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The World T20 is currently underway in India. Eight teams, including Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, were required to compete in a qualifying round in order to gain entry into the main league, which is known as the Super 10. The problem with this design is that it guarantees minimal participation of the Associate members in the lucrative core phase of the tournament.
If we consider T20 international games played over the last 12 months, Bangladesh have won 7 out of their last eleven games against the top 8 teams (hereinafter referred to as the Big Eight) who have automatic qualification for the Super 10. Bangladesh’s record against the Big Eight during this period is second only to Australia's. If we consider the last 24 months, Bangladesh have won 8 and lost 10 out of 19 T20 internationals against the Big Eight. Only India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have done better.
Under the current system, six non-Test-playing nations have to compete for two spots in the main tournament, with Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
Given Bangladesh’s record, this means that seven teams are effectively competing for one spot. Should Bangladesh fail to qualify because of an upset or because of some strange calculus due to rain interruptions, it will mean that the main tournament will be deprived of one of the form sides because of one bad game.
Does cricket exist to make money? Or does it make money in order to grow and be available to more and more people in the world as a sport?
The list of T20 results against the Big Eight reveals other disturbing facts too. Over the last two years, Ireland, Scotland, Afghanistan and U.A.E. have played a combined 20 T20 internationals against the Big Eight. And Scotland and Ireland are basically a day trip away from England, which receives at least two — sometimes three — top teams every year for a full series in one or more formats. U.A.E. hosts Pakistan and the ICC itself. Afghanistan basically play in the U.A.E. Yet, nobody seems to be willing to play them. The Netherlands have it even worse. They have played 1 game against a Big Eight side in the last 3 years.
Preston Mommsen, Scotland’s veteran captain pointed all this out in his press conferences this week. On March 10, after Scotland’s game against Zimbabwe, he observed: “I do go on about it, but there is a lack of international cricket for us. Since the 2015 World Cup I have played in one ODI match — in 12 months. So, you tell me how I'm going to improve my skills and develop as a cricketer. That definitely has something to do with it. Playing under pressure, being exposed to a higher level of skill, exposed to different conditions, you know it all adds up, every little percentage. You know unfortunately that's just the way it is and we try and handle it in the best way we can. However, it probably does take its toll."
He went on to make a crucial point about Associate Cricket. "We don't have just bilateral one-day series where we can go and experience different conditions, different elements and play different teams. That's not part of Associate cricket. Associate cricket is about winning at all costs, and unfortunately that's just the nature of the beast, and it is a beast."
The standard of cricket at the highest level is extremely difficult to achieve and even more difficult to sustain. The bilateral series is absolutely essential to maintaining such standards. If India had not received Test tours from West Indies, Australia and England after World War II, there might never have been a Sunil Gavaskar or a Bishen Singh Bedi. In the 25 years from 1945 to 1970, India played 109 Tests and a further 131 first class fixtures on tour. Over those 25 years, the best players in India were able to play 10 matches per year, on average, against first class quality opposition (or Test quality opposition) from outside India. India won only 15 of those 109 Tests (3 out of 43 Tests on tour). But they got invaluable experience and built up institutional memory and cricketing capacity which made the Gavaskars and the Kapil Devs possible. And remember, these are not T20 or ODI games. They are First-Class games, played over 3-5 days each.
Over time, India’s best players improved and became clearly better than the First-Class teams in England and Australia, and in 1971, beat England in England and West Indies in West Indies. In 1981 they came away with a split series against a truly great Australian side that included the Chappells, Lillee, Marsh, Hughes and others. In 1983, they won a World Cup. That year they beat West Indies thrice. The rest is history.
Compare this to the prospects of the Associates. Since 1975, 13 Associate teams (excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabwe) have played 204 games (ODI or T20) against the Big Eight. If we only look at the 21st Century, things have not improved.
Since 2001, 9 different Associate teams have played a total of 167 ODI or T20 games against the Big Eight.
That’s 1.2 matches per team per year.
Take away the ICC tournaments, and 6 different Associate teams have played 62 games against the Big Eight.
That’s 0.68 matches per team per year.
If we consider only bilateral games, then 6 different Associate teams have played 39 games against the Big Eight.
That’s 0.43 matches per team per year.
Each limited overs game provides a small fraction of the opportunities and tests that a First-Class game or Test match might. Bowling four overs at Virat Kohli is not the same formative learning experience as bowling all day at Virat Kohli while he pummels a double hundred. For, that is the kind of experience which improves cricket. The next day, the wicket wears, and bowling at Kohli becomes a different experience.
The record suggests that the Big Eight have been shockingly neglectful of the emerging teams even though cricket is in better financial health than ever before. If the proposition that “financial well-being promotes generosity and the impulse to invest in growth” were being debated, then international cricket in the 21st Century would be a lethal case study for the side opposing the motion.
Greater wealth has meant that power has been concentrated and the game has contracted. The 1999 ODI World Cup featured 12 teams. By 2007 this had increased to 16. In the 2019 edition, only 10 teams will be allowed to participate in the tournament. In World T20s, the number of teams has nominally increased to 16 this year, but, as described above, entry in the main draw is basically limited to 10.
The Big Eight play unofficial warm-up games against each other instead of deigning to compete against the emerging teams in the preliminary rounds. What’s more, the World T20 used to be played once every 2 years. The next tournament is scheduled 4 years from now. In one fell swoop, the already limited opportunities available to the emerging teams, in an already limited format, have been halved.
Playing under pressure, being exposed to a higher level of skill, exposed to different conditions, you know it all adds up, every little percentage
~ Scotland cricket captain Preston Mommsen.
For all their faults, for all their vetoes, England and Australia were truly great proselytizers of cricket. They made today’s global game possible by touring and by hosting weak Indian, Pakistani and New Zealand teams at a time when they could so easily have stuck to playing the Ashes and the Wisden and Frank Worrell Trophies every other year. But they didn’t. They invited India, Pakistan and New Zealand and hammered them. It was the best thing that ever happened to India’s cricketers.
Cricket’s establishment could never be accused of radical progressivism, or even of being particularly interested in the greater good. But even by these standards, the record suggests that the established cricket nations of the 21st Century have not been nearly as generous as their predecessors from the 1950s and 60s, and this, in an era when cricket is wealthier and bigger than it has ever been.
Does cricket exist to make money? Or does it make money in order to grow and be available to more and more people in the world as a sport?
The establishment in the Big Eight does not currently need to make this choice. But it is a matter of existential importance for the sport. Mr. Mommsen is not just arguing for more opportunities for Associate teams. He is demanding that the game should confront this identity crisis cricket currently finds itself in.
You can either moan about how little you have or you can make the most of whatever you have. For the hungry, opportunity resides everywhere
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) >March 12, 2016
The issue of wealth distribution has engaged humanity for centuries. Cricket too needs to do more but scarcity can become a driver of intent
— Harsha Bhogle (@bhogleharsha) >March 12, 2016
The chorus of patronising advice (for instance, >from Mr. Bhogle ) that he and his Associate captain colleagues continue to receive represents the greatest challenge to the game since match-fixing. At least, with match-fixing it was not in doubt that fixing spots in the match or the outcome of matches was wrong. The logic of Cable TV profits is a significantly more insidious threat because it is an attempt to fix the terms of not just of the contest in a particular tournament, but also of the sport itself. If the sport has to be rescued from the fundamentalist tendencies of the business, then Mr. Mommsen has to ultimately prevail.
