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SPIRO: Cricket Australia can make or break Test cricket this week

26th January, 2014
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Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland has stood firm in an ongoing pay dispute with Australia's cricketers. (AAP Image/Tracey Nearmy)
Expert
26th January, 2014
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Old Karl Marx got a lot of things wrong but he was right about one big thing: political power follows on inevitably from economic power.

We are going to see this principle being put into action this week at Dubai when the International Cricket Council votes this week to change it constitution to allow the Big Three, Australian, England and India, to run the world of cricket.

The point to note here is that Australia, England and India run their cricket seasons at different times to each other.

The economic power of India in world cricket is about to be converted into its political control of the world game.

The report setting out the changes to the ICC constitution, a draft document of 21 pages, is confidential. However, in the nature of these things certain details have been leaked.

What these details indicate (and we can’t be certain if they are accurate, of course) is that all the cricket nations, outside the Big Three, could find their present lucrative world is in danger of being blasted away.

The Big Three will control the executive board of the ICC and pick and choose the countries they play their series against.

The basic principle for selection of the selection of bilateral tours will be their economics. This proposal destroys the existing Future Tours program which has seen countries like New Zealand and South Africa enjoy regular by England and India, the money-spinning tours for these countries.

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Under the current Future Tours system, for instance, New Zealand had four series against England, two at home and two away, in an 8-year cycle. Under the new proposals, the Big Three will agree to one series only (but more if they want them) against the other top eight Test nations.

This proposal apparently commits Australia and England but not India. India might decide not play any Tests in countries deemed ‘uneconomic.’ As New Zealand journalists have noted, the current tour of New Zealand by India could be the last such tour.

The ICC’s revenue sharing model is to be revised upwards for India, particularly, so that 63 percent of all ICC revenues will go to India. India, in fact, generates an estimated 80 percent of all ICC revenues.

The proposed Test Championship (always an unlikely event) will be scrapped. But the 50-over Champions Trophy will be reinstated on a four-yearly basis.

Reports suggest that India wants to host an ICC event, either the Champions Trophy, the World T20 or the ICC World Cup tournament every three years.

India has threatened that it might pull out of ICC events, thereby destroying their economic viability, if these proposals are not approved. The Indian board of control, BCCI, made a $71 million profit on last year’s Indian Premier League, double the profit in 2012.

The proposals and the insistence of the BCCI that they be approved gives rise to the suspicion that their driving force is to protect and enhance the IPL tournament.

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Tours involving star players from, say, South Africa, NZ, the West Indies and Sri Lanka – even possibly Australia and England – could be put on hold, or scrapped, to free up the stars to play in the IPL tournament.

The biggest loser in all of this or potential loser seems to be South Africa, currently the number one Test side in the world. And the reason why South Africa, surely a Big Four cricket nation under any circumstances, is being put out on a limb ready to be chopped focuses around the controversial CEO of South African cricket, Haroon Lorgat.

Lorgat was CEO at the ICC. In this position he upset the Indian cricket power elite. Then as the CEO at Cricket South Africa he upset the Indians again with his demands regarding the schedule of India’s just-completed tour of South Africa.

A South African source who is well-informed and reliable told me recently that ‘the attitude and aggressive approach to the Indian cricket hierarchy about Haroon Lorgat, a nonentity and simply a political puppel, was not acceptable to the Indian and cost us dearly,’ within the ICC.

The history of cricket has shown a movement from control of the game by England, under the guise of the MCC: then Australia’s control or Australian television’s control after the Packer Revolution: and now the era of control by India.

Over the last few years Indian cricket authorities have shown a worrying tendency to throw the weight of their money around to get their own way in controversies where their players or officials were behaving in ways that should not really be tolerated.

The new Indian dominance has brought in a tide of money that has made journey-man players into cricket millionaires because they can hit the occasional huge six. It will probably mean the growing domination of the shorter forms of cricket, especially the T20 game, over first class cricket and Test cricket.

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The argument in favour of the new India dominance is that the rising tide of money will lift all the cricketing nations as players are handsomely paid, television formats become viewing hits (think of the Big Bash) and money becomes available for even the poor cricket nations to invest in growing the game.

That is the theory. But what if the rising money tide is essentially made up of the frothy scum of gambling money which, in turn, throws up the flotsam and jetsam of local wide boys whose intent may be to rip money out of the game with no regard for its long term health or prosperity?

Cricket Australia needs to be extremely careful with the decisions it takes at Dubai and remember the old adage: ‘If you sup with the devil use a long spoon.’

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