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.
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.
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.
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.’
Anami
Guest
A good suggestion (and one that a lot of people in India want). The guaranteed tours which don't contain all first-selection cricketers readily translates to tours by some of the IPL teams, which are existing entities with a large and fanatical supporter base. Shane Warne, who has God-like stature in Rajasthan Royals and is well respected in Hampshire, had tried to set up some such matches between these two teams a few summers ago. There were even broadcasters who offered decent money and it looked like the tour would be profitable for both parties, a rarity in today's world. However, the ECB put a stop to it as there was an exclusivity clause in Sky's contract which, if I remember correctly, prevented anyone else from telecasting cricket played in the UK. If tours like this can be made to happen, there would be far more tours to small market teams. These may not offer the windfall-lottery-profit of an India tour, but would definitely yield a decent profit. There are enough IPL teams to even tour Ireland and such countries and the owners would be extremely bucked at their teams making international tours. These are far more meaningful than about half the FTP-driven tours which only end up in a big loss for everyone.
Charging Rhino
Roar Guru
As a South African I think that this is a load of nonsense! So the number 1 Test team over the past few years now has their voice taken away from them in terms of the runnings of international Test cricket and who/ how often they play??!! Or their revenues? And these other supposed "big 3" can't even beat us!? (At least I'm hoping Aus don't beat us next month!! Lol) What a farce.....!
Zubes
Guest
The points were taken from a recent article by Robert Craddock and from articles on CricInfo. Around the time of Project Snow an Indian finally became president of the ICC. The ICC itself was almost broke at this time and it was the Indian administrators that brought it back to health. I'm not saying the BCCI is perfect - far from it - but they are not the spawn of the devil either (as some in the media like to suggest) and have made cricket financially viable today. They have done some good for the game. Project Snow would not have been necessary if England did not try to retrospectively change the voting rules when it became clear that they would not win the vote. So much for democracy...
Russ
Guest
Just because test cricket is currently organised such that every nation is supposed to play every other doesn't mean it should be, or that it couldn't do better. It is actually quite easy, with a little work, to come up with ways that teams could play full series within the context of a broader competition, such that that competition included every (or at least a large proportion of) ICC members (seeded for each stage). Here is one possible solution. It even leaves 2 years for bilateral marquee series like the Ashes. One of cricket's biggest problems is actually a lack of imagination for what it might actually become.
vaguely
Roar Pro
8. Project Snow. The Anglo nations and WI ganging up together to put India in its place. This for me is one of the lowest points of cricket administration in the last 50 years. Project Snow was a contingency plan set up in case the South Asians and Africans decided to break away. I'll take the rest of what you said with a grain of salt.
One-eyed Jack
Guest
@ Matt. Players who walk away.. You mean other than Aus and Eng players for whom their Boards have already accepted the filthy lucre on their behalf by being key parts of this proposal for the takeover of the ICC?
One-eyed Jack
Guest
Other than the BBL (the abomination/destroyer of worlds according to the self-righteous and pompous traditionalists/purists), when was the the last time crowds turned out for club or provincial cricket? Back in the Don's day?
Cantab
Guest
There's a real chance that the IPL is/could become all they care about. Less test cricket would definitely be good for it. 72 million USD was the IPL book profit last year,
Matt P
Guest
The difference between WSC and now is the fact that test players are currently very well rewarded financially to play TEST cricket for their country as opposed to the 70's where they were getting a packet of crisps and a slab of beer. If despite earning the money that they do player decide to walk away now then I would walk away from cricket.... As for the above proposal it will do nothing but bring about the slow death of cricket in every country other than India.
Robz
Guest
it makes me wonder what hel Kerry would indeed be raising right now if he were still with us
Christo the Daddyo
Guest
If the speculated agreement goes ahead, surely that will count against India in the long run too? Unless they're only interested in the IPL that is. Because really, they won't have anyone to play against in 10-15 years' time.
Christo the Daddyo
Guest
Unless you say something really abusive towards someone, there is very little moderation at all.
Christo the Daddyo
Guest
Because its custom for the host nation to provide the catering. England went the other way on the recent Ashes tour with their list of demands for catering reaching new heights of indulgence.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Chris, You'll note the Big 3 dont want to play lesser countries at one day or T20 games either - for example, whats Australia's record like outside World Cups against Netherlands or Ireland ?
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
The ECB/ACB/BCCI position is going to see minor modifications, but it's getting up. Professional cricket outside those three countries is going to die - without the TV revenue from the big 3 touring their countries, they wont be able to afford to maintain a first-class competition, which means the quality of thier test team will continue to decline, meaning the Big 3 have even more of a reason not to tour them.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
The difficulty with test cricket in particular is that it doesn't work that well in a world where cricket expands to more countries. There's only just so much test cricket you can play. While T20 could work that way, being more like Football (soccer) is where it's mostly in domestic leagues, with the occasional international played and then world cup tournaments every few years, where, if more countries got involved, you'd have pre-qualifiers happening and the like. In contrast, test cricket is such a different beast that is played in series against other nations over a couple of months. So I can certainly understand that when it comes to test cricket the big nations where test cricket is prospering could easily think that maybe trying to build more nations to test status doesn't work so well for them in the end really anyway. I'm not saying this is right, just a fact of life. It would be really sad if test cricket started to die because of this, but we could easily see cricket getting to a place where for most of the world, T20 is what cricket is, and it's just the few nations with great test history who really need to keep playing tests against each other who will keep doing it. In women's cricket, who don't have the history, they basically don't play tests. They play 50-over and T20 cricket. Australia and England when they play the Women's Ashes incorporate one test into that format, but outside of that there really aren't any test matches played (look at the ICC rankings website and you'll see Men's player rankings for Tests, ODIs and T20, and women's only for ODI's and T20. They don't play enough tests to both with any player rankings). It could be that in 20 years time cricket will look like this. Against most nations T20 will be what cricket is, there will be domestic T20 competitions all over the place, nations playing T20s against each other and T20 world cups all around. Then just a few nations like Australia, England and South Africa, with very proud test histories who continue to hold test cricket very high, will continue to play each other in test cricket. It's a sad world, but likely where cricket is headed.
formeropenside
Guest
sorry, how does 4 reflect on Australia?
Professor Rosseforp
Guest
"Who wants to watch tests that have been reduced to second XI status?" -- following the establishment of World Series Cricket, the so-called second XI of Australa played England and India in 2 of the most interesting and exciting series ever seen in this country. I don't recall exact figures, but the Australian crowds and tv audiences drifted away from World Series cricket to such an extent that WSC almost closed down -- exactly why the ACB surrendered tv rights to Kerry Packer under these circumstances has never really been explained satisfactorily. I would have thought that the success of limited overs cricket and 20/20 (both horrendous aberrations in my view) have shown clearly that people will watch 2nd tier players and matches. As for South Africa's exclusion -- perhaps they will set up a rival franchise? The South Africans are not exactly inexperienced at running their own international cricket matches.
Geoff Lemon
Expert
And bad umpiring in Sydney in 2007/08. Would have been 2-1 the other way.
Matthew Skellett
Roar Rookie
The unfortunate snag about about this deal Ian is that you are behaving like a sheep hoping the wolf will abide by good manners. Do you really think that whenit has all the money and the power that India will feel like doing anything for the mutual benefit of the other countries ? Thats a very naive and ludicrous situation that any onlooker will find so stupid its hard not to agree at the absurdity of uit all-no the answer is to renounce the old financial model and make it one country one vote and to India "publish and be damned" !!!