I said that I was just tossing out ideas, and not to take me too literally. (Although interestingly, I had in mind something similar to Vinay, e.g. a London (Lord’s/The Oval) tournament. However I said to make this every second year, so that places like the WI could also host one, as Kersi has asked for. Ironically, to optimize earnings the WI might actually as for “their” tournament to be held in London!)

It seems ominous to me that FICA wants to decrease the number of bilateral contests and increase the amount of “context” (which I take to mean “tournaments”). Here again is the quote from Tim May: “The ICC’s draft is just a continuation of the ad-hoc bilateral series that we have seen going on for 100 years,” May told Cricinfo. “The ICC draft does not address an increasingly changing cricket landscape, which demands considerations of changing priorities of players and broadcasters and the increasing need for context, not volume.”

Regardless of what we all individually prefer, I’d say Tim May (presumably acting for the players) is the one with the voice that actually has some chance of counting.

Leave it as it is. I look forward to a World Cup every 4 years as I do Olympics every 4 years. Can you imagine 4 Olympics every year?

And what’s wrong with bilateral ODIs?

No Champions Trophy, please. Full stop.

We should have more Tests and fewer ODIs and T20s. Rather than 7 ODIs between England and Australia, have 3. Instead of 7 ODIs between Oz and Ind, have 3. IPL should be replaced by CLT20 and held once every 2 years. Also, T20 World Cup every 4 years.

No bilateral oDI’s and No world Cups and we have an undisputed Champion every three months. Thats enough attention span.
The Windies and others wont feel left out when they share the TV Revenue. ..maybe 15 mil for each country.

The idea is too new-fangled for my old brain. What you (and Vinay) are suggesting is to do away all bilateral ODIs and concentrate on four mini World Cups. That means doing away with THE WORLD CUP every four years.

In tennis terminology there will be an ANZ Open, Lord’s, Subcontinent Open and Africa Open. And Test cricket on Davis Cup lines?

Too gimmicky, I think. And unworkable. Besides, venue-wise, won’t WI feel left out?

I can foresee controversies by the dozen and trouble by the billion.

Who knows, I may change my mind but at the moment it is a no-no from me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_Champions_Trophy

One thing I have tried to get across in my comments above – perhaps not clearly – is that people (fans, administrators) need to be prepared to forsake bilateral series in order to accommodate more tournaments. Australians had no appetite for this Champions Trophy. However that is not because the cricket or the concept was poor; rather, it’s just because they have had to go through so many “meaningless” bilateral series over the last 12 months.

It seems Tim May and FICA are of the same view: “The ICC’s draft is just a continuation of the ad-hoc bilateral series that we have seen going on for 100 years,” May told Cricinfo. “The ICC draft does not address an increasingly changing cricket landscape, which demands considerations of changing priorities of players and broadcasters and the increasing need for context, not volume.”

I know Vinay was being ironic with his (for him dystopian) vision of 4 CT tournaments per year, but how about it? Imagine if there were no bilateral ODI series at all, just 4 ODI tournaments (much like the one we’ve just had in South Africa), and an overall champion for the year based on points accumulated at these tournaments. Would that be so bad?

There is the problem that Indian officials wouldn’t agree to this. As is written in the article: “Indian officials, for instance, say that they hope to earn more (around US$14-15 million) from each ODI against Australia in the seven-match series starting later this month than what they would get from the ICC pool for the entire 2011 World Cup.”

A solution here is just that every year there would be one ODI tournament held in India. It could become, for example, cricket’s equivalent of Wimbledon. Let the Indians fill their coffers from this, and spread the other tournaments around the other cricket-playing nations. For example, every second year there is an ODI tournament in Australia in Jan/Feb, and similarly for England in Aug/Sept.

These ideas of mine should not be taken literally (I’m just tossing spontaneous thoughts around), however the general thrust of my argument should be clear.

Note that 4 ODI tournaments per year, lasting 2-3 months in toto, would leave plenty of time for an IPL window and lots of test cricket, not to mention an “off-season” of, say, 3 months for each country (not all at the same time!). I very much want to leave some test cricket for Vinay to watch!

But I’ll never forget the cliff-hangers between Australia and South Africa in the 1999 World Cup in England.

Vinay, I agree with you on many points but will not miss T20 matches in Sydney this season or any season. I prefer Test matches but enjoy Fifty50 and T20s too. But the shorter versions should be in moderation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/6270371/ICC-learn-from-mistakes-as-they-unveil-shorter-2011-World-Cup.html#

“ICC ‘learn from mistakes’ as they unveil shorter 2011 World Cup”

There’s plenty of football games played that ill never remember like I did when I was 8 years old. As I get older you’ve seen it all before so my memories aren’t like it was all new. But that says more about me than it does the sports.

I read this on Friday

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-grand-old-flag-the-emblem-of-the-teams-we-love/

“Rick Davies was number 24 and Paul Bagshaw number 8 and Jim Derrington number 17”

and it brought back memories of when I was 8 years old, when I knew those players numbers even though I didn’t barrack for Sturt.

I grew up in world series cricket so I’ve got plenty of memories of one day cricket.

I can remember a lot of the one dayers played in Australia till I was a teenager.

Also memorises from when I was older…. Australia playing south Africa in 99 at the world cup and Steve Waugh making a century. Then the semi final when it was a tie. Then the final when they beat Pakistan.

“it is not bound by law to accept any of its proposals. In fact, May admits that he would not be surprised if the ICC board rejects these proposals, but he also warns that in such a scenario “the natural forces will take effect.” – May was referring to Flintoff retiring from international cricket but another “natural force” could be boycotts.

Look at the Windies, it seems that half the time they have a 3rd string lineup as the players refuse to play under the current conditions so it might not be a case of a couple retiring and playing the lucrative T20 formats but of teams actually boycotting international cricket entirely.

I hope they do listen to FICA, without the players cricket is nothing and if anyone over at the ICC has half a brain they’ll treat their most valuable commodity with care.

Put it like this, if you take the purse away from the Champions Trophy, do you think Ponting and Vettori would still be so keen on it? No – and as we don’t want to see cricket played for money, we shouldn’t make them do it either.

Just because a broadcaster wants something doesn’t mean they should get it. Yes they are the one’s funding the games but we can’t sell the game in the process of selling the rights to air it. Players don’t want so much cricket and it’s this group who should be listened to.

Cricket is essentially a sport from which people can turn a profit, not a business with the sport as a sideshow and so must it remain.

I do hope that is just sarcasm that I didn’t pick up on.

I’ve left myself a bit of wriggle room, but my attitude may have changed in the last half year. I still think there is some structure to T20 and that it is more than just 100% slogfest, but …

Partly my comments here are just a reaction to the dismissive attitude of most people towards the Champions Trophy. I think the format was good, and that good cricket was played. People should not write off the tournament simply because the Australian team has been playing non-stop for 12 months. I can understand that people feel there has been way too much cricket, but that does not mean that the most recent cricket is the stuff that has been “meaningless”. Rather, that was probably a lot of the earlier stuff.

Sril lanka beat India in 79
Zimbawe beat Australia in 83 and England in 92
Kenya beat West indies in 96
Canada beat Bangladesh in 2003
Kenya beat Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in 2003
Ireland beat Pakistan and Bangladesh in 2007.

The cricket world cup entry is determined by qualification matches

With 4 CT’s all the top eight teams will have a minimum of 12 ODI’s a year and some(semifinalists and finalists) will play a couple more. This is as many ODI’s one needs. The ICC is committed to ODI’s till 2015 and the reaction of ECB and SA is premature.
As Greg would say “go figure”

And I don’t think this sort of “player market” happen for OD cricket, as the equivalent tournament would have to run for at least a month rather than 16 days, and no national board is going to release a star player for that amount of time in the middle of a summer. You’ll note that all the international players signed for the Big Bash are on T20 exclusive contracts, and that’s becuase it’s a compressed window in the middle of the Test series out here.

1. The franchise nature. The IPL has international teams with combinations of cricketers playing together that we would not otherwise see. This is exciting. It is flowing on even into national competitions, for example most of the Australian states this year are bringing in international stars, e.g. it will be really interesting to see Murali (hopefully) play for Victoria. As I said, this is exciting.

But wouldn’t we feel the same way if this sort of thing happened with one-day cricket?

2. Different competitions. The T20 Champions League is about to start, and it is exciting that NSW, Otago, Cape Cobras, etc. will be playing each other – otherwise we never get to see domestic teams from different countries go head to head in “meaningful” tournaments.

Again, wouldn’t we feel the same way if this sort of thing were to happen with one-day cricket?

As I have already said above, maybe I’m old-fashioned, but generally I am more satisfied by the overall quality of the cricket in one-day matches than T20 matches. This is not to say that I don’t find quality and excitement in T20 matches – of course I do. But if I look at yesterday’s CT final, the quality of the bowling by Kyle Mills and the batting by Shane Watson almost by definition cannot be seen in T20 matches, simply because they are too brief. I really appreciate that quality.

So, how would we feel about having an IPL and a Champion’s League with one-day rather than T20 format? I think we’d still be excited.

The nature of any tournament is that it has limited entry. The entry may be determined either by qualification matches (as in the FIFA WC) or by rankings (as in the Champions Trophy). But the point is that the entry list should be such that all encounters at the tournament are near guaranteed to be “meaningful” contests. Ireland may have beaten Pakistan once in ODI cricket, but the majority of encounters between these two countries will be mismatches.

That said, I am looking forward to the Champions Trophy. As mentioned when commenting on Brett McKay’s article today, at the moment it is bringing together the franchise concept with the traditional representative teams so there is some emotional attachment for me to see how NSW will go. Fingers crossed that it will go well.

As far as them money goes, the problem wasnt that minnows got thumped ; it was that they had a tendency to win.

http://sport.scotsman.com/cricket/Cricket-Scotland-plans-expanded-contract.5701847.jp

“Cricket Scotland plans expanded contract system

CRICKET Scotland is set to overhaul its system of player contracts from next season, focusing more of its resources on retaining a core group of full-time players during the summer. It currently has three players employed year-round, with the rest paid match-by-match.

The decision, which is understood to have received the backing of the International Cricket Council, is likely to provide more opportunities for the Saltires squad to train together between April and August when the schedule is most demanding…..”