Malcolm Conn reports in yesterday’s Australian newspaper that Cricket Australia will on Friday vote in the death-knell of 50-over cricket – at least in Australia.
They are expected to introduce a new 40-over format to be played at State level next year.
I’ve long held the view that 50-over cricket doesn’t have a future in the international arena. It takes too long, and is all too often punctuated by significant dead patches in the middle overs.
The format lends itself to too many one-sided games that are effectively over very early in the piece.
The issue for cricket administrators around the world is that it’s the 50-over format that generates the majority of the revenue – by far.
As appealing as Twenty20 cricket has become, it still represents about three hours of content compared to eight hours in a 50-over game.
That’s a problem when you’re a TV network trying to see enough advertising to cover your rights, fees and operational costs.
Has Cricket Australia stumbled on the right solution?
It’s impossible to give an opinion until they make a formal statement about their vision. However, I can proffer my own views on the future of the game, and that is to say that it cannot sustain three formats at the elite level.
What’s my proposed solution?
Merge 50-over cricket with Twenty20 cricket by taking the best bits from each and discarding the flaws. It won’t necessarily mean a meeting in the middle (i.e. 35 overs), but it might mean 25 or 30 overs instead of 20, which many find a bit too short.
It will also give more advertising space to the broadcasters, which equals higher broadcast fees to the sport.
Importantly, in terms of letting the ICC and its members put the right spin on things, I think a merger would be easier to sell to stakeholders than a wholesale abandonment of one form of the game (i.e. 50-over cricket).
It also sends a clear signal that the merged form of the game can be tweaked again to the extent necessary to remain relevant to a broad supporter base.
This gives the ICC and its members ownership of the merged format that they currently don’t have in the case of Twenty20.
And, yes, I have considered merging 50-over cricket with Test cricket, but I think that’s one format of the game that needs to be preserved – albeit played less often by fewer teams.
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If people can lose their job, and clubs can face massive payouts, due to the behaviour of coaches, it will drastically change the way sporting teams in Australia will be run.
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