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This week the ICC proposed to change the structure of international cricket from one constituted mainly by bilateral tours to one adhering to an ICC managed schedule which will result in a two-year global Test cycle.
For Test cricket, the proposed system will include a two-tier system with a top tier made up of nine teams and a bottom tier made up of three teams. The teams in the top tier will play each other at least once, in a series, over a two-year period, at the end of which there will be a play-off between the top two teams. In each two-year period, for instance, India will play a series against Australia; if the series in the first two-year period is held in India, the one in the next two-year period will be held in Australia.
In the proposed system, the length of each ‘series’ can be determined by the boards involved. If Sri Lanka and New Zealand want to play only one-off Tests, the ICC’s proposal will accept this as a valid series in its program.
The new system, it is argued, provides much needed “context” to the international calendar. One persistent trope among many cricket writers and journalists has been that bilateral series lack “context”. The acronym JAMODI (Just Another Meaningless One-Day International) was invented to illustrate this supposed idea. It is also argued that the new system is a sign that the ICC has realised the mistake of the so-called “Big Three” reforms of 2014. These reforms nullified the future tours program (FTP) to give the three biggest boards far greater control of their calendar. They also modified the ICC’s revenue-sharing model to make it less redistributive.
Traditionally, the ICC has expected that teams should play each other home and away once every four or five years. The proposed system amounts to little more than a restatement of this expectation. Apart from giving the one-off Test new legitimacy, it is difficult to see what is new in these proposals.
Whether or not the new proposals really amount to a reversal of the Big Three reforms, or even a radical departure from the present situation, is debatable. Assuming that a series is between one and five Tests in length, teams could expect to play somewhere between eight and 40 Tests in one cycle. If one-off Tests are considered valid, then a team could comply with the new system by playing eight Tests over a period of two years. Currently, teams average about 8-10 Tests per year. England consistently play more Test cricket than the average team.
Traditionally, the ICC has expected that teams should play each other home and away once every four or five years. The proposed system amounts to little more than a restatement of this expectation. Apart from giving the one-off Test new legitimacy, it is difficult to see what is new in these proposals.
The idea that an international cricket match needs to be part of some larger competition in order to gain meaning (“context”) is little more than a self-fulfilling claim. It amounts to saying that watching Ravichandran Ashwin bowl against Joe Root in a Test is not sufficiently interesting unless they’re competing for a prize which will be awarded two years from now. Worse, it could also be reasonably taken to mean that Ashwin and Root can be expected to play harder if they know that there’s a prize to be won two years from now. “Context” brings with it the conceit that asserts a thing is important only because some people think it is important — that a thing is trivial because some people think it is trivial.
Bilaterals, the more challenging
As a cricketing matter, for example, when India toured Australia for a bilateral 5-match ODI series in 2016, they faced Australia five times in about 15 days. By contrast, when India travelled to Australia for the 2015 World Cup, they played eight times in 41 days. Three of those eight games were against U.A.E., Ireland and Zimbabwe. A fourth was against Bangladesh. As a cricketing challenge, the bilateral series was a more difficult assignment than the World Cup. For that matter, India played a triangular series with England and Australia in Australia just before the 2015 World Cup. They faced each opponent twice over a period of 12 days. This was also a more difficult cricketing assignment compared to the World Cup.
The cricket in bilateral series is of a consistently higher standard than the cricket in multilateral global tournaments simply because the quality of the participants is consistent. So why do many writers and even administrators and sponsors claim that series without a larger ‘context’ are boring? Perhaps it is easier to market multilateral tournaments than it is to market bilateral series. Perhaps it is because the distribution of cricket’s markets is lopsided and unless unless a thing can be sold to the Indian market (the Ashes are the exception to this rule), it is less profitable than is acceptable to broadcasters.
‘Context’ seems to be an umbrella for legitimising an overall reduction in international cricket’s share of the cricketing calendar. The calendar is the only truly finite element in the cricket. There are only 365 days in the year and only certain months in the year when cricket can be played due to the weather. It is possible to find more players, set up more teams, and build new T20 leagues, as long as there are days in the calendar in which to play them. The best players in world still play international cricket, and having these players available for the leagues is essential. Hence, it is essential to discipline the international calendar.
The increase in the number of competitive international teams also increases the likelihood that the number of international fixtures will increase. This would be counter to the interests of franchise T20 leagues in England, Australia, India and elsewhere. These leagues have their own expansionist ambitions.
The Big Three reforms in 2014 were aimed at reducing the ICC’s control of the cricket calendar in two ways: first, by effectively nullifying the future tours program, and second, by reducing the extent to which the wealth created by cricket was redistributed. By making smaller nations more reliant on their capacity to generate income, it created incentives which ensured that these nations would play fewer Tests (which are less profitable than T20s). This in turn would create greater opportunities in the calendar for the three big boards to use for their own purposes.
The addition of “context” is best seen as a Trojan horse, and not as a major reform. There is a simple test to determine the seriousness of the ICC Chairman’s words. Shashank Manohar observed that “it is no secret that in our recent past the ICC has taken decisions that were in retrospect not always in the best interests of the game as a whole”. Arguably the most egregious of those decisions was the inclusion of only 10 Teams in the 2019 ODI World Cup. This could have been have been reversed. It would have meant re-negotiating contracts, but the tournament is still nearly 30 months away. Instead, what we have is a clear statement that, by design, the ICC will accept its major Test-playing members playing as few as eight Tests over a two-year period.
Even now, if the ICC makes two decisions, it could give a clear signal that it really intends to change. First, they should revise the design of the 2019 ODI World Cup to include 14 teams. Second, they should stipulate that for a series to be considered legitimate, it should involve at least 3 Tests. Until they do, it may serve the interests of the game better if the new proposals were not dubiously described as providing “context” to the international game.
