With Brendon McCullum’s retirement came news of his signing a $1.6m IPL deal. At the age of 34 – considered to be an age where batman are at their peak – he has chosen the mad dash of 20/20 over the longer form of cricket. Good for him. This is by no means a whinge or a moan against one of the best players NZ has ever produced both in captaincy and batting skills. He has lifted NZ to higher levels which would probably not happen without him. But what is the message being sent to world cricket? Get in young, play for your national team, do well, get noticed, sign a big IPL deal, play a bit and retire. There is just too much International cricket. Players cannot rest and are away from their homes for most of the year, which has to be a terrible thing for some. A split of specific teams is already happening where most countries already have a one captain for the Tests team and another captain for the ODI and 20/20 teams. Only a handful of players will play all formats. Those are usually the ones that end up getting the big contracts.
I find it painful to hear that players are choosing IPL over Test cricket. From a financial and career perspective I totally understand and I’m glad that cricket players can make big bucks, but where does that leave Test cricket? National cricket boards cannot fork out the kind of money privately sponsred teams can. Often, Test cricket is played in front of empty stands. On the other hand every IPL game seems to be played at a stadium that is filled to the brim with fans. I question the validity of these fans because they seem to be very excited all the time – it seems choreographed.
Lets face it – Test Cricket is dying. ODI cricket is still hanging on, where I thought that it would have died a few years after 20/20 came into the fold. Test cricket is under attack from all fronts – empty stadiums, players not making themselves available for Tests over 20/20 and pointless 2-match series. So can anything be done to fix this?
Test match world cup
Martin Crowe has been vocal about having a two year Test cricket championship. The idea presented was to have 8 teams competing against each other over the duration of the championship. Each match up would in fact be a series of 3 Test Matches. At the end of the second year a winner would be announced. The interesting aspect of this approach would be that the wooden spoon team would be replaced by the winner of the ‘second decision’ championship. This would give countries like Ireland, Holland, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Malaysia or Canada a chance to play against the top team for two years. While the team that dropped out of the top tier would have to play the minnows and win the second tier championship to reenter the top tier. Could that help to generate more interest in Test Cricket?
1 or 3 match Test series
Although the Test Match World Cup does look like an interesting proposal, it does comes across as a rather radical approach to increasing interest in Test Cricket. Another solution, which would be far less radical would be to have a either a 1 or a 3 Test match on every tour. Apart from the Ashes, which should stay as a 5 match series because of its long history. All other tours should consist of either 1 match or a 3 match series. The one Test Match series would help emerging countries get expose to top-level cricket, while the top teams could battle it out over a series that has a much large chance of producing a result. After all what is the point of a 2 or 4 match series?
This approach might only just increase interest a little bit. It would be difficult to quantify how much interested has been gained by implementing a 1 or 3 match Test series through out all the Test series in the world.
Three separate business entities
Why not separate the three levels of cricket into totally separate ‘businesses’? International cricket is a business – ignoring this is quite similar to denying that the sky is blue on a cloudless day. So why not have every cricket board spin of a 20/20, ODI and Test Match ‘decisions’ and let them organize the game starting from school level through to International level. There would be bitter competition between the entities, but it would allow players to choose the type of cricket that suited them. Also it would cater more specifically to different fan bases.
The grounds
Bring back the grass bank, barbecues and allow people to bring their own food. The last game I watched live was the final game for Stephen Fleming vs England in Napier. The only beer we could drink was Tui at 5 bucks for a small plastic cup. The food at the venue was completely disgusting and expensive. So you have to pay an entry fee, a parking fee (if you come by car), be only allowed to buy over priced and poor quality food and drinks. I think I will stay home, stream the cricket for free and order a decent pizza.
Allowing people to bring in their own food and drinks does cause problems in cases where they bring in glass bottles etc. Ever heard of vodka water melons? let people bring their own beer, a BBQ, sausages, onions etc. Spend a bit more cash on security (rather then spending lots of cash of crap quality catering) and ensure people know and understand that they are given a freedom, but if they cross the line they will get kicked out.
Remove ODIs
Yet another radical approach to generating more interest in Test cricket. Removing ODIs would reduce the amount of cricket played thus making it simpler for fans to choose which format to follow and more importantly to attend. Players would also choose which format they want to specialize in as we have seen players do really well in one format while perfmoring poorly in another.
Reduce the length of Test cricket and introduce Night Tests
A Night test under lights has already taken place in Australia. This is an interesting concept because it obviously allows people to come and watch the late afternoon and evening sessions. Is this a potential answer? It does sounds like a decent solution. Taking it a bit further why not adjust the minimum overs to be bowled in a day to say 60 or 70 and get the days play underway at 4pm? Perhaps a combination of both is the best answer. If a match starts on the weekend than it’s a day Test Match, while if the match is due to take place during the week then it would be a night Test Match. The players might argue (and I think I’ve already read an article on this topic somewhere) that the conditions during the day vary so much so during the night that night Tests should have their own statistics. Potentially some players will specialize in night games over day game. Presumably those that feast on carrots might be better candidates for the night games with their better eyes.
Re-organize the cricket calendar
It might be enough to simply organize the world cricket calendar in a such a way that series do not overlap giving the players a chance to play in high-income 20/20 tournaments between playing for the national team. As soon as you have one successful competition others spring up. Now almost every country has it’s variant of the IPL. If all these tournaments would be placed in the calendar then there would be little time left for other forms of cricket.
Privatize Test cricket
This post is getting outta control. How about throwing a bit of privatization at Test cricket so that in can compete with 20/20? If you could get all the top players to play Test cricket then would the fans turn out in force to watch them play? Potentially. Privatizing Test cricket would most probably inject more money into it along with a stronger drive by owners/investors to increase the amount of eye balls glued to the screen for advertising purposes.