 80% of the ECB's income - and would reduce the funds available not just to the England team, but the first-class counties, grassroots cricket and the women's game."

They cannot have it both ways - the security and money of a central contract, largely funded by Sky - and then want less games on Sky so that they can play IPL. Its one or the other. not both. Up to them.

And I find it irksome that Prior is talking about the desireto spend less time away from domestic cricket when he has just completed a benefit year which will presumabye reward him very well - tax free - for his contribution to domestic cricket.

[rich1uk]

the other thing is kim that its only a handful of players that will really benefit from being made available to play more t20s around the world whereas the corresponding impact on the english domestic season and the commercial agreements with SKY would undoubtedly lead to less money being in the english game affecting the other 90%+ of players that wouldn't get any interest from t20 franchises

so basically this would almost create a situation where the top players who by definition are already getting the most money get more whereas the average county cricketer would suffer

[Kim]

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/con ... 04944.html

Negotiations clearly starting via Crincinfo.