Why international cricketers want more T20 cricket

Rohit Mahajan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 7

Have you recently caught Chris Gayle or Dwayne Bravo dancing away in Chennai? Or spotted Dean Jones, Brett Lee and Matthew Hayden, wearing mundus (lungis, or sarongs), in Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu? Well, they’re there, braving heat and humidity, testifying to the economic magnetism of T20 cricket. They’re here for something called the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL), which is supported by India Cements — whose boss is N Srinivasan. Remember Srinivasan? Yes, the former Indian cricket board (BCCI) president and owner of the IPL team Chennai Superkings.

TNPL is the latest league that exemplifies the economic power of T20 cricket, even though the above-named cricketers are there to only promote it or do commentary in it. Such is the pull of T20 money that a majority of international cricketers say that they would prefer to play in the richer domestic leagues even if it means giving up playing for their national teams.

The Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations (FICA) recently released its 2016 review; the review includes a survey of 193 active cricketers from all seven FICA-affiliated countries (excluding players from India, Pakistan and Zimbabwe, who are not part of FICA). The survey included 111 international players. Over 52% of all international cricketers who took the survey said they would “consider rejecting a national contract in favour of free agency in domestic T20 leagues”. In other words, if there’s a clash between the schedule of their national team and the schedule of a domestic T20 league, over 52% could reject playing for their country.

Separate divisions

When the International Cricket Committee (ICC) mooted the idea of separate divisions in Test cricket, it was echoing exactly what the majority of FICA-affiliated cricketers were saying. 

“Bilateral international cricket is rapidly losing its attractiveness to fans, broadcasters and players and therefore its commercial value is under significant threat,” FICA’s review said. “The volume, balance and role of the formats of international cricket must be restructured to deliver context and competitive balance. Finally, the growth of T20 cricket and notably domestic T20 cricket must be embraced as part of the international system, not set against it.”

BCCI is in a curious position — it has got T20 cricket in a very tight embrace, and runs the world’s most lucrative T20 tournament, the IPL. It was also the main promoter behind the now-defunct T20 Champions League, and had hired Amitabh Bachchan to declare that that was the “asli muqabla”, the real contest. BCCI wants to organise a mini-IPL in the US, and many of its affiliate members have their own T20 leagues, like Tamil Nadu’s TNPL or the Karnataka Premier League. 

Several countries lose their national players when the IPL is on, yet BCCI opposes the creation of a separate window for T20 cricket leagues. BCCI also opposes the creation of two divisions for Test cricket. Today, ICC withdrew the proposal for a two-tier structure for Test cricket at the meeting of its chief executives committee in Dubai, though six of the 10 full members reportedly favoured it. There was no vote, but clearly, after BCCI publicly opposed it, no other full member had the courage to push the proposal, or seek a vote.

Lip service

Cricket officialdom pays lip service to the “primacy” of Test cricket, but it’s clear that the players— at least most of the FICA-affiliated ones — prefer T20 cricket. The reasons are not far to look for: T20 cricket leagues pay them the most for far lesser effort/scrutiny than international cricket. 

Seventy-five percent of the cricketers who took the FICA survey say that “closing the wage gap between domestic T20 and international cricket would help to retain players in international cricket”. In other words, they would play for their country only if the money is right. This is not surprising, and there shouldn’t be any outrage at this — after all, don’t common people migrate to richer countries and change their nationalities for the sake of economic progress? It should surprise no one, too, to see first-world players like Hayden, Lee and Jones traversing smalltown India to make a few bucks.