I’ve been in love with cricket for 40 years. And so it holds that I’m no longer the game’s stated ‘target market’, despite my lifelong love for it. Not a player of any note (my family will tell you about the grand final hat trick I took in my teens, but how the third wicket fell is a card I’ll keep close to my chest, thanks), and certainly not somebody who has ever been employed by the game.
All throughout my love affair with God’s Great and Glorious Game, I’ve heard the death drums beating for test cricket. It’s been constant, but never so loud or inescapable as today. They are deafening. And I’m sad to think that, for the first time, they might win the battle of the rhythms. A news article that I read yesterday about boosting international match payments for players beyond the big three gives me some hope, but I’m not launching into celebrations just yet. I reckon I’ve read articles like that before.
The thing is, test cricket lover or not, we all have to agree that in life, all things change. All sport changes, and cricket knows this pretty well. Tennis is not what it was a hundred years ago. Australian Rules Football, at least at the ‘elite ’level, is certainly not the game I was raised to love as a child. Soccer, rugby, basketball, hell, even the Olympics – they’ve all evolved over time. Test cricket is certainly not what it used to be, but it’s also shown a reluctance to enact meaningful change and, whilst market forces are doing their bit, it might be a little guilty of strangling itself sometimes.
But when any sport faces a time of challenge, it will, together with its fan base, will look to its governing body for direction and an indication of the path to navigate to lead it back towards a future of greater strength, greater reach and, crucially, a greater and deeper love. Without people to love it, cricket fails, and it will surely die. The more that it continues down the path that it is currently careering down with seemingly no-one in authority willing to pull the handbrake and say ‘hey, we need to talk about what’s going on’, it more appears to be a sport that has lost its soul.
The ICC has the handbrake, yeah? They could call the chat, right? It’s not Mark Nicholas’ job to call the World Cricket Connects forum, surely? It’s that what the ICC should be doing?
So, let’s have a read of the ICC website and its vision for cricket – it says it wants cricket;
…to become the world’s favourite sport. We will lead the continued drive towards more competitive, entertaining, and meaningful cricket for players and fans. We will grow the sport by creating more opportunities for more people and nations to enjoy it and increase the competitiveness of international cricket at all levels. We will promote cricket by delivering exciting and engaging global events, attracting new and diverse fans, and building long-term successful commercial partnerships. And finally, we will continue to make considerable efforts to protect the integrity of the sport.
(Before I launch into my response, take note of the use of the word ‘we’. The ICC are saying clearly that THEY are going to do these things.) I have a natural tendency to become very sleepy when reading any corporate statement like this, but I want to pick this apart a little.
More competitive, entertaining and meaningful cricket. OK. Well, test cricket these days is only consistently competitive between the Big Three and, you could argue, Pakistan, New Zealand and perhaps South Africa when they field their first choice team. It could be different, but the financial gap between the haves and the have-nots is gaping, and growing rapidly. Now that they’ve attained test status, who is looking to play test cricket against Ireland and Afghanistan? The 2023 World Cup saw only a small handful of close, competitive games on pitches that were prepared to ensure maximum first innings returns (well, duh, how does this ensure competitive cricket?). And the key word here – meaningful. It’s long accepted that T20 is the cash cow of the current game, and that’s fine. But quite how I’m supposed to view a game between two Saudi Arabian franchises as meaningful is, frankly, well beyond my capabilities. Whilst I’m very happy to see attempts being made to grow the game in places like America, I would love to know how many participants in the two league seasons there saw it as meaningful cricket. The pay packet was meaningful, sure, but was the cricket? Did anyone discuss it around their water cooler back in the office the next day? And does it actually develop cricket in America, or India? Who actually watches it? I personally know only one single person who has watched a game from the UAE or US leagues, although it seems fair to say that the second edition of the MLC garnered a lot more interest than the first, no doubt helped by the US teams success at the T20 World Cup. But tell me, who won last year’s MLC? Indeed, who won this years? Who knows and who cares?
(And, further by the by, re: meaningful cricket and lopsided ODI’s where a first innings score of 350-plus pretty much guarantees the result half-way through the game, after 13 World Cups and thousands of other ODI’s besides, has the ICC thought to study those scores that deliver the most consistently competitive games? If, to create a hypothetical example, the most consistently close results are in games where the winning score is around 300, why wouldn’t the game prepare ODI pitches, especially in World Cups, that are most likely to frequently deliver that score and therefore a close result, rather than locking in 400 in the first innings to make the second innings pretty much pointless? And, ultimately, deliver a boring game? We could get in academics to create the Duckworth-Lewis method, couldn’t we do something similar, and which would seem a fair bit easier, on this front?)
The ICC tells us that they will increase the competitiveness of international cricket at all levels. It’s too easy to be too negative about this too quickly. There are positives here to applaud. Uganda qualifying for the World T20 this year is a really good story in and of itself, regardless of their results. Footage I’ve seen of the Nepalese team playing at home seems really exciting. Women’s cricket has come along in leaps and bounds and I, for one, love it, albeit acknowledging that there is more work to do. International U19 cricket also continues to be a thriving development ground for the highest level of the sport. The Netherlands’ performance at the 2023 World Cup was very pleasing to many eyes (including mine). However, the means by which they so successfully managed to develop their cricket over recent years, namely the ODI Super League, has been canned. I’ve not seen any reason stated as to why. The next 50 over World Cup is, finally, being once again expanded to 14 teams. So, we go for expansion – and simultaneously kill off the manner by which developing teams can best lift their level of performance to enable them to compete fair and square. At all levels – Intercontinental Cup, anyone?
We will promote cricket by delivering exciting and engaging global events, attracting new and diverse fans. Apparently this is done by holding the last four ODI World Cups exclusively in Big Three countries, the last of which appeared in many ways to have been a banner for nationalistic self-promotion, not about growing to embrace new markets. (But that happened in 2015 too. I went to the India v Pakistan game at Adelaide Oval, and numerous times saw the screens light up with messages of Jittga Jittga India! – but nothing for Pakistan. No-one, besides me, commented at the time.) Admittedly the host countries for the T20 World Cups for both the men’s and women’s game has been much more democratic. Good. (In a purely cricketing sense, it’s sad to see Bangladesh lose their opportunity to host the Women’s T20 World Cup this year, however understandable the reasons are.)
And then, further without batting an eyelid, build long-term successful commercial partnerships … and … make considerable efforts to protect the integrity of the sport. Aramco? A commercial partnership, sure, but integrity? I’mnot a subscriber to New Internationalist but I reckon I can spot a widely regarded greenwasher when I smell one. (It’shard as a fan. My football club has sponsors that I would rather they not have too.) Integrity? Afghanistan’s fullmember status and its women’s cricket program?
So, that’s their Vision Statement. They also state that they preside over the ICC Code of Conduct, playing conditions, the Decision Review System and other ICC regulations, which is fine. Let’s talk about playing conditions. I’m an obsessive listener to the Final Word podcast, who two years ago interviewed Jamie Cox about his MCC-sanctioned investigation into delays in play and their impact on over rates. Has the ICC said anything about this topic, ever? Over rates are an issue that has been frustrating test cricket fans for well over a decade, and still there are no ICC decisions being made on doing anything about this in the slightest. When T20 could be said to be speeding the game up, test cricket is slowing terribly (and T20 is, let’s be honest, doing its best to catch up by lagging further, if you get my drift). Test players leaving a field lit by floodlights for bad light? It’s 2024! 11 players in the team but the 12thman is essentially a permanent fielder? Perhaps the ‘other ICC regulations’ might cover the fact that for a long time international cricket tours have been financed under unsustainable models that are no longer conducive to the health of both competing nations. To paraphrase a recent Caribbean Cricket Podcast tweet, ‘it costs (the West Indies)board $2m USD to send Men’s teams to Australia, and $750k to send the Women’s team, with no income made in return, (which) means it’s an unsustainable economic system really’. With more money in the game today than ever before, is the ICC proposing anything that might change this system to be more mutually beneficial and sustainable for the international game as a whole? Surely, in sustaining the game into the future, this is its very job? (Again, I acknowledge yesterday’s news article– but will I await it coming to fruition and leading to real change.)
The point that I’m trying to make – yes, it’s been a long piece so far – is that if we look to the ICC to lead the game into positions of strength and sustainable health, it’s not doing much of a job. And the inequity of international men’s test cricket is the clear and obvious point at which this can be made. The only teams with a strong test cricket program (men’s and women’s) are the Big Three, with Pakistan and perhaps New Zealand around the periphery. The only countries that draw crowds are the Big Three, and yet fans are also paying enormous ticket prices for days where they rarely get a full 90 overs for their investment. Nothing is being done about either. Having established the World Test Championship to finally give competitive context to the best and most testing format of the game, the game is simultaneously devalued to a succession of two-test series. The fact that Usman Khawaja at one point in December 2023 had faced more balls that year than the entirety of the South African cricket team is indicative of many, many wrongs. We can say that India were a good global citizen in sending their test team to South Africa that summer, but they made sure they got out of the joint before the Indian-funded T20 competition was due to kick off, instead of staying for a third and potentially fascinating deciding test match. And ensuring that the South African team selected to tour New Zealand was (to many eyes) a third XI.
Indian money may indeed be driving the game today. But here is one place where it is crucial to question the health of the game’s soul. I’m blessed to live in a big cricket country with a small population but healthy economy. India has a sixth of the world’s population and a developing economy. Yes, it seems fair that they get a large share of the financial distribution from the ICC. And yet, what is the purpose of the overall fund pool of the ICC if it is not to grow the game across the world? India is the powerhouse of the world game and the development of the game in that country appears, from the outside, to be very healthy. Does the Indian model of franchise cricket benefit anybody beyond the franchise owners themselves? Look at the recent England v West Indies test series. Would the average cricket fan suggest that the financial models currently in operation need to be reviewed? Could Ireland or Sri Lanka use some funds to better insure their long term cricket development in all forms? (Let alone Nepal, Uganda, Thailand, Brazil, and so on.)
But will any of these things will happen? No, probably not, at least not any time soon, and that will not be soon enough. And it’s been the case for a long time – I remember Malcolm Speed saying two decades ago that the ICC were unable to influence the manner in which their funding of cricket in Zimbabwe was distributed internally, which meant that they, however unwillingly, were basically contributing funds to one of the most oppressive regimes in recent times. But here’s the thing. As long as bullies are allowed to dominate the playground, they will get their way. It might only serve their short term interests, but that’s all that they care about anyhow. As Geoff Lemon wrote a few months ago, India may well aspire to be the dominant country in the cricket world, but whether the future of the game is international, franchise or both, they still need oppositions and countries that they recruit their franchise players from. The health of the world game matters. At the moment, the ICC genuinely do not look to be taking any real steps or actions that look to redistribute the money in the game for the game’s benefit, and that is very, very sad.
I think I’ve heard people say now for 20 years that the ICC is a toothless tiger, and there is no indication of change coming. Can the game actually look at itself in the mirror with sufficient honesty to admit that the structure of the ICC at the moment is not providing the leadership that is necessary for the game? Can the game remodel the ICC so that it actually does the right thing by the game but also support its competing nations as well? Can it operate with sufficient independence from the big players at the table to ensure that the game is managed and developed with integrity and with regard to all countries who want to play at the highest level? Does the proliferation of T20 leagues around the world, which impact on all other cricketing nations, grow the game, or just exist to embed India’s strength? From my little place in the world (and yes, I acknowledge, my country is one of the big three), it all looks very, very, very lopsided.
We, as fans, look to those whose role it is to look after the best interests of God’s Great and Glorious Game to provide the leadership to ensure that the health of the world game is strong and sustainably so. I still love the game, but my confidence in it has never been lower. The ICC simply isn’t doing the job that it is supposed to do, as judged against its very own corporate statements. It either needs to step up, or allow itself to be completely reorganised into a fully independent body that operates with integrity for the benefit of the game, and not just the powerful.
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