Domestic T20 windows are impossible

According to Cricinfo, the ICC are again considering putting windows into the international calendar for domestic T20 tournaments. This is ridiculous on the face of it; there is no way that any domestic event should take precedence over an international one and certainly not a domestic T20 event. Apparently the committee concluded that T20 can ‘add to the game as a whole’. That is blatantly untrue; the only thing domestic T20 has added to the game is money and even then only for India. I certainly don’t blame T20 for all or even most of the problems facing the Test game, there is literally nothing that it has added. If any domestic event should be given a window it is domestic first class competitions, but no one is asking for that because it would be ridiculous. The same applies to T20.

Even if there was a justification for putting a domestic event ahead of international ones, it is not feasible to carve out a window for every domestic T20 competition. This is especially true in the places that have well-defined seasons. Even if the English competition were reduced to four weeks again, it would be very difficult to fit that into the summer around all of the scheduled internationals. In Australia the current schedule of the Big Bash League would prevent the Boxing Day and New Year’s Tests from being played either in Australia or South Africa. Presumably Cricket Australia would change the timing, but there is only so much of a cricket season available and the entire Australian summer overlaps with a time where at least one Test series is usually being played somewhere in the world. Even with the other counties where they can move their competitions, there are so many that even if they each only last a month (and right now most are longer than that) there is not enough time left on the calendar if each of them get their own window.

Of course, the league at which the notion of a window is really aimed is the IPL. But an IPL window, even if it was only for the IPL and not any of the other T20 leagues, is still not feasible. The IPL currently runs for about two months, from the beginning of April to the end of May and overlaps with the first two Tests of England’s summer. A quick glance at the history of the BCCI suggests they will be distinctly unwilling to compromise on the timing (or any other matter) and there isn’t enough time in the English calendar to wait until June to start the internationals. The only way for a window to work would be for England to cut some matches out of the international summer. This would be unacceptable to many and in particular I expect it would be unacceptable to Sky Sports. England already play two extra T20s in the summer because they sold the broadcast rights for them to Sky; I cannot imagine Sky agreeing to the ECB cutting down on fixtures. Even if the BCCI were to agree to bring the IPL forward to end before the English summer began then they are impacting (more than they are already) on the West Indies and New Zealand home seasons. The West Indies don’t have a well-defined season, but they still may have trouble moving their matches around and New Zealand would certainly have problems doing so.

No matter how much the administrators pretend that domestic T20 leagues are a good thing or even that international cricket can/should not fight them, there is simply not enough time in the calendar to give them all windows, or even just the IPL unless the leagues themselves are changed considerably and in most cases that looks very unlikely.

What can be done about India?

Yesterday it was revealed that not only were Sky making plans to cover the India v England Test series from home, the BBC had also been asked to pay an extra fee to get into the ground and now they might not cover the series at all.

Although it is good that neither Sky nor the BBC are giving in and that no one in England will be stuck with the ESPN STAR Sports commentary, not having TMS would be a tragedy. It is also a breathtakingly petty and spiteful move by the BCCI and their attitude makes one’s blood boil. It almost goes without saying now that the next time India tour England the ECB should treat the Indian broadcasters the same way or better yet, just refuse to let them in the ground full stop. This is in essence what the BCCI are doing already. I would love to see the ECB properly stand up to them and engage in a bit of tit-for-tat: sell them the rights, but then claim that the rights did not actually include entrance to the ground and close the door on them.

But this is just the latest in a much broader pattern of behaviour from the BCCI. It’s most notable in their stubborn and irrational refusal to allow the DRS to be adopted and in their imposition of their T20 schedule (both the IPL and ‘Champions’ League) on the rest of the world. The problem is not, or at least not primarily, that the BCCI have too much power. They do, but with the current structure of world cricket and the ICC it is almost inevitable that someone will have a disproportionate amount of power and influence. Right now it’s India. But the problem is that the BCCI use that power not only to secure their own interests, but to actively impose themselves on all other nations. There is no excuse whatsoever for their current behaviour with the broadcasting rights; it is simply a transparent attempt to use dodgy means to dictate terms to England.

The ECB, Sky and the BBC are not just rolling over and accepting this, which is good. As mentioned above, Sky and the BBC both refused to pay the exorbitant fees the BCCI demanded and the ECB have pulled the counties from the farcical ‘Champions’ League. But all are small matters to the BCCI and whilst they are all heartening they will have no long-term effect. Indeed, shutting the English broadcasters out of the grounds may be seen as a desirable outcome for the BCCI. The ECB need to then think more deeply about how to check the BCCI’s impositions. Obviously this is easier said than done and there is every chance that there is already discussion on this matter. The financial stakes are still much higher for England and the rest of the world than they are for India, but with India steadily becoming more dismissive of Test cricket that may start to change.

Until a better option comes along it looks like England, ideally in collaboration with the other established nations and particularly Australia, will have to simply continue to engage in tit-for-tat. And, of course, inflicting as many 0-4 series on India as possible!

The T20 Champions League

It’s come up a couple of times on Twitter, so to clarify: I am not watching the T20 Champions League. This is not because it is T20 per se, though that doesn’t help. Rather there are a few reasons why I am not only utterly uninterested in the tournament, I actively dislike it.

The biggest set of problems is that the concept does not really work in cricket the way it does in football. In football, club competition is the most commonly played and there are hundreds of well established clubs all in relatively close geographic proximity to each other. They all play the same season with the same regulations and under the same central governing body. It works out well and almost follows naturally that they would play some games between each other. But none of this is the case in cricket. The various T20 leagues all play at different times of the year and for much shorter periods than football. (Though the shorter season is, at least, an improvement.) There is also a much greater emphasis on international cricket than there is on international football, with tours taking up most of the calendar instead of scattered international weekends. And unlike in Europe, all of the T20 cricket leagues are geographically distant from each other. The idea of a cricket Champions League is simply not feasible the way it is with football and it is a mistake to try to force one.

Those are all theoretical problems that cannot be overcome and why the notion of a cricket Champions League will never really work the way the football version does. But at least if the problems ended there it could still at least be a mildly interesting curiosity. But the forced implementation has thrown up a whole host of new objections.

The biggest is that the tournament is a de facto extension of the IPL and with the same overall goal: to make money for the BCCI. It has all the same hype and superficiality of the IPL and designed to appeal to the same audience of the IPL. And therefore like the IPL, the whole spectacle is revolting. The tournament is also massively biased in favour of the Indian teams. Presumably that’s to dispel any lingering doubts about who the beneficiary of the whole affair is. The Indian teams go directly into the tournament proper, are given first pick of the players and are allowed more international players than the other teams.

The most annoying aspect of the T20 Champions League is that there is a completely undeserved international window for it. It is a competition comprising only domestic clubs; there is nothing international about it. And even if there were, that should not mean that it gets a window. Should England demand a window for all future Test series? The effect is that I have to wait until the end of the month for international cricket (and until November for Test cricket) because the ICC are in India’s pocket. I am not happy about this.

Well done the counties!

George Dobell reports in Cricinfo today that the counties are expected to reaffirm their commitment to Championship cricket and shun the farce of the T20 Champions League. This can only be a good thing. The Champions League is essentially an arm of the IPL and shares the same goals: to make money for the BCCI. The tournament has always been heavily weighted toward the Indian teams and very much against the English ones. The English teams would have better odds of winning the prize money at a casino. There was no reason for English teams to ever take part; for all the talk of it being allegedly an international tournament and the players benefiting from the supposedly higher level of play, the fact is still that it is a dressed up club competition. There is no reason to suggest that the actual standard is at all higher than it is in England just because there is more light and sound associated with it. It is the same fallacy that leads people to the mistaken impression that the IPL has some legitimacy.

There is also the longstanding problem that the Champions League conflicts with the end of the County Championship. This could be avoided if those in charge of the tournament bothered, but they don’t and that should be no surprise. The BCCI have made it very clear in the past that they care nothing for the County Championship and whilst I can understand that as it isn’t their competition, they have also shown their usual unwillingness to compromise on any matter. It is a stance we have seen all across the politics of cricket for years now. These past two years the ECB have scheduled the County Championship ridiculously early to allow the counties to play in the Champions League and it has really come back to hurt them. Quite rightly it is time that the ECB stopped catering to those who will not return the favour. If the BCCI ever decide that they want English teams in the tournament they can push it back by a week or two. Until then they can play their own weighted game without the counties.

Some other good things appear to be coming are an extended period of domestic T20 and a return to fifty over List A cricket. Although there are things I like about the T20 window, I’ve never been too fond of it as it really disrupts the momentum of the Championship and then there is far too long before the quarter-finals and Finals Day. A full season of T20 on weekends is a much better idea. With regard to fifty over cricket, I do understand the concerns of the counties and actually prefer listening to forty over matches. But I would rather have a fifty over competition to match that of international cricket.

I’m quite pleased about this news overall. After all the gloom of the Morgan Report last winter it seems that everyone has seen sense about the importance of a 16 match Championship and actually look to be making improvements to the structure rather than semi-random deletions. Common sense has been a rare beast in the governance of cricket recently; finally we are seeing a good example of it.

2012 Cowdrey Lecture

Tony Greig was invited to give this year’s MCC Cowdrey Lecture on the spirit of cricket. It appeared slightly an odd choice; the name Greig is hardly synonymous with ‘spirit of cricket’. With his reputation and the rather tough act he had to follow in Sangakkara last year it was always going to be a bit tricky for him, one felt. Still, I felt that he acquitted himself as well as could be expected. I am no fan of Greig, in fact I think there are few worse commentators in the world, but he did give an interesting and mostly intelligent speech.

It did not go down well in all quarters, however. Specifically it was very poorly received in India where it was interpreted as an attack on them. This is not unfair; the main theme of his lecture was to call for greater responsibility from the BCCI. However, the only thing he said about India that was factually incorrect was when he conflated the Indian broadcaster, ESPNStar Sports, with the board itself. In fact, I thought he was rather generous overall, making sure he gave credit to India where it was due and in one case where I thought it was not due. Looking through the #CowdreyLecture hashtag on Twitter during the speech, the biggest thing I noticed (apart from the predictable and laughable accusation of jealousy) was that none of the complaints addressed what he actually said about India. Most of those criticising him were complaining that he was just attacking India as though that was a legitimate counter. It did not seem to cross their mind that perhaps he had a reason to do so, that perhaps India were actually in the wrong. There was also the slightly more legitimate accusation of hypocrisy given Greig’s involvement in World Series Cricket and continued involvement with Channel Nine. Whilst not unreasonable on the face of it, this is still a tu quoque logical fallacy. Greig is not a paragon of virtue; he has erred with respect to the spirit of cricket before. But, and this is important, that does not invalidate what were statements of fact about India.

Those statements of fact centred on India’s current dominance of the world game through it’s finances and it’s apparent indifference to Test cricket. No sane person could deny that India control the world game right now and I very much doubt any sane person would deny that they do so with only their own best interests in mind. At almost exactly the same time as Greig was giving his lecture, the BCCI managed to quash without a vote a recommendation by the ICC to make the DRS universal. Every board save India use the DRS. It’s accuracy has been independently verified and it has clearly been shown to reduce incorrect decisions. And yet India’s knee-jerk Luddism and privileged position on the ICC mean that it can unilaterally opt out. That is but one stark example of the BCCI being able to do as they please without any regard to the rest of the world. Arguably the biggest, however, is the IPL. The BCCI take no notice of the international calendar when scheduling it and have no qualms about poaching players from national sides for their own profit. The excuse usually given, that ten per cent of the contract goes to the home board, is entirely spurious: it still undermines and devalues all international cricket played during that time. (In any case, the boards only get that money if the player signed a contract with them. Thus the West Indies got nothing when Gayle was absent and the same would apply to any player who declined to sign a contract.) Greig was absolutely right to take the BCCI to task over this because it is not only a great threat to the game it is one that could be solved. The BCCI’s actions are not cricket in the most literal sense. The entire game would be better off if they would play.

This is not to say that Greig’s speech was perfect, far from it. He at one point advocated the use of lie detectors to root out corruption despite their being laughably inaccurate. He said that he expected it would only be a burden on a handful of players, but his expectations fly in the face of reality. He also praised India for touring smaller nations and thus giving them a significant cash boon. It is true that they do so, sometimes, but they are required to under the Future Tours Programme and in fact have not played Pakistan in five years now. They have also never invited Bangladesh to tour and overall do less to help the smaller nations than most! The threat of their contravening the FTP and refusing to play smaller nations is also what allows them to form a voting bloc in the ICC.

His proposed solutions also left a bit to be desired. He stated, quite correctly, that no domestic event should take scheduling preference over international matches. This needed to be said, despite the fact that it ought to be self evident. England do not get to try to poach players from international matches for the County Championship. No one has ever discussed putting an LVCC window in the international calendar. Greig did point out, however, that this is area for potential compromise. In exchange for shortening the tournament and giving smaller nations a greater financial stake the international boards could agree to leave a window for the IPL. Given that the BCCI have expressed no desire for a window, however, this seems unlikely. He also wants a northern hemisphere franchise based T20 with English, Irish and West Indian teams competing. I have heard other calls for an English franchise league, but there is no reason to believe that this would be a good thing. Given that England are number one in the world in T20s and current T20 world champions, there is absolutely no reason to tinker with the current model.

Tony Greig is not a man I admire. He is not a man I even like; when I saw that he would be giving the lecture my first thought was to try to guess what bit of authentic memorabilia he would be trying to hawk. But as the cliché goes even a broken clock is right twice a day (assuming one has an analogue clock) and so too was Greig spot on in his comments about India. The BCCI’s selfish actions are not cricket and if they are allowed to continue in this manner the game in twenty years will be a poorer one than it is today.

Some things I missed

I’m still kind of catching up on events that I missed during the final Test. (The time difference was so awkward I did not have time to do a lot.) The most amusing thing was probably Sahara pulling their funding from the BCCI and IPL. The Sahara press release was possibly the strangest one I’ve ever read; it was written in a very informal style, used the phrase ‘natural justice’ five times and described their deal with the BCCI as ‘primarily emotional’. It read like someone playing up their hardships in an effort to get a sympathetic response (which it almost certainly was) and most unlike almost every other press release I have read. I have no idea how this will affect the BCCI in the long run. I assume they have plenty of money in the coffers, though they also seem to have a knack at offending their commercial partners (the TV rights-holders spring to mind). It also further exposes the shoddy administration of the IPL. It’s almost as though the tournament was thrown together for the purpose of making a quick rupee and everything else fell by the wayside. Funny that.

The other big piece of news that I missed was the Woolf Report to the ICC. It proposes some fairly major changes to the structure of the ICC and I rather like it. It almost certainly won’t get accepted, due to the ‘turkeys don’t vote for Christmas’ principle, but there are some good recommendations. Most of it is aimed at curbing the power of the largest boards and giving the Associates more say, which would only be a good thing. The problem, of course, is that those larger boards have to ratify the proposals. We have already seen with the DRS and Test Championship that even when there is large support it is very hard to get the ICC to actually do anything. It’s particularly amusing/galling (depending on how dark one’s sense of humour is) that the inherent impenetrability is one of the reasons why the ICC badly needs reform.

IPL Auction

The IPL auction has started. I don’t like it. I don’t like the IPL in general, but the auction is particularly hateful. In a way it’s the IPL in a nutshell, with a lot of light, sound and flying money. Even if it had no effect on any other type of cricket, even if it was the only thing keeping Test cricket alive I would not enjoy it. It’s garish. It’s just a spectacle for the sake thereof; there is really no need to allot players in that manner. One of the things I love about cricket is it’s quiet grace, the IPL and the IPL auction are the very antithesis of that.

But of course it’s part of the IPL, so it does affect other cricket and it inherits the same selfishness as the rest of the IPL, and indeed the BCCI in general. This year, as in many years, the auction conflicts with a Test match. The BCCI have never bothered to time the auction in such a way as to not conflict with proper fixtures, much the same way they do not bother to plan the IPL itself around international fixtures. It really should not be allowed. Not because of the division of coverage and public attention, that sort of thing tends to be unavoidable, but because of the distraction to the cricketers who are supposed to be playing for their countries.

Basically it’s another giant, loud, garish and imposing display of decadence and selfishness by the BCCI. I hate it.

Morgan’s folly

It was revealed on Cricinfo today that the ECB are going to accept the Morgan review and reduce the County Championship to 14 matches from 2014. I’ve written before about what a dreadful idea it is and that hasn’t changed. The fixture congestion is not going to be effectively eased and the four day game is still popular in England. All this is doing is reducing the amount of proper cricket for no discernible gain. What is particularly galling though is that the reason for the added fixture congestion is that the end of the season is being brought forward to accommodate the Champions League T20 competition.

The fact that we are decimating (more than, actually) our own premier competition for the benefit of a farcical, meaningless T20 competition in which we are not even stakeholders is absolutely infuriating. The ECB have already kowtowed to the BCCI about the DRS and already allow players to play in the IPL instead of for their counties. Now they are going to let our fixture list be dictated by Indian administrators who not only do not care about it’s health, but who have shown an active antipathy toward it! In many ways the ECB are the best run of all the cricket boards, but in addition to not scheduling enough Test matches every time they have looked like properly standing up to India they have folded. It is an absolute disgrace.

I’m not going to be so melodramatic as to say this will ruin the County Championship, but I do think it will hurt it. Sixteen matches is just about enough to avoid flukey results, but even then a lot is dependent on the rain staying away early in the season. What will we do when there is a wet spring and the first nine of 14 matches are badly rain affected? England is the only country in the world where domestic first class matches have their own following. Why damage that at all? Why not try to improve attendance and following of these matches instead of abandoning them for more T20s, both domestic and foreign? I have never seen anything that actually confirms the notion that people who come to the game via T20 actually go on to watch first class cricket. If Indian ‘supporters’ are anything by which to go it seems that T20 viewers are mostly loud, uninformed and at best apathetic toward Test cricket. Their money counts the same as the money of those who care about the first class game, but if the ECB truly care about the long term future of the game they must cater to those who also care, not those who don’t.

Disgrace

It was a common theme of discussion during the India v England ODI series that the grounds were uncommonly empty. (Common during the rare passages of play in which England were not collapsing, anyway.) Various reasons were mooted, such as too much exposure to cricket and the big names not playing for India. (And apparently a number of Indian ‘supporters’ only like to watch India bat.) I wasn’t too surprised then, to hear that the crowds for the first test against the West Indies were also small. The West Indies are a smaller draw than England now, and the Indian public prefer limited overs matches anyway. Still, the big guns are back for India and it’s a chance for them to recover some face after their humiliation in England so shouldn’t a lot of people show up?

Apparently not, and this account goes a long way to explaining why. No country is immune to jobsworths and bureaucracy of course, least of all England, but compare that attitude to the one displayed by those in charge of last day ticket sales at Lord’s over the summer. We saw this same sort of farce at the World Cup last year; England’s match against India was moved at the last minute without regard to the accommodations already booked by the travelling supporters, the ticket sales mayhem for the same match and the rather amusing story of Geoffrey Boycott summoning a general to prevent his sandwiches from being confiscated. (In fact, Adam Mountford’s blog from the World Cup is basically a day by day tale of incompetence.) The fact that any international ground can treat its fans in such a manner is a disgrace and must be considered as part of the reason for poor attendances.

India’s loss is baseball’s gain

I have wanted to see HotSpot in baseball for some time. Admittedly this was without a detailed plan of how the manufacturer would accomplish this, just a desire to see it. It could even clarify contentious hit by pitch calls. Now, courtesy of the pig-headedness of the BCCI I have got my wish. In the top of the fifth of Game One of the World Series Fox Sports showed the batsman fouling the ball off his foot in infrared. It was truly a glorious sight. Well, that’s not really true, but it was a cool sight. (And slightly odd, since I’m used to seeing it in a very different context.)

It also provided a lovely reminder of how mind-blowingly stupid Tim McCarver is. Joe Buck, after making a stupid TSA joke did actually explain that it was an infrared camera borrowed from their cricket coverage. (I had actually forgot that Fox does the cricket in Oz too.) This prompted Tim McCarver to proclaim that he had no idea how it worked. It’s hard to be sure, but I think he is unaware that friction causes heat. Either that, or he just likes talking about how ignorant he is. I’ve spent a lot of time during the postseason trying to decide if the various TBS commentators are worse than Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. I still suspect they are, but Tim is making it close.