In a larger sense, sport is about the strong helping the weak. In a world where it supports that sports is an artificial effort, Fantasy, we pour into it our ideals. What is meaningless can be transformative if we stand behind it with ethical purpose.
Maybe I’m overanalyzing. Maybe sports are just about winning and/or making money. However, with the International Cricket Council set to be somewhat balanced between the haves (India, England, Australia) and the have-nots (others) there may be some hope for Test cricket to survive.
Special funds
The plan is to have a special fund to help nine countries Test-playing (have-not) red-ball game fund, and to give players around the world a decent return from the profession.
Jay Shah, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India has suggested some time ago that the ICC start a fund worth five or ten million dollars. How each of the three countries will contribute should be worked out. Or even how to distribute money.
Cricket Australia chairman Mike Baird, who raised the topic in January this year may be responding to criticism from his countryman Steve Waugh that administrators are not doing enough for the game. But it doesn’t matter. At least something seems to be going on.
Franchise cricket has made the top cricketers rich, but has left the less fortunate behind. This plan is to ensure that each Test player gets a minimum of ten thousand dollars per Test (Top Top is not part of the distribution, only a contribution), and the cricket board perennially struggles for funds to get a boost.
Slippery slope
While we will understand the financial details quickly, the psychological details may be more difficult to put together at this stage. For example, what pounds of meat can the ‘Big Three’ expect? Also, are we entering a slippery slope here, with a country known for corrupt Boards (and there are some) see this as an opportunity to do even less work for the game and players than before?
What is important is that India is on board, and is actually one of the prime movers of the plan. He gets almost 40% of the ICC’s five billion dollar global revenue, thanks to television rights. Zimbabwe got 3%, so it’s a stark contrast.
However, the Big Three need Zimbabwe and the West Indies and Sri Lanka and other countries, because without them, Test cricket will be reduced to a three-team affair. The new summit in the Lord where the season of the game was discussed said that Test cricket can be limited to six countries in four years’ time – and even that sounds optimistic – unless something is done.
Already West Indies, once a great team, are struggling to field the best players, most of whom prefer to play for domestic franchises including the IPL, the richest in the world. Few franchises around the world have Indian owners.
The owners of Delhi Capitals will become the first overseas franchise to own an English county when their £120 million bid for Hampshire is ratified by the England Cricket Board. Rajasthan Royals, meanwhile, are looking for Yorkshire.
Again, from this side of the time frame it is difficult to see where the acquisitive streak of the Indian franchise owners will take the game. It is not difficult to imagine world cricket – if one goes to the extreme of the argument – being run by Indian businessmen and marketing managers rather than cricketers and politicians.
The economist Adam Smith, who lived 100 years before the first Test match was played, said that there is something relevant here: “It is not from the goodness of the butcher or the baker that we look forward to dinner, but from our own interests. We have never talk to them about our own needs, but about their benefits.
World cricket may be at a turning point. In the best scenario, Test cricket will be boosted by new funds, and we will continue to get more variety in the game. In the worst case, the ICC throws good money after bad. But it’s a chance worth taking.
