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The advent of the Twenty20 format on the international sporting scene has gifted cricket with a great opportunity to spread its influence across the globe. With all the talk of expansion of the football codes, there has been little chatter regarding the growth of cricket domestically and around the world.
The use of Twenty20 cricket to expand domestic competition has been quite successful, with huge amounts of money thrown towards the Indian Premier League and crowds at the T20 Big Bash looking positive each year. The ability of the new format to be played at television friendly hours gives the game the ability to expand into some more non-traditional areas.
In terms of national development, Twenty20 can be used in a similar manner to the IRB’s use of Rugby Sevens. In the IRB Sevens World Series, nations such as Samoa, USA and Kenya have shown they are capable of causing upsets against the traditional powers such as New Zealand and Australia.
While they currently still fall short in the 15’s game, the smaller format allows them to expose much more young talent to high-quality opponents than they otherwise be able to.
The ICC should be taking a leaf from the IRB’s book and expand on it by providing the smaller nations more T20 games against some of the more experienced nations. Countries such as Bangladesh, Kenya and Zimbabwe and even new emerging cricket nations such as Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates would have the standard of cricket in their regions surge with tougher competition.
The exciting fast paced nature of the game can also be used for exhibition matches in more non-traditional regions such as South East Asia and Africa.
Having lived in South East Asia, I know there is a fairly strong interest in the game due to mostly to the substantial influence the large Indian expat community has on the region.
The ICC should view Asian nations such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, with their large permanent expat community, as key regions for development, and alongside the other mentioned developing nations, use T20 to develop their skills to a point where they are competitive with the bigger nations.
The IPL is currently one of cricket’s most valuable assets with its huge appeal in South Asia and in the Middle East, and has the potential to become one of the strongest competitions of any sport in the region. South Asia, comprising of Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, is cricket’s newest heartland, as well as its largest talent pool with India alone comprising over a billion people.
An expansion of the competition to include teams from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan could only make it stronger by becoming the premier competition over the entire region.
The increased international interest from the competition would send the value for the television broadcast rights through the roof, and the significant increase of cash would allow further investment into developing talent in the region, as well as expanding the game’s influence into Asia.
The 21st century has heralded not only the arrival of South Asia as an international player but also the Middle East as a new force on the global scheme of things, and should be a very high target in cricket’s sights for expansion.
Cricket needs a strong presence in the Middle East.
While the region is not yet ready for the international game, expanding the IPL to include teams from the region would be a logical first step to expand its influence in the region.
The Middle East has shown it is keen to host almost anything from the world’s richest horse race in the Dubai World Cup to the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar. Tapping into this wealth could be very profitable for the game in general as there are many positives to a Middle East-based team.
The UAE has a very strong case for an IPL franchise to be based in the nation. In a nation with a population around 8.2 million, four million people are from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh. This demographic represents a significant amount of people who likely have some sort of familiarity with cricket.
Dubai, the most likely city to host a franchise, has been investing heavily in sporting infrastructure, and with the construction of “Sport City”, could host the Olympics tomorrow let alone a domestic cricket team. The city itself is no stranger to cricket having already hosted four Test matches, as well as being home to the ICC itself with the organisation’s headquarters based there.
There is no shortage of corporate funding either, with many of the region’s wealthiest investing heavily in sport, such as Sheikh Mansour, half-brother of the Emir of Abu Dhabi and the owner of Manchester City FC, who is responsible for the funding of City’s enormous transfer fees.
A strong presence for cricket in South Asia is critical for the future as the region becomes the new heartland for world cricket.
By exploiting its potential in Asia, cricket has the potential to find itself in a powerful position in the future, backed by the newest superpowers.
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