Big Bashed Up By Big Bucked Bullies

Cricket scheduling is the vexatious issue which will be the death of Test cricket.

No one seriously doubts the merits of ODI's and Twenty20 internationals. They are attractive, exciting and appeal to a broader audience which experience shows, will then be attracted back to the main game. Over the past three years, the ICC has been trying hard to put relevance back into the international program and a balance between the different forms of the game. Then along came the IPL, a collection of monied lesser visionaries, who unlike Kerry Packer, cared only for the rupees in the runs not the future in the fixtures. The best players were dragged from international tours, joining them late and fat on fast runs and stardom. Guys like Chris Gayle never recovered from the accolades and have become guns for hire, selling their body at any Twenty20 street corner. Dressed like tarts, they perform accordingly.

Now we have the Big Bash League, based conceptually on the Indian model, with teams based on Australian major cities as the lure to appeal to the tribalism in Australian sports fans. Over December/January, in the equivalent of Australian cricket prime time, the season has been handed over to Twenty20 cricket franchises for six weeks, whilst our Test team plays India. No first class cricket during that time and no level below the Tests for players to keep in nick in case of a call up or a demotion. That isn't the extreme end of the lunacy though, because not only will the Tests and the Big Bash run concurrently, but several fixtures will compete with each other on the same date. That hasn't happened since the Kerry Packer played Darth Vader and used Neville Wran's gate pass to get his World Series Cricketers onto the SCG. It is one of the worst examples of scheduling this correspondent has known. Why could this event not have taken place in late March/April or September/early October? Because it wouldn't make as much money then.

Its not the format that offends as much as the filthy lucre which underpins its entire existence. Shane Warne can spruik his desire to put something back into the game by returning from retirement to help younger players or to give the tournament profile but no one who watched his sun bleached face with its dentally enhanced smile talking with a spawning Damien Fleming can seriously believe there is anything to his much hyped return other than a great deal of money. High profile fiancées need more than beer and cheese toasties to be maintained in the manner they are accustomed.

The chart above shows how the international game has been rationalised. The dip in Tests this year was caused by six weeks of World Cup on the sub continent but its the rise and rise of privately franchised Twenty20 tournaments which represents the greatest scheduling pressure. This year alone, there have been more than 140 matches played with no ties to "normal cricket" organised by the controlling bodies of the game and yet, from the ICC down, authorities bend over forwards to accommodate the men in shiny suits when they step from their limos to throw left overs to the men who used run cricket.

This is the issue Cricket Australia must address. The rebuilding of the Test team is of secondary importance and even the skipper is saying so. The current Board structure is to be abandoned and the top positions have been cleared out in the biggest spring clean in the history of the game in this country. We have been told we have fresh faces and fresh ideas. The crucial factor isn't freshness but the right order of priorities. The Argus Review has given CA a suitable direction when it said in its report, 
"The panel is concerned that the introduction of separate structures and in particular, separate owners for Big Bash League teams may create problems in the future. Put simply, private owners will not have the same objectives as Cricket Australia, so introducing them to the Australian cricket system risks compromising the achievement of Cricket Australia's goal of being No 1 in Test cricket." 

Before we hand over the reigns to wealthy private interests looking to prostitute the game in order to pimp their bank accounts like all the gold teethed shysters who have gone before them in the world of professional sport, can we find some good men and better women who want to stand up for the proud traditions of those Baggy Greens soaked in the sweat and blood of champions. Can we ensure the primacy of Test cricket? In so doing, can we also make sure the Sheffield Shield and grade cricket nurseries are always full of babies who might have the opportunity of suckling on the mother's milk which tastes of Bradman, Chappelli, Trumper, Bannerman, Taylor and Benaud before they taste the froth, fizz and fast food diet of wham bam, thank you man, its over before you know it cricket.

Lalit Modi - would you buy a
used cricketer from this man?

Men like Lalit Modi are deciding the future of cricket. The creator of the the IPL and a silent partner in three of its teams, he has been implicated in match fixing in the tournaments since they began in 2008 and is generally considered one of the most corrupt men in world cricket. He was formerly the Vice President of the Indian Board, a handy place to launch his business venture into big money earnings from the game. Modi left India , supposedly in fear for his life but not before setting up several family members in strong earning capacities in IPL teams and pocketing US$80 million. It must make exile a little more bearable.

These are the like we are handing the game to by default. According to Edmund Burke and often quoted by Ian Chappell, "evil things happen when good men do nothing". The evil in this is obvious. Instead of holding onto its morality, CA has been lured into this proposal, believing it is in control. In doing so, it has spectacularly ignored the Argus Review Committee and the weight of evidence of the Indian experience.

My dear old Mum used to tell me life was about balance. There's a place for all the forms of cricket but someone, somewhere ... maybe some high performance whatsit or CEO whoseit ... needs to get off their highly paid backside and make decisions about the future of the game that are overwhelmed by the desire for Test cricket to be the game that is supported by all others. Allowing franchises to rule the roost is a sign we have already reached the thick end of the wedge ... the thin edge having been broken off by rebel tours to South Africa in the 1980's.

Unless we start to scaffold the longer and purer form of the game from grade cricket up, we won't have a Test cricket future. The real legends of cricket have always been those 40 year old (and older) blokes who keep playing past bad knees and common sense down in 4th grade so that youngsters might learn manhood with bat and ball in hand. In these days of shattered family life, this may be the only chance for boys to be exposed to fathering experiences. It isn't the filtering of shorter and shorter forms of the game down to grade cricket that is the problem but rather the increasing number of these games in the programming which is turning the legends to golf or the garden and heightening their disillusionment with changes to a game they have always seen as important.

Rush to the internet and buy "The Cricket Kings" for your Kindle or if you prefer the smell and feel of a book, find a bookshop that has more than the modern equivalent of penny dreadfuls and take it home to your place. Find a quiet corner, sup it up and understand why Test cricket must be saved for the sake of our heritage and our future.

You build the tallest structures from the ground up.

Get out the trowel and plumb line CA and get the rebuilding right.