Cricinfo - Blogs - Eye on the Ashes - Money changes everything

The reaction has been three cheers at the ICC, and a more circumspect two most places else. The quantum of money washing around cricket is unprecedented and unforseen; its effect is therefore unimaginable. Money makes people do strange things. As Ringo Starr said when asked to explain the making of that notorious turkey The Magic Christian: ‘People will swim through shit for a dollar.’ All eyes will be on how the ICC carves up its bounty – or, at least, they should be. The council now calls to mind Bill Clinton’s finely-honed description of Major League Baseball during its last lockout: ‘Just a few hundred folks trying to figure out how to divide nearly $2 billion’.

For me, the big question was never how much cricket could raise, but why it was raising it. The answer appears to be: because it can. Here is India’s IS Bindra: ‘Much of the money that comes from this deal can be ploughed back into the development of the game and that will strengthen cricket even more.’ Here is the West Indies Ken Gordon: ‘This agreement...will put the ICC in an extremely strong financial position and allow us all to develop cricket on a much wider front.’ Here is HRH Tunku Imran, President of the Malaysian Cricket Association: ‘The revenue received by the ICC can be used for a new era of development as it will have an impact on all of our 87 Members below Test level..’ So, we’re all going to be developing our fingers to the bone. Glad that’s settled.

But how much ‘ploughing back’ is there really? What width ‘wider front’ are we talking? And how much should junior countries be benefiting anyway when only India, Australia and England among the Test nations operate profitably? What kind of development? Where? By whom? What about the players? The umpires? The administrators? And how accountable and equitable are those who distribute and spend the money that the game raises? After all, what do we have to show for the developing we’re already meant to have done? In the last twenty years, the ICC has promoted two nations to Test status: one is a basket case; the other, the odd exception notwithstanding, can so far only beat that basket case. Now that ESPN and Star are on the hook, it is time to start asking: Cui bono? And I’m not talking about U2.

Yes, Cui bono indeed. But why are you already subscribing to the doomsayers side so soon. I mean, sure..with money comes comes great political responsibillity, always. 1.1 mill for cricket is good, whatever way you want to look at it. Where it goes is not as important as asking why the ICC has failed over the last 20 years, a new paradigm is needed 1st.
Why is there no action against peter chingoko XI? Why haven't they been expelled from icc? why isn't bangladesh improving? Why isn't there a uniform policy towards drugs?
Forget about the money, think about the attitudes

There is already a 24-hour cricket channel in the United States of all the places! Yes, it is a subscription channel and I wonder how many people will pay money for that, given that the quality of programming is expected to be 2nd grade and as far as I know there is no live coverage. Unless, ofcourse USA was playing Canada - in which case who would bother?
I love the idea of 24-hour cricket. In fact that is the only reason I go back home to India during Christmas. Oh yes, to visit my family and friends as well :)

Speaking about Indian Cricket, it is a moot point that the richest cricket board in the world has done virtually nothing to develop the cricketing infrastructure in the country. What has so much money achieved?
a)The Chairman of Selectors, Vengsarkar, recently made an astonishing comment that there was no bench strength available in India!
b) The training facilities are pretty average in most places. It is no surprise that batsmen struggle on bouncy tracks like those seen in SA;indeed it is a miracle that players like Dhoni, Munaf,Pathan emerged out of this wilderness!
c) More money has only meant that the cricketers get flogged even more - more matches, less rest, more injuries. And there is cricket overkill which reduces spectator interest levels.
As for ICC, it is a big joke. It is a toothless body. If ever there was a vote for the least powerful man in the world with the most ostentatious title, the clear winner should be ICC Chief executive, Malcolm Speed.

As already pointed out by another reader, ESPN-STAR has been broadcasting cricket for nearly 10 years.Does the name Harsha Bhogle ring a bell?
Is the error on GD'S part, which basically assumes that any money from India is filth and will be lacking in pedigree, symptomatic of the attitude that prevails among most australian/english writers? After reviewing material from Robert Craddock and Tim De Lisle , I think YES.... Lastly , let me ask you this , How many years did NZ and SL take to win their first test. Is BD doin wors?

Well, the BCCI is the richest cricket board in the world, but India has the poorest infrastructure for cricket in the world! and I mean the facilities for the paying public - the grounds and what is provided for the spectators. In England new stadiums are being built everyday with fantastic facilites. So whilst the ICC and the BCCI strike these mega-deals, they should think of the paying public who turn up to watch these games, without whom there wont be an industry worth its name!!

I totally agree with Sridhar. More money does not translate into a better team. It is the quality of First Class cricket in any country which produces players of high calibre and right attitude. BCCI should focus more on improving the standards of first class cricket in India e.g. better format, pitches, incentives and infrastructure etc. etc.

Also with the amount of cricket played these days, they should look after their star players and ensure that they don't burn out. BCCI should seriously think about introducing a rotation policy for all players and allow individual players to opt out of a tour if they wish to do so for any personal reasons.

In short, don't kill the golden goose to collect all eggs at once.

MarkC, your an idiot! no one is disregarding the real game, but ICC's agendas, esp with so much money involved wil affect the game you so love...for example, if you love contest, then why arent you concerend that Zim and Bang are so far behind, even after a decade in the game...money can make change these things, make it a better game if used rightly...

Another exampkle of ICC mismanagement is this arctile at the guarian about it's attempts to ban over-by-over coverage by organizations that dont pay for rights..Does cricket sell newspapers, or newspapers sell cricket..http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2006/12/11/over_and_out.html

I was confused by MarkC's quotation "Morituri te consputant". This link: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/games/qt/morituritesalut.htm explains the derivation of the original gladiatorial quotation from Suetonius - "Those of us about to die salute you!" With the substituted consputant it now means: "Those about to die spit upon you." As an example the "ball by ball Ashes coverage" here in Sydney terminated 45 minutes on the final day in Adelaide.

When the MCC "developed" cricket Australia, South Africa, the West Indies, India and New Zealand all became test playing nations. When Jack Simmons "developed" cricket, Tasmania got first class status and Launceston "developed" two players who would win the man of the match awards in two world cup finals (has any other town achieved this?). When the ICC "develops" cricket we get Bangladesh, meltdown in Zimbabwe and a world cup semi-finalist who was deprived of Test status as it might upset the voting balance of the ICC. If you want to know why forget Cui Bono ... quote Bono and why he wouldn't want to be a politician: "I don't think I could live with the pay cut or moving to a smaller house." The same reason applies to why the ICC under Sonn, Speed and Dalmiyra et al will never truly "develop" cricket.

It's a well known fact that much of the ICC's revenue comes from the 3 names mentioned in your article, in the correct order of their reference as well. This might seem like a rose bed to most, every time in need of dough just play one of these nations in a tri-series or even portalize pitches to make sure they reach the final; but ICC is facing a much bigger dilemma. What if India, Australia or for that matter England threaten to boycott their operating demeanors ?? (ICC got a taste of it last month when BCCI was hell bent on its ways). Hence, ICC needs a way to cut down its dependence on the BIG guns of the game.

In my perception, this 1 billion dollar move is an attempt to do just that. I might be wrong, but ICC should know that they are facing an impossible task at hand.

And please fellas, no comparisons between cricket (10 Test playing nations) and soccer (195 countries with comparable class & passion)

Kenny: India alone constitutes around 70% of the overall cricket market. Australia and England make up the rest and the others count for pretty much nothing. So I don't think it is right to club India, Australia and England in one category.

As for Cricket vs Soccer, yes, it seems incomparable if you look at the number of countries or teams. But if you look at the number of people who are passionate about the game, cricket doesn't compare badly with soccer. For nearly close to 1/4th of world population (Indian sub-continent), Cricket is *the* number 1 game with hardly any competition. Soccer has that status only in Europe and Latin America whose combined population is probably less than that of India. So, no, cricket isn't as small as "10 test playing nations vs 195 countries" suggests. Problem with cricket is its structure. They should create multiple teams within India rather than having just one team for a billion people. That will also solve the problem of one team dominating 70% of the market.

To set some matters straight - while the money is generated by the people of India, Australia, England and Pakistan - it doesn't come out of the local boards treasury. The boards have all the rights to their teams matches under the FTP and the only money the ICC gets is from ICC events, like the world cup, champions cup etc. So, I don't really think this money should be plowed back into India, Australia etc. These boards already have plenty of revenues.

Cricket is a unique sport in having a closed circle of teams playing, and none of the others can get in. In the Soccer World Cup, even San Marino (look it up in the map) has a chance of winning. All it has to do is go through 3 rounds of prelim matches and then get into the world cup. Same with the Olympics. Everyone has a shot at the gold medal. However, no team can ever play test matches without the AGREEMENT of the current members.

It's the ICC's job to bring the game where it isn't. The China initiative is good. The American experiment is a failure in my opinion, but it must continue. Scotland, Ireland, Kenya and the Netherlands should be encouraged to improve, and they can already play ODIs.

With a billion dollars you can create whole infrastructures in these countries. I don't see the Netherlands making a turn from soccer-crazy to cricket-fanatics, but if it becomes the third or fourth top sport in that country, that's a major achievement.

Regarding players - and this is a subject I know a bit about - Australia, England and India need no help. However, the ICC should help the boards in other countries to promote players pensions. This is a real concern in countries like NZ, the Windies and Pakistan, where players in first class cricket can't live off their salaries and have no future arrangements at all. Even test players don't really earn that much money.

+1 for merv.

I believe maintaining the level of quality international cricket comes down to two things:
a) Training
b) Looking after the players.

The simple formula is to look after the experienced, well performing 1st class players today so that they will stick around and be the coaches of tomorrow at all levels.

Who's running cricket? As long as Australia is kicking England's a*** I don't care.

That may solve the problem of 1 team dominating the market Mohan.. But would someone feel the same passion for their local region's team, and not their countries?

And also, what would this do for the quality of the game? It would not bode well if there were 4 Indian teams, this would dilute the quality of all teams substantially. What Indian fan from this large market would be interested in watching their team get creamed by Australia? instead of a much more closely played match as which occurs when India currently play Australia?

Chris: As for passion, regionalism is probably bigger than nationalism in India. We have a zonal selection system with one selector from each region who make sure the team is balanced in terms of regional representation simply because people from a particular state/region will switch off the tv if they find that there are no players from their state in the team.

As for quality - if Sri Lanka and Pakistan, with a fraction of India's population and similar economic indicators (actually slightly worse, as India has grown rapidly in the last few years) can produce test class teams, there is no reason why India can't produce a dozen test teams. Only reason it hasn't happened is that as of now there is only a requirement to produce one team. Sure, initially the quality might dip, but even that can be taken care simply. Just get rid of this restriction of who can play for which team etc. Australia has a surplus of quality players (Tait and Johnson not getting a chance to play!) and they will be overnight stars earning much more than McGrath or Lee if they are allowed to play for one of the Indian regional teams.