Short pitch: World T20 offers more than entertainment

I make it a practice never to feel that sorry for professional athletes: they earn spectacular coin for doing what they love.  There are attendant sacrifices, but that's inherent in any achievement.  Perhaps the most obvious of these is a limited career length: even the best only sustain elite standards for ten, fifteen years at best.

Twenty/20 cricket is one of those sports which doesn't seem to demand as much sacrifice as others.  The time taken, preparation required, energy expended or in learning a perfect technique.  In many ways, this might be part of why it's yet to really draw me in.  I'll watch it quite happily, and one of my favourite MCG moments was seeing Shaun Tait hit AB de Vililers - but of cricket's three formats it doesn't have the slow burn, the pacing that makes a sporting event most compelling for me.  There's very little sensation for the viewer of teams necessarily building something of value.  T20 is to cricket what tittie-bars are to meaningful relationships: on the outside their methods can appear similar, but it takes time to build something of real value.

However, watching Brad Hogg in the T20 World Cup has made me consider the role of T20 in the cricket landscape a little differently.  Hogg bowled well this morning, claiming 1/30 from his four overs.  He fielded as energetically as a forty-one year old could, and has been doing so at the highest level - well, Australia's highest level, anyway - for nine months since his unretirement in February.

For Brad Hogg, playing in the World T20 isn't about money but the chance to represent Australia again and compete at a high level at an age where most cricketers who aren't Eddie Hemmings are relegated to the park.  While his appearances for Cape Cobras, Rajasthan Royals and even the Perth Scorchers were/are presumably all about extending his earning capacity, the World T20s are about love of the game and country.

Many sports value the new and untested.  Commentators, coaches and other players get excited about where rookies and younger players can take teams and the game - Australian cricket has decided to plunge headlong down the path of youth, expunging effective players like Simon Katich in order to blood relatively unproven youngsters.  But not T20: shortest format leagues around the world rely on ageing heavy hitters who can still contribute to wins.  Rather than T20's bimodal age distribution being a negative, it should be celebrated as the opposite: it allows players like Brad Hogg to extend their Australian careers in a sport when retirement is so ... definite.

So well done Brad Hogg for choosing to play for Australia again.  And well done Australia for selecting him.

Australia - lacking an identity

Despite two consecutive series wins in vastly different circumstances, the Australian cricket team still tricks the eye. In one Test, Ed Cowan resembles a doughty old-school opener, capable of withstanding the best attacks in world cricket; the following, he disappears into the sheds at 1/11. During one match, Shane Watson fights indomitably for a hard-earned 80; the next, he plays over and around a nothing-ball and departs meekly. In any one series Australia is likely to employ seven different bowlers.

With victories against India and the West Indies under his belt and a reasonable layoff before their next Test, it's time Michael Clarke examined his team. They aren't super talented, abounding with youthful promise or even stocked with journeymen. The Australian team, or even the thirty-man CA contract list, has no defining single characteristic which unifies them. And it shows.

Ed Cowan - (c) Balanced Sports

Australia are a team without an identity. Without that unifying factor and devoid of knowledge of who they are as a team, the country's Test players will continue to play inconsistent cricket.

The greatest teams in world cricket history have rocked an identity which was the personification of their most dominant collective character traits. The Australians of the first half of the last decade epitomised arrogance. The West Indians they replaced as ostensible World Champs exuded a fearsome, calculating vibe. For years, Pakistan has been content with being unknowable. Flower's England has committed to twin attitudes of professionalism and preparation. Look back at every great team in history and adjectives spring quickly to mind.

With the current Aussies, those adjectives are less defining and more descriptive. Inconsistent. Journeyman. They (mostly) try hard.

Cricket Australia: Sitting on the Fence

"The time is coming where you have to choose between what is easy, and what is right"

Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

It didn't take a rocket scientist - or a banking executive - to figure out that Australian cricket has both structural and talent issues. A 4-1 thumping in our last Ashes series, mediocre World Cup campaign and a captain with a positively Reiffel-esque batting average over the past three series (21.5) is proof enough for anyone with even half an eye and a tenth of a brain that Australian cricket has reached its lowest point since 1985.

While Ricky Ponting's tetchy leadership, Mitchell Johnson's latent outswinger, Greg Chappell's insistence on youth and Andrew Hilditch's residence in a fantasy world have contributed to this state of affairs, the root cause lies with James Sutherland and Cricket Australia. For too long they have tried to have their cake and eat it too by chasing the financial gains of Twenty20 and also lauding a the benefits of a competitive Australian Test squad.

By chasing both, they will achieve neither.

On one hand, commissioning Don Argus to report on their cricket management structures sounds good, even curative. But doing so while the other hand throws so many resources into the nascent Bigh Bash League (BBL), Cricket Australia is endorsing two policy decisions which negate the other. It is another curious leadership decision from CA whose actions indicate they are chasing the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs while paying only lip service to Test standards.

For much of the past twenty years as pitches become more standardised worldwide, cricket has degenerated into two groups: the "haves" and "have-nots". The "haves", fuelled by television revenue, good attendances and growth economies include the regular suspects: South Africa, England, India , Australia and perhaps even Sri Lanka. The second tier includes fallen powers West Indies and Pakistan, as well as New Zealand, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

More accurately, these two groups could now be defined by the cricketers they produce. The West Indies' best now favour the shortest form, while the best of New Zealand, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe often eschew their nations to tour the world as T20 guns-for-hire. The fundamentals of creating world-class players in both formats require player pathway systems so different that only the mega-wealthy institutions in world cricket can afford the time it takes to do so.

courtesy: telegraph.com.au

World cricket hasn't so much been divided along lines of Test quality, but on the type of cricket on whcih each nation has focused. If kids are developed where T20 is prioritised, it results in a bunch of individual talents and a poor Test team. Where a Test technique can occasioanlly benefit T20, the reverse is rarely, if ever, true. To acknowledge any speculation David Warner has what it takes to play Test cricket exists is to question the value of life itself - the man bears as much resemblance to a Test opener as my 94-year old grandmother.

By dividing it's attention between a Big Bash league with privately owned franchises (eeeugh - I hate that word in relation to cricket) and an Argus report recommending that the best 66 players play Sheffield Shield cricket at any one time, Cricket Australia is, dividing it's resources in an attempt to promote the game. By doing so, they've ignored the great rule: punters love success, and in Australia that means a strong Test team.

If Divide and Conquer still applies on the battlefield, so too is it effective in the marketplace. CA has already done the dividing, leaving it now open for conquest by a crowded Australian sports market which asks supporters to invest more than ever.

Let's not forget that private ownership as a model has only worked in Rugby League and never in the long term for any other sport. In fact, News Limited, after pioneering SuperLeague, now still owns the entirety of the Melbourne Storm and North Queensland Cowboys, as well as 69% of the powerhouse Brisbane Broncos. Rupert Murdoch, like Packer before him, got what he wanted out of setting up a rival competition. The hideous failures far outweigh that partial success as the names Christopher Skase, Dr. Geoffrey Edelsten, Eddie Palmer and his beloved Brisbane Bullets and the Victoria Titans weigh heavily on Aussie fans' consciousness.

courtesy: news4u.co.in

The heavily-publicised BBL, intent on chasing dollars, imports the likes of Kieron Pollard and new fans will involve suspending first-class cricket during December, Australia's busiest Test month. How can Australia rebuild with the best First Class talent they have when that talent is not receiving games?

Cricket Australia has been forced into a position that all cricketing countries now must face: chase dollars, or what you feel is important. It's a nice coincidence when those options are one and the same. In Australia's case, that is unfortunately not the case. While paying lip service to the importance of Tests, CA has done everything but say "we're here for the dollars" by instituting a flawed BBL model at the expense of First Class cricket.

courtesy: zimbio.com

Only four years ago Austrlaian domestic cricket was the strongest on the planet - now no more, as players chase the dollars (and no-one's blaming them). Australia simply can't follow the Indian model (IPL) because there isn't enough support - or money - to go around. That Australian domestic cricket - or more crucially, given how many eggs are in it's basket, the new BBL - can't get a look-in on free-to-air television is a damning indictment of what Australians think about the grass-roots. Cricket captures the imagination in the backyard, when Australia plays and never through the likes of Gary Putland and the Melbourne Stars.

CA, to use the most cliche of cliches, is trying to have it's cake and eat it, too. Rather than committing - by dint of playing talent (like England has with Tests) or financial need (as the West Indians have done with T20), Australia continues not to choose its battles and try to succeed at everything.

The smaller countries of the world faced this challenge first, as New Zealand and Bangladesh have all but admitted for years that their best chance of attaining any success has been in the One-Day arena. Why else would players like Scott Styris choose to retire from Test cricket but not from the short format? Pakistan and the West Indies are already producing more guns for hire than good quality Test players. It's saddening to realise that the same is true of Australia.

As India wrestles with the impending doom brought about by Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag and Laxman's respective entries into Valhalla, even that powerful nation will, in time, face the same challenge. While England will not remain immune forever, the structures in place around the game in it's birthplace may allow a defence against the irrepressible schism that threatens to divide cricket.

It's true of any business struggling in a crowded economy that you should choose either to expand your services, or focus on doing what you do best. For 125 years, Australia has produced the best Test cricketers in the world. Over the past decade, that trend has been reversed as players are seduced by the quick runs and quicker bucks available.

In a recent revealing podcast on Test Match Sofa, Australian cricket writer Gideon Haigh revealed that the first priority of the Australian cricket team wasn't to win matches but to publicise the sport in Australia. When it comes to branding - the honeypot into which Cricket Australia has fallen - it is a simple fact that Starbucks produces coffee, Asics produces quality running shoes, Sri Lanka will deliver turning pitches - and Test cricket has been elevated to its highest form by teams from the Great South Land.

For Cricket Australia to forget that would be shameful.

ICC turns back on affiliate nations' World Cup hopes

By excluding Ireland, the Netherlands and other affiliate nations from the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the ICC could well have signed the death warrant for International 50-over cricket. A format which could well have been revitalized by one of - if not THE - best World Cups ever, now stands on the precipice of becoming an elitist tournament with no second division. Any league around the world needs a feeder system. By robbing themselves of that at ODI level, cricket's head honchos have announced that Twenty20 is the way of the future.

The ICC has decided that a ten-team format is the best for the ODI World Cup. That much is clear and, probably, fair. To compensate for their brutality, the Twenty20 World Cup will be expanded in a clear message to the world's 95 associate nations: T20 is the future. Notwithstanding the perilous effects this is likely to have on player techniques, this also cements the notion that no affiliate nation has any hope of ascending to Test level within twenty-five years.

Without a strong One-Day program, Test cricket is weaker. The fifty-over form is the best way of choosing a World Champion and, to the delight of the non-baseball crowd, demands batting and bowling technique, thought and tactics rather than an abrupt slog-a-thon. A nation can wean players on ODIs in preparation for Test matches; the same cannot be said of Twenty20. If countries like Ireland and Afghanistan aren't able to expose their men to the best in the world, there remains no hope for growth in the Test world. The step up from ODI to Test is often too great, let alone from T20.

Should, as is rumoured, the mooted ODI League - complete with promotion and relegation - come into effect after the 2019 tournament in England, the affiliates will be again able to attempt qualification for the World Cup, play regular matches and attempt to improve both grass-roots and elite talent pathways to full International level, a process likely to take at least 10 years. But with an eight-year gap between Cups, there exists the chance that the fifty-over game will have fallen into irreparable decline or even been eradicated completely.

Without question, Ireland are the team closest to making the step to the next level - and may have surpassed both Bangladesh and Zimbabwe already. They are the archetypal Big Fish in a Small Pond, identified by the ICC not as "too good for affiliate" but "too small for the Big Time". Sadly, Ireland are in a category all of their own and stand as the nation shafted by Haroon Lorgat's arbitrary nature. As they produce quality cricketers, (faint) hope grew for an Irish Test team. It is all now gone.

The debate isn't whether Cup is suited best to a ten- or fourteen-team format, the big picture is that the ICC has made a sweeping reform to the game's Showpiece to benefit smaller "Full" members at the expense of growth. Globally, cricket is far from being in a safe position and thus growth is required to ensure that cricket doesn't become confined to its heartland - now, proudly the subcontinent. When growth is required, it behoves administrators to focus most on strengthening their weaker elements. Here, the opposite has happened and more revenue has been funnelled into wealthy coffers.

To exclude Ireland, a team whose performances everyone has admired, simply because they haven't yet broken into the big time is wrong. If their displays at the last two Cups and ICC trophy dominance aren't reason enough to include them in the planning for 2015, then surely their administration is: there's good reason to think that the Cricket Ireland is more transparent and better administered than counterpart organisations in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangaldesh, Zimbabwe and the West Indies.

The exciting new ODI League may have been initialised to save the fifty-over format. That comes as cold comfort for players like Kevin O'Brien and William Porterfield, who though young now, probably won't get a chance to strut the big stage again. The ODI revolution may come years too late for the smaller nations in world cricket.

Split Innings as unimaginative as ODIs now are

This season Cricket Australia, in their infinite wisdom, have chosen to experiment with the format of their annual One-Day cricket tournament. Long thought of as the best domestic competition in the World, probably for as long as Australia's been thought of as the best cricketing nation in the world, it finds itself now struggling for relevancy in a cricketing world where Twenty20 is king.

Although the Sheffield Shield is probably still the strongest first-class competition in the world, the Ford Ranger Cup has become lost in the midst of the imports boasted by the KFC T20 Big Bash as well as the loss of free-to-air broadcaster Channel 9's television rights. For the past two years, the only way to watch local one-day matches has either been to make it down to games or to pay $40 per month for Foxtel.

In order to arrest the decline, CA has decided to revolutionise the format of Domestic One-Day matches and split each team's fifty overs in twain. This move comes with the ICC's blessing as it desperately tries to stop the slide of the One Day International into triviality. This trial is to be undertaken when the “International” players have departed for the World Cup late in the summer. As in a first-class match, each team will bat twice unless of course the unthinkable happens and a side wins by an innings. Each team will receive 25 overs in each innings but the second innings will carry on from exactly the same point at which the first was finished. That is, if a number four batsman is 55*, then he will resume at that score. If a bowler has bowled eight overs out of the first twenty-five, then he will resume in the second innings with only two overs to bowl. Thus, it's very much a split innings rather than a two-innings T20.

The simple question is this: Why? I can understand that generally in day/night matches the side batting first tends to have the advantage simply because the cooler air and dew in the atmosphere creates a ball which moves through the air more easily. This in turn makes batting more difficult for the team batting second. The split innings format gives both teams equal opportunity to make use of both sets of conditions. Fine, fair enough, I get it – it minimises the impact of the Toss. But the toss has been such an integral part of cricket since it's inception that this move doesn't so much minimise it as make it irrelevant. Splitting innings only confusing the issue (Cricket isn't confusing? I live in Montreal, Canada. You try explaining cricket to someone who hasn't grown up with it. Now try with a split innnings. I thought so.) If it's “fairness” you worry about, you can explore the options regarding the 12^th Man a little more – make the extra player available so that the finals squad selections are made after the toss. This would allow both sides to pick and choose their players depending on when they're going to bat. This is cricket and players should have enough skills to play in all conditions.

The problem is one of differentiation. For thirty years, the smash-and-grab routine was solely the dominion of the One-Day fixture. Now the baseball format, Sorry, now that T20 has announced it's arrival and dominates the money and public interest in short fixtures, the role of specialist short-form players like Shaun Tait and David Warner has become even more curious. One Day matches are now only seen as a pale imitation of T20, for better or for worse. The moment David Warner made his debut for Australia in an ODI was the day the death-knell sounded for international One Day Cricket. Because of his ability to cleanly hit a ball in the hit-n-giggle format, Australia took into an ODI a player not good enough to play for his state in matches of the same length.

There are plenty of options – and it's not like One Day cricket hasn't seen enough innovations in the past – but really, the game has existed on the International stage for forty years and there are too many defining moments to let it simply sail into the sunset unimpeded. Who could forget Steve Waugh running behind the sightscreen to catch Rodger Harper in 1989? Or Aaqib Javed's 7-for as a seventeen year-old? To condemn these moments to ancient history by the inaction or wrongful action of the ICC would be negligent on the same scale as the guy who inspected Chernobyl trying to save money by using candles rather than torches.

Without question, the best option is to decrease both the number of T20 and One-Day fixtures that each team plays, domestic or international. Restrict access – the first law of business, of entertainment even, has always been to maintain control of your monopoly and to restrict access to your products – reveal only what you have to.

The International Cricket Council and the Control Boards are obviously reticent to take this action. So perhaps the best option is to change One Day matches to make them so different from T20 that the two can't be mistaken – so that there can't be a comparison, as in Tests and 50-over fixtures. Change the goalposts, as it were, so it takes a different skill-set to thrive in the conditions laid down. In the 1990s the ICC experimented with having a new white ball at each end and with replacing the ball after thirty overs. Why not go down that route again? Swing the advantage back at the bowlers and watch real batsmen, those able to defend as well as attack. The next option could be something as left-field as a randomly-assigned group of fielding restriction overs, where a computer randomly generates three groups of three overs in which fielding restrictions must be in place. Why not give the team batting second one extra fielding restriction over? This would give the Toss more relevance and the captain's decision less of a fait d'accompli. Perhaps raise – or remove entirely – the limit on the number of short balls that the batsmen can face per over. The options are endless. But to plump for a split innings simply because it's easiest is unimaginative and easy – two words which diametrically oppose to the spirit of One Day cricket.

The point here is to sway the game rather than changing the game by looking at quick fix scenarios. One Day cricket has become safe, passé and predictable in it's “innings building”. As fans we don't necessarily want runs or big hits – we want entertainment whether that comes through wickets, great fielding or good batsmanship. The game started as an exciting experiment and has slowly become formulaic and staid - everything it set out not to be. It's time to reverse that, one complete innings at a time.