T20, like sevens in rugby, can boost small nations
Tim Wigmore offers his weekly look at news and views in associate cricket
Associate cricket’s great problem is that, outside appearances in world events, cricket fans too often forget that it even exists. Changing that is long overdue.
This is what associate nations are planning. I understand that talks are advanced for the creation of an annual tournament for the leading eight associates in T20 cricket – ideally playing with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, too, if they do not find an excuse to avoid taking part.
The first tournament could be played in the UAE in January. It would follow a short, dynamic format – two groups, of either four or five, depending on whether or not Bangladesh and Zimbabwe compete, leading to the semi-finals and final. The whole event would be all over in 12 days.
Such a tournament would give associate cricket a focus over and above qualifying for world events – and that matters more than ever given the absurdity of the 2019 and 2023 World Cups comprising only ten teams each. It would provide an annual pinnacle for the associate game, and a means of keeps players, fans and sponsors engaged.
Most important, the cricket would be very good and unpredictable. Consider that Afghanistan, who memorably toppled the West Indies in this year’s World T20, only came fifth in the WT20 qualifiers a year ago and were defeated by the UAE in the Asia Cup qualifiers this year. Ireland have slipped so much in T20 cricket that they are now ranked 15th in the world. Teams like Netherlands, Scotland and Hong Kong are all skilled T20 sides, who badly crave more exposure and high-pressure matches.
A regular associate T20 tournament will also help them be more competitive when they do get opportunities on the world stage. The WT20 is likely to revert to being ever two years, and the main stage of the competition increased from ten teams to 12, guaranteeing two associates will play the world’s elite. Everything must be done to prepare them as well as possible. Nothing boosts the status of associate cricket like toppling full members in ICC events.
So T20 would be the ideal format to hold such a tournament for associates. The shortest form of the game certainly should not be the only format that leading associates play, but it is the one which is most likely to captivate new fans, both within their countries and in the rest of the cricketing world.
Recent broadcasting figures for many associate T20 matches, in both the WT20 qualifiers and the first stage of the WT20 this year, have been outstanding and pleasantly surprised many in the ICC. On Sky, 50 per cent more people watched Ireland play Oman than Australia against South Africa in a T20 when the matches went head-tohead on competing channels in March.
It is abundantly clear that people will watch associate T20 if there is something riding on the games.
Ideally, the associate T20 circuit would become rather like Rugby Sevens, the comparison offered by several involved in formulating the plans. Since the Sevens circuit started in 1999, it has taken the sport beyond traditional heartlands and captivated new fans.
An associates T20 circuit could do the same. Ideally, there would be three tournaments a year, each comprising no more than two weeks, which would take the competition around the world. It should not just be played in the UAE, but in Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands, the USA and Canada, Namibia and, in time, Nepal, too.
In 1895, Mark Hanna, credited with creating the modern political campaign, said: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.” Predictably, money – and a lack of it – is delaying the new T20 tournament. Many leading associates cannot afford to pay for the T20 tournament in January, so it might not happen.
This reflects poorly on the ICC, and the selfishness of the Full Members: the sport is richer than ever, and has broadcasting deals worth $2.5bn between 2015 and 2023. But it also reflects poorly on the strategic vision in the sport.
Associate T20 matches have the capacity not just to be enthralling, but also to make money.
What such a tournament needs to attract sponsors and broadcasters is regularity and predictability, which will encourage them to support the concept financially. The ICC should fund the first three years of the tournament, and then enlist sponsors and commercial partners, who will sense an exciting new tournament.
Within a few years of enthralling cricket and innovative marketing, the tournament could easily be making money: it might cease to be something that associates have to fund and become something that is a tool to fund associate cricket. This is critical, for the ICC is preoccupied with commercial opportunities for the game.
If an associates T20 tournament starts to make a profit, as it easily could, it will alert the cricketing world to the potential of associates – commercial as well as cricketing – and why giving emerging countries more opportunities is less an act of altruism than an investment in the sport’s future.
It would also create a new image for associate cricket. Rather than being seen as victims treated appallingly by the full members – which, sadly but understandably, is how most cricket fans see them – associates could forge a new image, defined by their T20 tussles against each other, and a short, dynamic event that showcased the best of them.
Such an event would bring profound challenges, too. The most serious would be how to safeguard against the threat of corruption. Ronnie Flanagan, who heads the ICC’s anti-corruption unit, has already said that associates and women’s cricket will become the new targets for corruptors, as more of their games are televised.
Just look at how corruption helped to decimate Kenyan cricket after reaching the semi-finals in the 2003 World Cup. In January, Irfan Ahmed, Hong Kong’s all-rounder, was suspended for failing to report an approach. As cricket expands, so the corruptors will aim to do so, too. The ICC and all associate nations need to be vigilant to safeguard against this threat.
But none of this is to detract from the underlying truth. Associate cricket badly needs more profile, and to develop an identity of its own, not one that is just dependent on infrequent matches against Test nations. It is time for cricket to learn the lessons of rugby’s expansionism: a regular T20 competition offers as good a hope as any.
Associates could forge a new image, defined by their T20 tussles against each other in a short, dynamic event