Post by hhsussex on Feb 23, 2015 16:40:48 GMT
A number of themes converging in this report Black Caps to arrive late for England tests due to Indian Premier League .
Nine key New Zealand players have IPL contracts and the Lord's Test is due to begin on 21 May. Two four-day games against English counties, Somerset (May 8-11) and Worcestershire (May 14-17) will have to be played by a sub-strength squad, supplemented in some way not specified in the article.
Lindsay Crocker, head of operations, has tried to talk to the ECB about changing the tour itinerary but without success.
"the bottom line is some of our players have the chance to participate in the IPL and in order to be picked up we had to allow them a playing window. If we had truncated that it would have reduced their marketability. They can earn money in the IPL that we can't contemplate paying them."
So here we have a governing cricket body admitting that it can't afford to maintain a national team, effectively, whilst the ECB is expecting it to fulfil its schedule in order to ensure there are spectacles to fulfil media contracts and to fill expensive seats and consume catering. Those who play will have come straight from a month of white-ball cricket without any opportunity to adjust their game to red-ball, 5 day demands - not that it would probably make much difference to McCullum and one or two members of his team, who seem currently to have reached a plateau where they play the same game with spectacular results in every context.
Something is going to have to give here, and it is clear that the value of the brand is shifting from Team England, Team New Zealand, or for that matter Team Ruritania, to the individual player. There are echoes here of some of the issues that have divided the interests of some West Indies players from those of their board, and that probably explains Crocker's wary remark about not wishing to "reduce their marketability". There are also some parallels with the development and marketing of brand Pietersen, which the ECB handled much more clumsily and with ripples still spreading. If it becomes accepted that the franchised tournaments will always hold sway over national and local associations in their calls on star players, then how long will it be before the concept of Test rubbers dies away, perhaps to be replaced by one-off spectaculars?
That probably wouldn't worry India, whose finances are overwhelmingly based around the one-day game, and who now treat Tests as a bit of a side issue. Pakistan effectively play that way because of the security situation in their own country and the need to hold matches in the Gulf. West Indies threw in the towel long ago, and if the BCCI insist on their paying the full indemnity for their cancelled tour then the Board will probably dissolve altogether. That leaves England, Australia and South Africa, and the latter aren't exactly keen on playing too many Tests.
What will the ECB do to plug the holes in revenue if it can no longer promise 7 Tests and anything from 10-20 oneday matches every summer? It can't hold Ashes series every year, although they'd probably try it until people got bored. And if that money isn't available, then there goes the lifebelt for the county championship. Of course if it reached that stage then ECB would have to forget about central contracts and simply accept that they pick whoever is available based on whatever level of form they have achieved in any tournament they compete in worldwide. Ironically that might lead to a stronger, more competitive, England side, but from a much narrower pool of players and from a structure that, rather as Women's cricket has done, regards the first-class, extended, game as the exception rather than the rule.
Not much comfort here for those of us who have grown up with the county game and the concept of 5-Test series, but then the administrators, and not just those in England, have really sold the pass completely by letting the situation develop where they have no real control over the ethos of the game. Instead they have opted for the quick buck at every stage over the last 20 years, and now the end is in sight.
Nine key New Zealand players have IPL contracts and the Lord's Test is due to begin on 21 May. Two four-day games against English counties, Somerset (May 8-11) and Worcestershire (May 14-17) will have to be played by a sub-strength squad, supplemented in some way not specified in the article.
Lindsay Crocker, head of operations, has tried to talk to the ECB about changing the tour itinerary but without success.
"the bottom line is some of our players have the chance to participate in the IPL and in order to be picked up we had to allow them a playing window. If we had truncated that it would have reduced their marketability. They can earn money in the IPL that we can't contemplate paying them."
So here we have a governing cricket body admitting that it can't afford to maintain a national team, effectively, whilst the ECB is expecting it to fulfil its schedule in order to ensure there are spectacles to fulfil media contracts and to fill expensive seats and consume catering. Those who play will have come straight from a month of white-ball cricket without any opportunity to adjust their game to red-ball, 5 day demands - not that it would probably make much difference to McCullum and one or two members of his team, who seem currently to have reached a plateau where they play the same game with spectacular results in every context.
Something is going to have to give here, and it is clear that the value of the brand is shifting from Team England, Team New Zealand, or for that matter Team Ruritania, to the individual player. There are echoes here of some of the issues that have divided the interests of some West Indies players from those of their board, and that probably explains Crocker's wary remark about not wishing to "reduce their marketability". There are also some parallels with the development and marketing of brand Pietersen, which the ECB handled much more clumsily and with ripples still spreading. If it becomes accepted that the franchised tournaments will always hold sway over national and local associations in their calls on star players, then how long will it be before the concept of Test rubbers dies away, perhaps to be replaced by one-off spectaculars?
That probably wouldn't worry India, whose finances are overwhelmingly based around the one-day game, and who now treat Tests as a bit of a side issue. Pakistan effectively play that way because of the security situation in their own country and the need to hold matches in the Gulf. West Indies threw in the towel long ago, and if the BCCI insist on their paying the full indemnity for their cancelled tour then the Board will probably dissolve altogether. That leaves England, Australia and South Africa, and the latter aren't exactly keen on playing too many Tests.
What will the ECB do to plug the holes in revenue if it can no longer promise 7 Tests and anything from 10-20 oneday matches every summer? It can't hold Ashes series every year, although they'd probably try it until people got bored. And if that money isn't available, then there goes the lifebelt for the county championship. Of course if it reached that stage then ECB would have to forget about central contracts and simply accept that they pick whoever is available based on whatever level of form they have achieved in any tournament they compete in worldwide. Ironically that might lead to a stronger, more competitive, England side, but from a much narrower pool of players and from a structure that, rather as Women's cricket has done, regards the first-class, extended, game as the exception rather than the rule.
Not much comfort here for those of us who have grown up with the county game and the concept of 5-Test series, but then the administrators, and not just those in England, have really sold the pass completely by letting the situation develop where they have no real control over the ethos of the game. Instead they have opted for the quick buck at every stage over the last 20 years, and now the end is in sight.
