There has been a lot of hysterical talk about the supposed dangers to cricket
of the Twenty20 leagues springing up in India. While the sums of money
involved in the Indian Premier League (IPL) are staggering – $250,000 for
six weeks’ work isn’t bad in anybody’s language – the cricketing landscape
may be changing without necessarily becoming gloomier.
Indeed, the sport may have reason to thank the officially sanctioned IPL, and
the unauthorised Indian Cricket League (ICL), and not just because they
spare us having to endure so many meaningless and tedious one-day
internationals.
For a start, the idea that national boards are about to clear their diaries so
that the IPL – which this year is scheduled to run from April 18 to June 1 –
can proceed unhindered is sheer fantasy.
While India and Australia, the prime movers behind the idea, may not host many
matches in April and May, the rest of the world certainly does. Since the
benighted Future Tours Programme (FTP) was set up in 2001, every country bar
India and Australia has staged Tests between mid-April and the end of May:
West Indies 11, England 9, Bangladesh 5, South Africa 3, Pakistan and Sri
Lanka and Zimbabwe two apiece.
The schedules in England and the Caribbean would be devastated were a six-week
window to be created at this time of year. The West Indies board in
particular, which has only just cleared a significant financial deficit
thanks to the disaster that was the World Cup, cannot afford to punch such a
large hole in the middle of its season.
England’s Tests are among the most lucrative in the world. David Collier,
chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), pointedly
remarked before a meeting of board chief executives in Kuala Lumpur that
they are valued at £10m-£12m apiece. No English players have signed up for
the IPL, as it clashes with their own domestic season, so why should the ECB
go to the trouble? “We’ve never even created an [international-free] window
for one of our own domestic tournaments,” Collier added.
It would be astonishing if the six-week window were not defenestrated once and
for all in Kuala Lumpur. But in any event, the FTP is fixed, and heavily
laden, for the next three years. Moreover, the International CC will want to
create a window for its Twenty20 Champions League somehow in October.
The financial muscle of the IPL, which is effectively a subsidiary of the
Indian board, is vast. Revenues already secured for this year’s tournament
alone total £77.5m, which is more than any national board bar India’s board
itself (which modestly declared income of £83.5m for 2006-7) can muster in a
year.
The ECB’s income in 2006 was £77.1m, Cricket Australia’s in 2005-6 was £37.1m.
Yet even the Indian board/IPL cannot afford to compensate other boards for
their losses should a window be created.
Then there is the idea that the IPL and ICL are cannibalising establishment
cricket. At the outset, the IPL insisted that nobody could join without the
blessing of his national board, and so far that has been the case. The
Australians have just endured an uncomfortable few days awaiting the
approval of Cricket Australia (which had concerns over sponsorship clashes).
The fear is that players will simply retire early from Test cricket in order
to join, but there has yet to be a significant case of this happening.
Stephen Fleming and Shaun Pollock were plainly coming to the end of their
careers, Scott Styris was hampered by fitness issues and Adam Gilchrist had
tired of travelling.
And, really, how many genuine stars has the rebel ICL successfully poached
from the Test arena? Shane Bond has sacrificed the most, but then he is 32
years old and has the patched-up body of a stock car.
With all due respect to those involved, the rest of ICL’s cohorts amounts to
has-beens (Brian Lara, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Chris Cairns) and never-quite-weres
(Mohammad Sami, Nicky Boje, Chris Read).
Frankly, if the Twenty20 leagues weed out those players who are hanging on in
Test cricket because the money is good, then they will actually do the game
a service.
Test cricket sometimes looks like heaven’s waiting room and if the IPL/ICL
take over that role, then not too many in the game will have cause for
complaint.
The real crisis may not be the world game’s, but Australia’s. It is worth
remembering that during the past 35 years, Australian cricket has been laid
low by only two things – the Kerry Packer split and the rebel tours of South
Africa – and both were the result of players chasing money. Now, tellingly,
there are more Australians (16) signed to the IPL than any other foreign
nationality.
With the Australian team in a period of rebuilding following the retirement of
a clutch of great players, those that are left behind are risking burnout
with their rush to squeeze in work with the IPL, which pressed them to sign
by this weekend ahead of Wednesday’s player auction. Australia’s forthcoming
tour of Pakistan was always likely to be scuppered by security concerns over
the aftermath of tomorrow’s elections, but so eager were the Australian
players to take the IPL’s money that they made it plain that whatever the
security verdict, they weren’t much interested in going. Their love of the
baggy green is deep, but their love of the greenback isn’t far behind.
Fortunately for Ricky Ponting and company, West Indies are weak, so they
should not lose either the Test or one-day series, even after arriving in
the Caribbean on May 10 hotfoot from three weeks of Twenty20 (the West
Indies tour prevents them from seeing out the IPL season, hence Ponting’s
support for a six-week window). The players, already out of favour with the
public, risk further condemnation with this foolhardy build-up.
If Australia’s supremacy is ultimately jeopardised, so too may be the future
of the FTP. In Kuala Lumpur, ECB deputy chief executive Hugh Morris and
director of cricket operations John Carr are attempting to hammer out a
future for the programme with other national representatives. The likelihood
is that the Test-playing nations will be placed on four, five- or six-year
cycles, depending on their market value, which effectively means that from
2012, England, Australia and India will be relieved of the obligation of so
often playing the likes of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe (if ever their Test
status is restored). This will leave slightly more time for playing in
lucrative events such as the IPL.
Only in this small way might the IPL be considered to be receiving priority
over Test cricket, but in fact such a change to the FTP only formalises the
situation that already exists.
India has never hosted a Test series against Bangladesh and has only agreed to
tour Sri Lanka this year to help prop up the finances of the Sri Lankan
board. Australia have played a mere seven Tests against Bangladesh and
Zimbabwe and last week scrapped a planned Test series against Bangladesh on
the thin grounds that it would clash with the Beijing Olympic Games.
New Zealand and Pakistan are set to be the other losers in all of this. Their
wage structures are among the poorest in the sport, which is why they have
lost more players to the ICL than other foreign sides (eight more Pakistanis
signed last week). The big winners could well turn out to be England, with
fewer overseas players cluttering up county sides in the early part of the
domestic season and, just possibly, a wearier Australian Test side to face
in future Ashes series.
Cricket’s new gold mine
Kerry Packer, owner of Australia’s Channel Nine TV, recruited many of the
world’s leading players to appear in his own World Series Cricket event.
After two years, he halted WSC in return for the rights to cover Test
cricket. But his innovative fl oodlit cricket and such as Shane Warne, Adam
coloured clothing have remained Gilchrist and Jacques Kallis.
Bollywood stars such as Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta are fronting consortia
which have bought the eight franchised Indian Premier League teams for
£36.6m. On Wednesday, they can spend £1.7m-£2.6m buying stars
HOW THE REVENUES COMPARE
Indian Premier League (for 2008 tournament only)
Title sponsorship (with DLF) £5.2m
Media contract (with Sony/World Sports Group) £35.7m
Sale of eight franchised teams £36.6m
Total £77.5m
Board of Control for Cricket in India (2006-07) £83.5m
England & Wales Cricket Board (for 2006) £77.1m
Cricket Australia (2005-06) £37.1m
TWENTY20 SIGNINGS
The Indian Premier League and the rebel Indian Cricket League have enticed
some of the best players in the world.
Indian Premier League Adam Gilchrist, Brett Lee, Glenn McGrath, Ricky
Ponting, Shane Warne, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Shoaib Akhtar, Jacques
Kallis, Shaun Pollock, Muttiah Muralitharan, Chris Gayle
Indian Cricket League Brian Lara, Stuart Law, Darren Maddy, Paul Nixon,
Chris Read, Vikram Solanki, Shane Bond, Inzamam-ul-Haq
Have NZ staged any tests in this time or have they been forgotten about?
Mick, AUckland,