Proteas hit for six as the big three nations push and shove
Imagine if Chelsea, Liverpool and the two Manchester football clubs decided they would play each other three times a season in the Premier League and only once against Bournemouth and Cardiff — and not at all against Huddersfield.
It would increase revenue but the league would lose its credibility and reputation it has worked so hard to accumulate.
The International Cricket Council (ICC), however, has bravely started out on that route, confident the game’s followers won’t mind (or notice) that some teams play each other several times more than others while some don’t play each other at all over the course of the next four-year Future Tours Programme (FTP).
Australia and India have seven tours against each other in that time, including three four-Test series and no less than 17 ODIs and 11 T20Is. Not including the current humdinger of a tour, India and England have two more fiveTest series coming and two others comprising three ODIs and three T20Is each.
England and Australia, of course, have two full Ashes tours during the period as well as two money-spinning limited overs tours. When the “big three” staged their “cricket capture” coup almost two years ago they ripped up the FTP protocols that decreed that, as far as possible, every nation should play the others at least once in a minimum of two Tests and three ODIs.
Not only does SA have fewer tours than ever before, they are shorter. The Proteas only play India three times in the next four years and only once at home — the only time the home union makes any money.
During India’s last tour here there were seven ODIs and three T20Is to go with the three Test matches. When India return in 2021 there will again be three Tests and three T20Is but no ODIs.
Cricket SA earned about R60m for each of those ODIs. Who knows what the rand will be worth in three years but at today’s exchange rate that’s a forecast loss of about R420m.
The only incoming tour certain to provide significant income is that by England in 2019-20, which comprises four Tests and three of both of the white-ball games. Australia visit SA just twice until 2023 — for three ODIs and T20Is in 2020 and three Tests in 2021. Another Test match dropped from the four they played here last summer. More lost revenue.
For the next four years Cricket SA has a large, expensive vacuum in its international calendar during the usually lucrative NovemberDecember holiday window. It was done deliberately to ensure the country’s best players and biggest names are available for the Global League.
While the FTP was being thrashed out and the Test nations were clamouring for pieces of each other’s schedule, Cricket SA blocked off its prime window. And it’s too late to do anything about it until 2023.
After England’s three Tests in January 2020, the Proteas will play just two more that year — away in the West Indies. They will also have to fulfil their lossleading fixtures against Ireland and the Netherlands in the new ODI league. So revenue will be hugely curtailed.
Meanwhile, Cricket SA’s operating costs have increased from R910m two years ago to R1.2bn in the last financial year.
Three years ago the budgeted shortfall wasn’t quite so scary with a surplus of just over R900m in the bank but that is already down to about R500m following Global League compensation payments — and it is falling fast, as is the value of all bilateral cricket outside games involving the “big three”.
Cricket SA’s expenses far exceed its projected income for the next four years and while its share of ICC revenue from global events will ease the pain, the shortfall is worrying. Attempting to project a positive outlook is important but it’s hard when sponsors such as Sunfoil decline the invitation to renew their deal after seven years and Ram Couriers shows no interest in another Ram Slam.
Like all businesses Cricket SA will need to find a balance between cutting costs and finding new sources of revenue. India, Australia, Pakistan, the Caribbean nations and Bangladesh derive so much income from their T20 leagues they could be described as the tail that wags the dog.
Cricket SA really, really needs to repair that window it left open while it can still afford to pay a glazier.