Test cricket needs to stand the test of best business practice
The Ashes are as big a thing now as they ever were. The cricket-loving public and media were talking about the end-of-year tour down under before they’d even finished beating SA in July. To see the hype now, a fortnight before the first Test, it’s hard to imagine Test cricket fighting for its survival. But could the Ashes exist in a vacuum?
Yes, why not? American football is a multibillion-dollar business that engages many millions of that country’s citizens without ever seriously catching on in the rest of the world. Same with Aussie Rules, for that matter, which is far wealthier and more supported than cricket in that country.
Both countries would need to keep their first-class structures alive and healthy, but that wouldn’t be a problem because the England and Wales Cricket Board has plenty of cash to supplement the counties from its huge Sky TV deal and Cricket Australia can now look forward to years of wealth now that the Big Bash is firmly established.
India has shown its inclination towards looking after itself and the expansion of the Indian Premier League is a matter of how and when rather than if. Should the Board of Control for Cricket in India choose to continue playing Test cricket, they can pick and choose when they play and might be perfectly content if their opponents were only England and Australia.
Their appetite for propping up the finances of the other nations is waning.
The West Indies will never again be a force of any repute in Test cricket, while New Zealand Cricket has quietly rejigged its international fixtures to include a maximum of four Tests per summer with no more than a couple in a “series”. They are unlikely ever to play a threeTest series again. Pakistan remain isolated, with the domestic first-class structure in steep decline.
There is no meaningful or long-term place for sentiment when it comes to Test cricket. It may appear that there is no end to the money in sport but that is an illusion. The International Cricket Council (ICC) may have muttered from time to time about preserving the “primacy” of Test cricket but when it flies in the face of best business practice that isn’t going to work.
It can’t be said that Zimbabwe Cricket is often at the forefront of practical change, but this week they threw their collective hands in the air after spending $1m to host the West Indies for two Tests, including $400,000 on the technology required for the Decision Review System, which the ICC has decreed mandatory. They can’t afford it. And what’s the point, anyway?
You can climb a mountain because “it’s there”, but you can’t keep doing it. So Zim will be focusing on T20 and ODI cricket now, at least at home.
Cricket SA needs to find its way and place in this new world order and that will require inspirational, brave and motivated leadership. It is unlikely to come from one man but, at the moment, there appears to be nothing coming from the board in the wake of the Global League collapse.
So far, the country’s professional players have abided by an internal moratorium on speaking publicly about their dishonoured contracts.
With neither an apology nor a cent in compensation, the players have been told that they will all be required to turn out for their franchises in the hastily reorganised domestic T20 tournament, which starts on Friday.
The good news is that SuperSport will be confirmed later on Tuesday as the competition’s sponsor, evidence of a welcome détente after the overall animosity of the Global League fiasco.