Cricket 2.0

by Tim Wigmore

  A T20 World Cup will be played in the US in the 2020s

  Cricket’s administrators have looked wistfully to the US market for years. But the climate there has never been more promising. The number of immigrants from India alone rose to 2.4 million by 2015, buttressed by others from cricket-playing areas in the Caribbean and the rest of the Asian subcontinent. The USA team secured one-day international status in 2019, opening up new sources of funding. The ICC has overseen a transformation in the quality of governance of US cricket. So the chance to galvanise – and monetise – the sport in the US has never been greater. Indeed, huge amounts could be made from the existing US market, even without growing it – the US is the second biggest market for ESPNcricinfo, for instance.

  Compared to other global sports, cricket has been extraordinarily insular in where it has staged its global events. While Japan hosted the 2019 Rugby World Cup, China the 2019 Basketball World Cup, and the 2018 Football World Cup was staged in Russia, all major men’s global events from 2016 to 2023 were awarded to Australia, England or India.

  The T20 World Cup represents the best chance of opening up events to new frontiers. While much work would need to be done on infrastructure, at some point in the 2020s the ICC could dare to stage the T20 World Cup in the US in the hope of unlocking new cash and globalising the sport. But the idea has burgeoning support among some of the most influential countries in the sport. ‘I would love to take a T20 World Cup to the US – I think it would be a brilliant thing to do,’ said Tom Harrison, England’s chief executive.

  The system of drafts and auctions will evolve

  The IPL’s auction system is not designed to spread talent around most efficiently. Instead, it is designed to be compelling entertainment – compelling TV – something in which it succeeds spectacularly. But among some franchises, there is a wish for the system to evolve.

  ‘I hope we’ll get away from these auctions,’ said Venky Mysore, chief executive of Kolkata Knight Riders. ‘As the league has reached the stage of maturity the weightage that one has to give to continuity is very high – the connection with the team, the city, the fan base and everything else. I’d like to see a different system perhaps – maybe a mini-draft, more trading and loans, rather than a full-scale auction where you undergo significant churn of the team. We have to get to that next phase now I think.’

  A new system – say, of elite international players still taking part in the auction, but lesser players being recruited separately by teams – would change the dynamics of the IPL, and other T20 leagues which use a draft system. This would create more continuity in teams, and prevent teams losing all bar a handful of their players during the big auctions, every three or four years, which would encourage teams to focus more on improving the players they already had, rather than merely signing better ones. If teams could retain more players they would be more inclined to develop their contracted players. An intimation of this was hinted at after the 2019 IPL season when Mumbai Indians’ injured fast bowler Alzarri Joseph spent close to four months recovering in Mumbai where he was nurtured by the team’s support staff.

  Teams will become more sophisticated in their talent identification

  Since the creation of the Pakistan Super League, the Lahore Qalandars team have conducted trials for young players throughout Pakistan, which several hundred thousand players are believed to have taken part in. They have uncovered talented overlooked players, including the exciting fast bowler Haris Rauf, in this way.

  Only, there is a snag: teams are only allowed to sign players who don’t play in the Pakistani professional system before the draft. That creates an incentive problem: one team could do all the talent scouting, and rivals could benefit from this by picking up these players in the draft. Similar handicaps impede teams from ambitious talent identification and development programmes in other leagues, including the IPL.

  Some teams in the biggest leagues already employ scouts full-time, like football clubs, to scour emerging talent. If the recruitment system is tweaked to allow clubs to be sure to benefit from the talent they uncover then teams would have more incentive to invest in finding new talent. That could mean a surge in academies and innovative talent identification schemes within the countries that teams are based.

  More elite players from non-traditional countries

  With the auction system as it stands, one IPL team could build a swanky academy in Nepal, say – but the talent produced would be equally open to all teams. If the system is tweaked, it would incentivise teams to invest in proactively developing and improving talent in foreign countries to improve their side.

  An alternative model is also possible. The NBA has academies dotted around the world, in Australia, China, India, Mexico and Senegal, funded centrally by the league. With imagination, cricket’s biggest T20 leagues could do the same. The IPL creating academies in, say, Canada, the US and Germany could unearth talent that would grow the league in these markets, and so make the league’s economics even more profitable.

  T20 will develop its own language

  During this first era of T20 the format has suffered both in media perception and in tactical reality because of comparisons to longer forms of cricket. So far T20 has almost exclusively been described and understood using a framework and a language inherited from longer forms of the game.

  As a result there is a chasm between the level of conversations that happen in teams and the more simplistic conversations about decision-making that take place outside the changing room.

  Conveying T20’s messages and stories will be greatly enhanced by the development of a separate strategic and tactical vocabulary specifically for T20, similar to that now common in football coverage. While we have begun to see this in T20 with concepts such as ‘front-loading’ which means to adopt an aggressive, top-heavy batting strategy in the Powerplay, these terms are rare and scarcely used. An evolution of T20 terminology will showcase the format’s nuances, complexities and skills.

  T20 will be cricket’s gateway to the Olympics

  In 1900, Devon and Somerset Wanderers, representing Great Britain, beat the French Athletic Club Union in a cricket match in Paris. Twelve years later, this game was officially recognised as being part of the 1900 Olympic Games. It remains the only game of cricket to take place in the Olympics.

  In 2009, rugby sevens rejoined the Olympics, effective from the 2016 Games. The benefits have dwarfed all of World Rugby’s expectations: rugby has received around an extra £25 million every four-year cycle from national Olympic committees since rejoining, as well as extra sponsorship and support from local government. Most significant has been the exposure gained through being an Olympic sport – both in the Games themselves and in qualification for it – which has boosted participation in the men’s and, especially, women’s game around the world.

  Rugby’s surge has highlighted cricket’s curious position as being the only major sport not in the Games. For a long time it was this way because it didn’t want to be, with England historically staunchly opposed, arguing that it would cause disruption to their home summer once every four years. England are now declared supporters of joining the Games. ‘T20’s got a huge role to play in the future,’ said Harrison. ‘I’d like to see the ICC – and we’re huge believers in this – adopt a proper strategy to get into the Olympic Games.’

  That just leaves India as a potential obstacle. Virtually every other board – even Scotland and the West Indies, whose cricket players would be represented under different banners at the Olympics – are strong proponents of joining the Games, convinced of the potential to galvanise the sport in emerging nations. In Germany, for instance, cricket would receive £750,000 a year just by dint of being an Olympic sport, compared to about £150,000 a year from the ICC. And the International Olympic Committee, who are keen to grow the Olympics in South Asia are also known to be keen.

  T20 is the most probable avenue for cricket to join the Games. The most likely format, in both men’s and
women’s cricket, seems to be of two groups of four – with the identities of the nations decided by pre-qualifying – progressing to the semi-finals and finals. It could be a seminal moment for cricket.

  APPENDIX I

  AN INTRODUCTION TO T20 CRICKET

  Twenty20 (T20) cricket is a format of cricket established at professional level in 2003. It has since transformed the way the game is played on the pitch and the economics of the sport off it.

  T20 is named as such because each team bats for 20 overs. In cricket, an over is made up of six balls, meaning each team has an allocation of 120 balls. Each team bats once and the team with the highest score wins. A team in T20, as in other formats of cricket, is made up of 11 players.

  T20 is a game defined by resources and trade-offs.

  The resource for the batting team is balls – they have 120 balls in which to score as many runs as they can. However, as attacking intent increases, the risk of the batsman getting out also increases. This means that the batting team have to manage risk appropriately to ensure that their pursuit of runs does not come at the cost of losing wickets so regularly that they are bowled out inside their 20 overs. This balance between run-scoring (attack) and wicket-preservation (defence) is the trade-off facing the batting team.

  The resource for the bowling team is their bowlers. In T20, bowlers are not permitted to bowl more than four overs each. So for a bowling team to complete their 20 overs they need to use at least five bowlers. As with the batsmen, the bowlers are faced with a similar trade-off between looking to take wickets (attack) and looking to save runs (defence). Generally certain lengths – very full or very short – take wickets at a faster rate but concede runs at a faster rate.

  The difficulty with the bowling team managing their resource of bowlers is that players who are good at both batting and bowling are often difficult to find and, therefore, players who can do both well – known as all-rounders – are rare and precious. Picking five strong bowlers typically compromises the depth of the batting. This effort to find the best balance between batting and bowling depth is at the heart of T20 strategy.

  T20 matches take about three hours to play and it is this shorter time period which makes the T20 format the most accessible form of the game for fans because it can be played, for example, in an evening after work, whereas longer forms of cricket typically take all day and can be played across multiple days.

  T20 matches are generally thought to consist of three phases. The first is the Powerplay phase which lasts for six overs at the start of the innings. During this period, the fielding team are only allowed two fielders outside the 30-yard fielding circle – these fielding restrictions are designed to encourage the batsmen to attack and take risks in search of early runs. Generally fast bowlers operate in this phase, although the proportion of overs bowled by spinners in the Powerplay has risen through T20 history.

  After the end of the Powerplay, the fielding team are permitted five fielders outside the 30-yard circle. Although these field restrictions remain in place for the remainder of the innings, the last 14 overs are typically thought of in two phases: the middle-overs, between overs 7 and 15; and the death-overs, from overs 16 and 20. Generally the middle-overs see the batsmen take slightly fewer risks than in the Powerplay, adapting to the new field restrictions and typically an increase in the proportion of overs bowled by spinners. From around the 15th over, the batting team begins to increase their attacking intent in the death-over phase, at which point the proportion of overs bowled by quick bowlers increases once more. These patterns are not fixed, of course, and different teams adopt different methods – but they are broadly reflective of the shape of a typical T20 innings.

  Pace bowling lengths

  Fielding positions (right-handed batsman)

  APPENDIX II

  A TIMELINE OF T20 HISTORY

  April 2002 – England’s 18 first-class counties narrowly vote to create a new 20-over format, in response to dwindling interest in the game.

  June 2003 – The first season in T20 history begins in England. The rain stays away – all 48 matches in 2003 were played to a conclusion – and the crowds flock to games, vaulting past the organisers’ hopes. Other countries soon create T20 leagues of their own.

  August 2004 – The first women’s T20 international is played, between England and New Zealand in Hove.

  February 2005 – The first men’s T20 international is played, between New Zealand and Australia in Auckland. New Zealand’s players dress up in retro kits and outfits for the occasion. ‘I think it’s difficult to play seriously,’ Australia’s captain Ricky Ponting says after scoring 98 not out.

  September 2007 – The first T20 world championship – initially called the World Twenty20, and later named the T20 World Cup – is held in South Africa. India initially did not want to take part, but beat Pakistan in a memorable final.

  September 2007 – Two days into the first WT20, the Indian board announce the creation of the Indian Premier League, featuring eight new teams in India, and a Champions League for the best T20 club sides from around the world.

  February 2008 – At the first IPL auction – a made-for-TV spectacle – £21 million is spent on players on the first day alone. Even before the teams have any players, the Indian board sell the TV rights for £500 million, over 10 years, and the eight teams for £367 million, payable to the board over a decade.

  April 2008 – Brendon McCullum scores 158 not for Kolkata Knight Riders in the first-ever IPL game. The great Australian leg spinner Shane Warne captains Rajasthan Royals – the team with the smallest budget – to the inaugural IPL title.

  November 2008 – The full England team play a $20 million, winner-takes-all, match against the Stanford Superstars, a team created by Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford, which England view as an alternative to their players featuring in the IPL. England lose by 10 wickets. Three months later, Stanford is charged with fraud on a huge scale, leading to his 110-year imprisonment in the US.

  October 2009 – The first Champions League tournament is held, a year late after being rescheduled due to the Mumbai terrorist attacks. New South Wales beat unfancied Trinidad and Tobago in the final.

  December 2011 – The first season of the Big Bash League begins in Australia, as the eight-team T20 tournament replaces the previous domestic T20 league, run on traditional state lines and featuring only six sides. It proves a great success; by 2018/19, the league has increased from 31 games to 59

  April 2013 – Chris Gayle hits a record 175 not out playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore in an IPL match in Bangalore.

  June 2015 – The owners of Kolkata Knight Riders buy the Trinidad and Tobago franchise in the Caribbean Premier League, who they later rename Trinbago Knight Riders.

  July 2015 – The Champions League is scrapped with immediate effect. The tournament had struggled to generate viewing figures to justify broadcasters’ outlays, with figures for games not involving Indian sides consistently poor.

  July 2015 – Chennai Super Kings, IPL champions in both 2010 and 2011, are suspended from the league for two years, along with Rajasthan Royals, by the Indian board, after being found guilty in a probe into illegal betting and match-fixing.

  January 2016 – A record 80,000 fans watch the Melbourne derby between Melbourne Stars and Melbourne Renegades in the Big Bash League, breaking the previous record for any Australian domestic match by 28,000.

  February 2016 – After two failed launches, the inaugural Pakistan Super League is played. In the first season all matches were contested in the UAE due to security concerns in Pakistan, but that started to change over the coming seasons.

  April 2016 – West Indies become the first team to win two T20 World Cups, after Carlos Brathwaite hits four consecutive sixes during an extraordinary final over in Kolkata.

  February 2017 – Rashid Khan is one of two Afghan players signed in the first IPL auction, the first-ever time that Afghans have been signed by a major league. Rashid exc
els in his first season.

  September 2017 – The new broadcasting and digital rights for the IPL sell for £2 billion over five years – an annual increase of about three times on the worth of the previous contracts. This means that, from 2018–23, 71% of the Indian board’s total broadcasting rights come from the IPL, and only 29% from their home internationals. For the first time ever, each IPL match costs more per game than each Indian home game.

  April 2018 – The England and Wales Cricket Board, who had failed to get an elite English Premier League featuring nine T20 teams passed in 2008, announce the creation of a new eight-team competition. It will be played in a new 100-ball format, launching in 2020.

  April 2018 – The International Cricket Council announces that all men’s T20 international games, beginning in January 2019, will have full international status, putting cricket in line with other sports and helping such games attract more attention. All women’s T20 internationals are granted full international status immediately.

  APPENDIX III

  ALL TIME T20 XI, 2003–2019

  1) Chris Gayle

  The Bradman of T20, Gayle is the most prolific batsman in the format’s history and a monolithic presence in the first age of T20. The hulking left-hander had a penchant for starting his innings slowly but with thunderous hitting against pace and spin he was easily capable of catching up at a rapid pace. His awesome power – both through natural timing and sheer strength – enabled him to clear even the largest of boundaries with apparent ease. His destructive batting more than made up for his below-par fielding.

  2) David Warner (captain)

  Warner is arguably the only player who could challenge Gayle as the greatest IPL opener of all time. At full capacity, the Australian left-hander was not quite as dominant as Gayle but he would get up to speed far quicker and was more consistent. Warner’s rapid running between the wickets gave his game versatility that Gayle’s sometimes lacked. He was also an astute captain, guiding Sunrisers Hyderabad to the IPL title in 2016 and particularly adept at defending low totals; Cricket Australia’s ban on Warner assuming a national leadership role need not apply here.