The mindless schedule is taking a heavy toll on a lot of players. Add the various franchise cricket, it is incredible how busy most of the players are. The strain of such non-stop cricket has already began to tell. Ben Stokes has retired from one form of the game and Trent Boult has withdrawn himself from Cricket New Zealand’s contract. Martin Guptill and Jimmy Neesham too have followed Boult in giving up their contracts. Now, another Kiwi has issued a warning. It is one more warning for the administrators. Will they listen?
Tim Southee, the Kiwi bowler feels that more and more players will be willing to forego their national contracts in search of better pay somewhere else.
“It has been an interesting last few months where the landscape of cricket has changed, quicker than most thought. I am contracted to New Zealand Cricket at the moment and I’ve been back to the IPL (Indian Premier League) this year and we’ll see what happens over the coming years. But it’s definitely changing the landscape of cricket to what it was two-three years ago.”
A combination of more cricket and higher return playing for just a shortwhile will ensure that more and more players leave the game. The authorities must listen and try to find a solution. It is not easy. The road will be a long and hard one but it must be taken. IPL has let the cat out of the bag and now the ICC must find ways to put back the cat.
Playing for the country was top priority
Gone are the days when an aspiring cricketer wanted to play for his country and play more than 100 tests. It was considered as an important milestone but not anymore. The mushrooming of T20 leagues around the world has placed the game in a very difficult position. There will be days when the best players will be battling in a T20 league whereas their national teams will be involved in a bi-lateral series. There will also be a time when the cricketers will consider only the T20 World Cup and ODI World Cup alongwith Test cricket to be important and will prefer to skip all kinds of bi-lateral short format cricket.
I am not blaming Boult for choosing franchise cricket over NZ. He hasn’t actually said that he will not play for New Zealand but the board’s rule of giving preference to contracted players may mean that Boult’s New Zealand career is towards the end. A sportsman’s life is shortlived. When most of us are starting to grow in our career, a sportsman is towards the end of his career. Except for the cream, most of the players, it is difficult to survive once their career ends. They do not know from where there next pay cheque is going to come. Hence, they will have to make the most of it while they are still playing.
Indian board, England board and Australian board will be able to take care of their players even if they have only played a handful of games. Recently, the Indian board has increased the allowance of the first class players. Rest of the world does not have the means. New Zealand cricketers are among the least paid in the world. Wherever they are able to find an opportunity, they will ofcourse want to utilise it.
What triggered this?
International cricket at the current form is unsustainable. This is known to everyone who cares to listen. The latest is triggered by the decision of the UAE T20 league which has proposed to allow 9 foreign cricketers in their league. It essentially means that players like Boult will be in high demand. The pay is also likely to be pretty high. For those who have seen games at Sharjah will remember the generous purse that the organisers had spent to honour former cricketers.
UAE has allowed 9 players per team which means top players around the world will be in heavy demand. There are reports that David Warner was approached to forego BBL and play in the league. Never before have the players had the luxury of choosing where to play. The UAE league has threatened various other leagues like South African, Pakistan league, West Indies and Bangladesh league. There is a real danger that the UAE league will ween away all the best players and leave these leagues bereft of them. They stand to lose majorly.
The convenience of the leagues
Unlike international cricket, league cricket is easy. Play for a couple of months. Earn money that most of the cricketers will not be able to earn if they are contracted by their boards. The time spent on travel and other chores are also less. More and more cricketers are likely to ply their wares in these leagues. Rishabh Pant was on record when he said that he preferred to play T20 cricket before making his debut.
Wasim Akram wants ODIs scrapped
First to air his views was the former Pakistan captain, Wasim Akram. We all know what a wonderful bowler Akram was. He is among the thought provoking former players still around. He has called for ODIs to be scraped permanently.
“I think so (ODIs should scrapped). In England you have full houses. In India, Pakistan especially, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa, one-day cricket you are not going to fill the stadiums. They are doing it just for the sake of doing it. After the first 10 overs, it’s just ‘OK, just go a run a ball, get a boundary, four fielders in and you get to 200, 220 in 40 overs’ and then have a go last 10 overs. Another 100. It’s kind of run-of-the-mill,” added Akram.
He was talking in the Vaughany & Tuffers Cricket Podcast. He is correct in his assessment that ODI have become monotonous. You pretty much know how the game will progress. How long will ODI be sustained is anybody’s guess but I do not think that ODI will be scrapped. ICC will never be in a hurry to do so. For all of the faults in ODIs, it still is a money spinner.
Test Cricket is the format that is actually not making any money for the respective boards. It still moves along because a lot of the top players still prefer Test Cricket and they value the runs and wickets scored in Tests when compared to the white ball variety.
Broadcasters unlikely to acquiescence
ODI on the otherhand, runs for more than 7 hours a day. For the broadcasters, it fills time on their schedule and at the sametime, with frequent adverts, the money that an ODI generates is enormous. It will be higher compared to T20 too because of the shorter duration. This is one income ICC will be loath to surrender. Having said that, more and more players will be forced to give up ODI because that currently is the least favourite among the three. What can be done is to regulate these ODI games.
Now, you have teams travelling to far off countries just to play a series of meaningless games. It must be combined with Test Cricket and if for some reason, ODIs was unsustainable in that tour, they must be scrapped without the need to reschedule just the ODIs. The broadcasters will have to be onboard but I imagine that that is easier said than done.
Ramprakash hit the nail on the head
Mark Ramprakash, the former England batsman was equally vehement in his criticism of ODI cricket.
“Too many games have been played on shirtfronts with balls that don’t swing, seam or spin, massively weighted in favour of the batter. When the balance between bat and ball is lost the result is poor cricket.
This is exactly what Ashwin had expressed a few days ago. Two new balls completely killed swing and spin.
Will all of these makes the ICC and the various boards to think and change themselves? That is a million-dollar question. They have the golden goose but will not happy until it is killed. What may persuade the administrators?
More players must leave one format
If we go backwards a few months, the entire cricketing community were shocked to learn that Quinton de Kock has retired from Test Cricket. Here is a cricketer and a brilliant batsman who decided to give up the best form of cricket at an age when most players will be at their peak. After the exit of all those great cricketers from South Africa, it is de Kock who is the best cricketer among the current lot. For such a player to walk away from the highest form of the game must have awakened the authorities but it didn’t.
The unfortunate thing is that Stokes has retired more than 8 months after de Kock announced his retirement. By now, everyone would have forgotten about de Kock already and Stokes’s retirement is considered as an isolated incident.
The ICC and the various boards will begin to worry once more and more top players leave one form of the game and that too, in rapid succession. Smith and Cummins from Australia, Root, Bairstow from England, Babar, Rizwan, Williamson, Boult are the best cricketers in their respective teams. If they announce that they will relinquish one format, it will have the desired effect.
Above all, it is the Indian players who hold the trump card. They will have to come forward. Kohli and Rohit may not have the desired impact because they are aged and are expected to give up one form of the game soon but if a Pant or Bumrah retire, that is when the authorities will wake up from their deep slumber. However, will the Indian players be courageous enough?
One more warning for the administrators –what about the spectators?
Nowadays, it is extremely difficult to know who is playing whom or what is the score or who won the game. There are matches going on in every part of the world. An overwhelming majority of the Indians do not really care if India is not involved or one of the bigger teams is not involved. Surely, we do not follow West Indies playing Sri Lanka or Bangladesh playing Ireland. Even New Zealand is an afterthought. In a few weeks time, no one will remember what who played well in the limited overs series against England. It will all be forgotten quickly. Why then is the need to schedule so many no-purpose-met games and why make the playes travel so far just for a handful of games? The T20 series against South Africa just before the team travelled to England is already forgotten.
To make matters worse, there is a World Cup every year. If a team fails to win the World Cup one year, never mind, there is always one around the corner. It makes winning the World Cup a non-event. The pride that comes with winning a World Cup has long disappeared except ofcourse if a team wins for the first time. How else do you explain scheduling one T20 World Cup every 2nd year? In 10 years time, there will be 5 World Cups and teams will not be motivated enough to win. They know very well that there is another one coming up.