Nick Bendel
Will Cricket Australia run itself out?
July 18th 2008 14:49
Recently, Twenty20 tournaments have been sprouting like weeds. In October, the inaugural Champions Twenty20 will take place in India. The following month will see the first Stanford 20/20 for 20 [million dollars], an annual event in which a West Indian XI will play England for truckloads of cash ($20 bills, presumably). And in four weeks time, Canada- yes, Canada- will host a quadrangular competition that also includes Bangladesh, Pakistan and the West Indies.
But that is far from the end of it. Just yesterday, the English Cricket Board announced that it would begin a new Twenty20 tournament in 2010 (or Twenty10, as the marketers will no doubt insist we call it). As luck would have it, this English Premier League will consist of exactly 20 teams- the 18 counties, plus two foreign outfits. Extraordinarily, though, the ECB does not intend to replace its current Twenty20 competition, but supplement it, so that when this 20 team Twenty20 tournament terminates, the 18 counties will then compete for the Twenty20 Cup. One would have to be a rocket scientist- or perhaps a brilliant mathematician- to make sense of it.
What is the reason for all this madness? The answer, predictably, is money. Having spent years searching for the revenue to finance their ailing domestic leagues and rising player salaries, administrators have gleefully discovered that this new puppy is a cash cow. Cram five days worth of action into three hours and watch the money roll in. The Twenty20 formula is simple: 6ixes = ca$h.
Australia, which has given the world Sir Donald Bradman, Richie Benaud and the KFC Twenty20 Big Bash, has decided that it must also have a greater share of the action. Many Australian cricket supporters will regard this with concern. For although Cricket Australia has, over the years, proven itself to be less avaricious and myopic than other boards, the brief history of Twenty20 has shown that when great bundles of money are involved, heads can quickly become muddled.
“We’re really aware of a lot of things that are developing at the moment in Twenty20 cricket,” CA’s chief executive, James Sutherland, revealed. “We’re already on the record as saying we are planning a revamp of our Twenty20 Big Bash”, to make it “larger” and on a “different scale”.
You don’t need twenty-twenty hindsight to recognise the potential dangers of Sutherland’s message. One of the strengths of Australia’s domestic program is the thoughtful nature of its scheduling. Excluding finals, the states play 10 four day games, 10 limited over games and five Twenty20 games every summer. Because each competition has a relatively small number of fixtures, it ensures that practically all the contests are meaningful, and thus highly competitive. And because those three competitions are nicely balanced, it means that the players gain sufficient experience in all forms of cricket. By contrast, English cricket- in which the counties play 15 four day matches, eight 50 over matches, eight 40 over matches and 10 Twenty20 matches each year- is horribly bloated.
So when Sutherland talks about Australia’s Twenty20 calendar becoming “larger” and on a “different scale”, how does he envisage the domestic season looking? Will there now be 10 fixtures in each of the three competitions? If so, that mightn’t be such a bad thing, as it would provide significantly greater revenue, without significantly distorting the balance.
But what if CA decides that there should be 15 or- God forbid- 20 Twenty20 matches per summer? If players are forced to focus so heavily on all this tonk and giggle, there is a risk that they will not properly absorb the technique and patience and strategy that is demanded by test cricket. And this risk only increases if CA, in order to find room for all these additional Twenty20 contests, concludes that its players must cut down on the longer forms of the game.
For the good of the game, it is to be fervently hoped that when Sutherland and friends relaunch the Big Bash, we are presented not with a revolution in Australian cricket but an evolution. Sadly, though, the signs do not look promising. If there is one lesson that all these budding Twenty20 leagues have taught us, it’s that dollars speak louder than sense.
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Comment by Buck
Comment by Nick Bendel
Sport: The Australian Disease
Listening to today's players, it is difficult to know what the future holds. On the one hand, practically all of them agree that test cricket is 'real' cricket. On the other, a majority of them say how wonderful all the money that T20 is bringing into the sport is, and how they would be prepared to shorten their test careers in order to get their hands on more of this money.
Perhaps, as you suggest, we will see a changing of the guard in a decade or two. While today's players, who were raised on test cricket, regard it as the superior form, maybe tomorrow's players will be raised on the glitz and money of T20, and thus come to see that as the superior form. And if that's the case, test cricket's future looks bleak...