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By the time the 2015 cricket World Cup is played, it will have been 23 years since a major cricketing tournament has been held in Australia.
During that time, South Africa, England, Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh will have hosted at least one Champions Trophy, Twenty20 and ODI World Cup.
West Indies will have had a Twenty20 and an ODI World Cup. Pakistan co-hosted the 1996 World Cup, including the final, and Zimbabwe co-hosted the 2003 World Cup.
During that 23 years only Australia and New Zealand will not have held one of the three major tournaments (though the Champions Trophy has recently ceased in its current form).
Only Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Zimbabwe have not hosted either a Champions Trophy or T20 World Cup, and domestic problems can explain why Pakistan and Zimbabwe couldn’t and didn’t host either tournament.
The question is why Australia/New Zealand have not hosted these tournaments and what impact this has had in cricket’s popularity in Australia and New Zealand.
To put this into perspective, the South Asian subcontinent countries will have hosted a combination of nine Champions Trophies, T20 and ODI World Cups from 1987-2016.
During that time Australia/NZ will only have hosted 2 World Cups. It is also interesting to note that the next three T20 World Cups (2012, 2014, 2016) will be hosted on the Subcontinent.
As a young kid I remember watching the Benson & Hedges World Championship of Cricket in 1985 (featuring all seven Test-playing nations) and the Benson & Hedges Challenge in 1986/87 (Australia, Pakistan, West Indies and England). Tournaments like this brought a fresh and exciting appeal to cricket from the regular year-to-year activities.
Whenever a major tournament is held, public awareness and interest is increased. One of the reasons there has been a decline in interest in cricket in recent years is because it’s the same thing year in year out.
Test match series, ODI series (and before that the triangular series), and a couple of T20’s. There has been nothing to excite or stimulate the wider sporting public about cricket. The only thing that was different was the failed World XI v Australia at the SCG a few years ago.
Why didn’t Australia host one of the six Champions Trophy tournaments held, or the three played and three scheduled Twenty20 World Cups? Is there a conspiracy by other countries to deny Australia cricketing tournaments? Or is Cricket Australia unwilling or unable to bid for these tournaments?
With cricket grounds being shared with AFL teams, is cricket being locked out by the AFL from holding tournaments that would go past the normal mid-March cricket season finish?
The World Cup in 1992 finished on the 26th of March, but a five-Test series against India and the regular triangular series had already been played that season.
Given that the Champions Trophy and T20 World Cup only last about two weeks, it should be easy to fit most of a regular season plus a T20 World Cup in without creating a clash with the AFL.
As people have pointed out, Australian cricket is becoming more reliant on Indian money, so wouldn’t hosting a Champions Trophy or T20 World Cup have been a good revenue raiser for CA? As it is, only the Ashes and Indian tours make a lot of money, and seasons like 2009/10 where Pakistan and New Zealand toured, CA lost millions of dollars.
Plus there are the intangible bonuses of hosting major tournaments. Increased media coverage and more public interest, and a chance to reach young fans, like the World Championship of Cricket and Benson & Hedges Challenge did when I was young.
There is only so much an Ashes series can do, and with the 2015 World Cup already tainted by being reducing to 10 teams, CA needs to find a way to cricket interesting and fresh to the public.
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