Cricket lookalikes: Chris Lynn

Doing a bit of research the other day, I happened across the Cricinfo photo of Queensland batsman Chris Lynn.

And the following thought struck me:

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.

Anti-Franchise: In defense of provincial cricket

To hear recent suggestions that in the future cricket sides will be drawn down franchise, rather than national, lines is both predictable and upsetting. Cricket, a sport unique in both in the basis of its rules and its appeal, continues to evolve at a rate unthought of only a decade ago. In many ways, the game has benefited from this enforced change. In others, it has not.

The Franchise model forms the basis of nearly every team sport in the world. In every type of football, all the American-born sports, motorsport and even cycling, competition is played out by teams of players coming from diverse nations, backgrounds and experiences. In cricket - and perhaps Rugby Union - players generally represent the province in which they were raised. The IPL (the forerunner of any future franchise system) aside, players don't enter a draft and subsequently are not doled out to whoever is prepared to pay the most.

It's this state-based system which, like only Rugby, cover-drives home the simple fact that the pinnacle of cricket is the International game. Where football has the World Cup, basketball has the NBA and tennis has Wimbledon, the highest single honour a cricketer can receive is just to represent their country. The romance of the Baggy Green - as with all countries colours - still holds firm. What an insignificant piece of cotton becomes when transformed by green dye and an emblem! It seduces the best of the best and lures them in what seems a more wholesome way than that of money or fame.

International cricket is what drives the sport, of that there can be no question. It's not Domestic Twenty20 that fills the ICC's coffers. Neither has First Class cricket made superstars of polar opposites like Sachin Tendulkar and Merv Hughes. To witness two domestic teams compete is now often an exercise in loneliness. It has been thus for years. Full endorsement of one's cricketing abilities has for so long been a letter from a national selector, not an excited gathering around a television screen or Green Room, waiting for one's name to be read out. That is now changing as cricket, so long the gentleman's game, inexorably plunges the way of all the others.

For, should an ICC Franchise model go ahead, it wouldn't be long before the biggest event in World Cricket isn't an Ashes series or a Border/Gavaskar trophy clash, but a match between "perpetual arch-rivals" Mumbai and Essex. Witness how the UEFA Champions' League now carries so much weight. Football has a franchise model because it has the budget to administer such a network worldwide. Look at every English Premier League rostser and count the home-grown players. The best players always play for the big clubs, which creates a two-tier system of "haves" and "have-nots".

If the World Cup is the pinnacle of football (and this in itself is sadly questionable), with such ludicrously ostentatious money available at the "second level", the best football is now played in the UEFA Champions' League and not the World Cup. (Note: we're talking "best" here, not necessarily "most exciting"). Last week's finalists, Manchester United and Barcelona, would most probably defeat the national teams of the countries in which they play. It would be so with cricket and suddenly, the International game is not the top level of the sport and could be seen by many only as an irritant.

The franchise system wouldn't be the end of world cricket. It would perhaps allow for more competitive matches between teams able to buy, sell or trade their way out of a slump rather than depend on youth development like downtrodden national sides are now forced to resort. But surely the highest possible level of competition isn't the most important thing? Cricket is perhaps the most popular sport in the world where it's impossible to follow without supporting a team. And choosing a side to support is easy - it's your national side, made up mostly of players who play on your shores. While no-one's suggesting that International cricket is in danger, its unique nature as the best level of competition will be.

As will the individual nature of each team. For so long it's been common knowledge to pack spinners for India, fast men for Australia and experts at swing for England. The qualities of individual cricketers that go hand-in-hand with their passport will lessen as they ply their trade in countries and climes anew. Imagine how much sooner India could have claimed the World's number one ranking should Rahul Dravid or Yuvraj Singh played for a franchise from Perth? By implementing a global franchise system (and it would have to be global and binding), cricket once again loses part of each nation's identity with willow or leather.

A franchise system is an easy fix. Pacemen not performing? Then buy/trade for another one, rather than either a) creating new techniques and tactics to minimise those weaknesses or b) developing a new fast man, c.f. the Australian Cricket Academy.

Which suggests another reason for maintaining the status quo: franchises have far less impetus to develop youth both in their locality and in general. Why invest time and expense in a kid from the bush when you can, via global scouting networks, secure an uncontracted slightly-proven quanitity from Zimbabwe, Ireland or Pakistan? With franchises, their primary responsibility is not to the game, but to themselves and their owners, prompting far fewer locals rising through the ranks.

No, the best way to continue First Class cricket is with provincial sides. First-class cricket is what it is - a sport for the fanatic with minimal broadcast revenues, serving primarily to develop youngsters. While crowds may increase at the notion of two all-star sides meeting, they could also drop considering the lack of global televisual interest in First Class cricket. Such a drop would be almost catastrophic for the sport - a franchise-based landscape would mean paying "import" players more to represent you than local talent would demand, presenting an almost insoluble problem for owners. It's far-fetched but possible that deserving fans are robbed of any first-class cricket by poor administration and the Adelaide Redbacks end up as the Kochi Elephants or Dublin Terriers.

Change is good. But change for its own sake brings with it entirely new responsibilities. Before endorsing any franchise-based feeder system to International cricket, the ICC must understand the ramifications of such a decision. For it a choice from which there is no turning back.

Image of IPL "faces of the franchise" courtesy squidoo.com