The games changing fast and it's hard to know how all this will play out.
The longer forms of cricket are, from an audience perspective, in decline, except Test Match cricket in England and Australia. County Championship matches attract meagre crowds except for the corporate hospitality brigade. 20/20 has just widened to support base hugely. My nine year old lad is becoming intereted in cricket, although he has the concentration span of a gnat. I am thinking of taking him to a 20/20 game if I can organise it this season because it's so vibrant and instant and requires little understanding of the nuances of the longer games.
On a wider front though, it seems to me though, that cricketers needs to hone their skills in the longer forms of the game, to enable them to function effectively in 20/20 - so I hope that the money now coming into the game doesn't screw all this up. It's going to require some careful handling so it supplements and doesn't surplant other forms of the game.
I share your concerns Bing, Test cricket always should be the pinnacle of the game, but I can see a situation whereby quite a few Test players are going to give up playing Test cricket in favour of playing Twenty/20, especially those who are on the fringes of the Test teams.
This season's England-NZ series would have been a lot more competitive if the Kiwis had picked players like Styris, Fleming and Bond, all of whom preferred retirement from their Test team in favour of either the IPL or the rebel ICL. In England Chris Read, arguably the best wicketkeeper in England has already taken that route. It's possible that say Flintoff who might never play Test cricket again after a run of injuries might say sod it I'll take one of the many offers that he must have had and disappear off to play in the IPL rather than get himself fit. Supporters of these tournaments will argue that the attraction of these tournaments is that they drag in the Test stars, therefore international cricket will prosper because there is a financial reward for becoming a Test player, but there were quite a few ordinary players in the IPL and ICL.
Meanwhile the Champion's League later this year might encourage a few teams who are not competitive at the four day game to pack their teams with all-rounders who can throw the bat and bowl a couple of overs each - players who are jacks of all trades rather than masters of one, in an attempt to get to the finals and get a share of the real money. The prize money and wages on offer with Twenty/20 has already surpassed that on on offer for winning the County Championship. This year's CC winner will get £100K, for winning and £60K for coming second and so on. Yet if the teams qualify for the Champion's League final these sums will look like pennies, so what do the County sides focus on? The County Championship, played in front of a few hundred dribbling pensioners or Twenty/20 with bigger audiences? Put like that it seems easy, but the loser will be that the game will stop developing players with the ability to play the longer form of cricket and therefore it'll hit the status of the Test side. It's the equivalent if you like of the FA Cup being worth far more than winning the Premiership. Also it can create a rift in the Test side, players like Kevin Pietersen, Andy Flintoff and one or two others will be earning big money, how does Michael Vaughan who isn't much of a one day player manage them if they are earning vastly more than he does?
Cricket is changing, but the guys in charge have to manage that change but there are too many fingers in the pot and competing interests for that to happen in an ordered fashion.
Great post BFR. Although I'm a Ashes 05 cricket plastic, I definitely prefer tests to limited over matches. It will be a shame if cricket got dominated by a code that features a bowl out...
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He's lived 20 years in Antigua. So he's really Caribbean
The longer forms of cricket are, from an audience perspective, in decline, except Test Match cricket in England and Australia. County Championship matches attract meagre crowds except for the corporate hospitality brigade. 20/20 has just widened to support base hugely. My nine year old lad is becoming intereted in cricket, although he has the concentration span of a gnat. I am thinking of taking him to a 20/20 game if I can organise it this season because it's so vibrant and instant and requires little understanding of the nuances of the longer games.
On a wider front though, it seems to me though, that cricketers needs to hone their skills in the longer forms of the game, to enable them to function effectively in 20/20 - so I hope that the money now coming into the game doesn't screw all this up. It's going to require some careful handling so it supplements and doesn't surplant other forms of the game.
This season's England-NZ series would have been a lot more competitive if the Kiwis had picked players like Styris, Fleming and Bond, all of whom preferred retirement from their Test team in favour of either the IPL or the rebel ICL. In England Chris Read, arguably the best wicketkeeper in England has already taken that route. It's possible that say Flintoff who might never play Test cricket again after a run of injuries might say sod it I'll take one of the many offers that he must have had and disappear off to play in the IPL rather than get himself fit. Supporters of these tournaments will argue that the attraction of these tournaments is that they drag in the Test stars, therefore international cricket will prosper because there is a financial reward for becoming a Test player, but there were quite a few ordinary players in the IPL and ICL.
Meanwhile the Champion's League later this year might encourage a few teams who are not competitive at the four day game to pack their teams with all-rounders who can throw the bat and bowl a couple of overs each - players who are jacks of all trades rather than masters of one, in an attempt to get to the finals and get a share of the real money. The prize money and wages on offer with Twenty/20 has already surpassed that on on offer for winning the County Championship. This year's CC winner will get £100K, for winning and £60K for coming second and so on. Yet if the teams qualify for the Champion's League final these sums will look like pennies, so what do the County sides focus on? The County Championship, played in front of a few hundred dribbling pensioners or Twenty/20 with bigger audiences? Put like that it seems easy, but the loser will be that the game will stop developing players with the ability to play the longer form of cricket and therefore it'll hit the status of the Test side. It's the equivalent if you like of the FA Cup being worth far more than winning the Premiership. Also it can create a rift in the Test side, players like Kevin Pietersen, Andy Flintoff and one or two others will be earning big money, how does Michael Vaughan who isn't much of a one day player manage them if they are earning vastly more than he does?
Cricket is changing, but the guys in charge have to manage that change but there are too many fingers in the pot and competing interests for that to happen in an ordered fashion.