The Future of Cricket

Critics and experts of cricket are rapidly joining the vast debate regarding the future of cricket. The recent inaugural Indian Premier League crudely forced glamour and 'razzmatazz' into the forefront of the world cricket scene, with excitement and money being the most important aspect of a tournament which, as far as players are concerned, read as a who's-who of the game. The tournament was preceded by a bidding war between the rich owners of each team, trying to lure the most talented and marketable players to their teams in an attempt to secure instant success.

The entire concept was frighteningly similar to the soccer bidding wars where all the richest clubs frequently make multi-million pound/euro/dollar deals to try to build the best squads. This kind of thing was relatively unfamiliar in cricket until the 'IPL' started earlier this spring. Players either declared themselves available to the Indian owners (and risk criticism from their own national coaches and peers), or concentrated on their regular domestic game, enabling themselves to see what it was like before maybe offering themselves next season.

The tournament lasted about a month, and this has been received both positively and negatively. People ask if it sustainable in such a short format - which currently resembles most sports' World Cup format - where others argue that it went on too long. There surely can be no question of milking the popularity by making the competition longer than necessary, as many tickets were simply given away to the Indian public, meaning the only people to gain financially were the players. The idea of a cricket 'dream team' is very apparent here, where the person in charge has so much to spend and goes about taking their pick of the world's best players. Despite this concept being a million miles away from domestic county cricket in which young players are nurtured into physical and mental maturity, you cannot deny the excitement brought by having the most talented players battling it out in an intense, big-money competition.

The game-play takes its format directly from the English-invented Twenty20 version of the game - which is a short, sharp version of regular One Day Internationals, concentrating on fast run-scoring and no quiet patches during game-play. This alone has raised questions over the sustainability of the traditional 4/5-day game - with coaches and chairmen openly stating that a single domestic Twenty20 Cup match generates more revenue than an entire County Championship season of 4-day matches.

If the longer form of the game is to carry on, there need to be some big, clever ideas from the guys at the top, because it is difficult to see how it could continue when young cricket fans are turning straight to the shorter matches.

I personally believe that Test Cricket, in essence, has a future as it is considered the most important part of the game. However, the domestic 4-day game may have its days numbered. Crowds are minuscule compared to those of the Twenty20 Cup games, and as money becomes a bigger issue with more IPL seasons going into the book, I believe Cricket may be changing permanently. Whether it is a good change or not is really a matter of opinion, but I sense an air of inevitability about it, and expect to see the new versions of the game evolving further until it more closely resembles the 'Champions League' and 'World Club Championships' in football, and Rugby's 'Heineken Cup'.

I can see a lot of people not being totally happy about this, so they will have to work hard to ensure that the traditional forms of the game can continue.