Cricket’s Big Three to hit panic button
• Australia, England and India less likely to run roughshod over the rest of Test-playing nations
It won’t be long before the cricket world’s panic starts showing, if it hasn’t already. All three of the Big Three in world cricket are facing financial crises and the maxim “the bigger you are the harder you fall” appears to be true.
In India the national cricket board’s (BCCI’s) treasure chest is filled by the income from the Indian Premier League (IPL), which has now been postponed indefinitely. If there was ever any doubt that it would go ahead it was removed with the news last week that somebody forgot to check for a “pandemic clause” in the insurance contract. Seriously.
The BCCI is paid almost $800m in television rights alone per edition of the tournament which, the Indian government estimates, is worth $11bn to the country’s economy.
When cricket starts being played again, no matter which nations are due to be playing each other, the IPL will be the priority. They will see to that.
Down Under Cricket Australia (CA) has furloughed 80% of its staff on just 20% of their salary and even reduced both the hours and pay of the two national coaches, Justin Langer and Matthew Mott, whose women’s team won the T20 World Cup in March.
Australian Cricketers Association CEO Alistair Nicholson has been trying to get a clearer picture of the CA’s financial situation but the governing body has been stalling.
The domestic Big Bash League has been in decline for the past couple of years — a victim of “overkill expansion” inspired by greed — and the CA’s cash reserves have been hit hard by the collapse of stock markets.
The CA has alerted its bankers that it will be seeking a A$200m line of credit in the event the lucrative end-of-year tour by India does not go ahead.
Similar to SA’s cricketers, the Australian players are stakeholders in the game which means they share directly in the good times — and the bad.
The England Cricket Board (ECB) has invested more than £100m in the launch of The Hundred T20 tournament and has nearly depleted all its cash reserves.
The tournament is likely to be postponed, though director of cricket Ashley Giles has said it will be the priority after the 18 international matches (six in each format) England are scheduled to play against West Indies,
Australia, Pakistan and Ireland this summer.
England’s cricket board has confirmed it is considering creating “bio-secure” locations for the internationals and is planning to use just three venues for all the games rather than the 10 on the schedule.
Manchester’s Old Trafford, Headingley in Leeds and the Ageas Bowl in Southampton all have luxury hotels literally on the boundary edge and excellent training facilities.
There will be no other guests other than the teams, match officials and broadcasters. Isolation and testing at least 14 days ahead of games will be compulsory.
CA has assured Team India they can spend the governmentstipulated 14-day quarantine in the nearly completed five-star hotel at the Adelaide Oval if the four Test series happens.
Cricket SA’s marginalisation from the game’s top table by the
Big Three and the continuing decline of the rand have been galling to watch, particularly since the drop in international fixtures and tours, by those countries which generate the most revenue.
But right now might not be such a bad time to be one of the smaller teams with the financial outfield set to be rolled more evenly. The Big Three are far less likely to run roughshod over other Test nations with their bank accounts in the red. They may have to face the fact that they can’t play against each other as often as they would like.
Cricket SA can also create safe venues to host made-fortelevision fixtures. The most obviously suitable is Senwes Park in Potchefstroom, but other more cost-efficient locations would do just as well. Buffalo Park and Kimberley’s Diamond Oval, for example, though chartered flights may be needed to move teams and production staff around.
There will still be a future tours programme when international cricket resumes, but it will be hard to make sense of it.
The World Test Championship final, scheduled for Lord’s in June 2021, has already been postponed because teams will not be able to conclude the six series each had scheduled. There will be much bartering for new series as cricket boards try to stay financially viable.
New tournaments, too, will emerge on the landscape as administrators do all they can to offer compelling content to the broadcasters, who may well have more money to spend than before courtesy of record viewership figures as lockdowns, or partial lockdowns continue.
Cricket SA could lead the expansion of the potentially lucrative T10 market.
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