Just over a year after its inception, the ODI World Cup Super League – where the 12 ICC full members plus the Netherlands’ men’s teams competed in bilateral ODI series to determine direct qualifiers to the 2023 World Cup – was scrapped. More recently, Mark Butcher spoke on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast about how the World Test Championship has made Test cricket worse. And whether or not T20Is should have a global structure has seemingly never been discussed, presumably because no one has seen any need for it. Throughout its history, cricket has chafed against having structures, even though the sport would benefit immensely from them.
Until the 1979 men’s World Cup, all international cricket was based on invitations, whether it was to tour or to play in tournaments (as opposed to having any kind of qualifying mechanism). This ad hoc approach to scheduling was fine when the sport had one format and was only played by relatively few nations, but is severely outdated now that there are three formats and a still-burgeoning franchise system.
Yet it still extends to the present day, as the current Future Tours Programme (FTP) – mostly the men’s, but we’ll get to that – is littered with tours and series that were arranged just by the two relevant national boards. (Even in the series that make up the World Test Championship, the number of Tests to play in the series is decided among the two teams.) Meanwhile, franchise leagues are popping up left and right, competing for the same players and playing windows, and are increasingly outcompeting the international game with their superior purchasing power. Those of us who want to preserve the international game need to accept that structures like the Super League and the World Test Championship can be used to demarcate sections of the calendar that the franchises can’t touch.
Fans of international cricket often look to football (the World Game one) as a cautionary tale for what cricket might become – players, who are retained by their clubs, are occasionally “released” for international duty, which only makes up a small part of the calendar. But how is it that, in the most recent international window, England were able to field superstars like Harry Kane and Jack Grealish for games against Malta and North Macedonia? The presence of structures can’t take the credit for everything, but two aspects deserve a lot of it:
- The matches were qualifiers for the European Championships, a major tournament (i.e., it has stakes);
- Windows for these qualifiers have been carved into the calendar, with domestic leagues pausing so players can play for their national teams.
Most of the remaining friendlies among the European teams have also now been turned into the UEFA Nations League, which provide additional opportunities for qualification to European Championships and World Cups. CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) have also come out with their own Nations League that serve as qualifiers for major tournaments. And if I’ve been talking too much about a sport whose history and international dynamics differs too greatly from cricket, rugby union is starting their own, complete with a second tier and (eventually) promotion and relegation, with the aim to “strengthen the development pathway for emerging nations” and “drive its growth and long-term sustainability”.
Actually, such structures have been playing out in cricket – in the women’s and associate game. The ICC Women’s Championship and the World Cricket Leagues have both predated and outlived the ODI Super League (even if the WCL was revised into League 2 and the Challenger Leagues after 2019). They provide pathways for qualification to global tournaments as well as certainty on when matches will be played (extremely important when many of the players involved are not full-time professional cricketers, even in the swiftly professionalising women’s game). In the context of women’s cricket, knowing when matches will be played will also be crucial in guarding against the creep of franchise tournaments. Structures work because they add credibility, which, when enforced properly, are respected even by those with deeper pockets.
The ODI Super League has shown that it’s not enough to pool some bilateral series together and give it a fancy name, even if it did have World Cup qualifying implications. But for top level men’s cricket, it takes the cooperation of all the national boards and franchise leagues to come up with a calendar that allows players to fulfil both country and club commitments to the best of their abilities. Cricket has shown itself to not be very good at cooperation, but if it wants the international game to continue existing outside of a select few nations, it needs to learn fast.
By Adhitya Sutresna
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