Pinch hitting and penny pinching, and the rise of money in cricket

Australia is just now starting to recover from Ashes fever. We have all been captivated, and frankly relieved, by the national cricket team's return to form. Gaining less attention on the back pages is the most significant change to cricket's governance since Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket. This on the back of recent changes to fetch larger broadcast right revenue in Australia, and new findings of corruption in the Indian Premiere League (IPL) should make fans question if financial gain is being put ahead of the game itself.

A document leaked in January this year revealed the plans of a "working group" comprising Indian, English and Australian cricket boards to gain a larger portion of the game's revenue and more power within cricket's ruling body the International Cricket Council (ICC). These "Big Three" boards are already the wealthiest, and are now pushing through reforms to gain UN Security Council-like veto on any decisions made by the ICC, previously made by equal votes of all member nations.

The proposed reforms are being spearheaded by the Indian cricket board (BCCI) and its head, the Indian cement magnate Narayanaswami Srinivasan.

India is responsible for between 60%-70% of the game's revenue, and is essential for the game's functioning. Playing India is payday for the cricket boards of other countries, sustaining their local competitions. As such, the BCCI is using a financial carrot-and-stick approach with individual boards, as well as threatening what would be tournament cancelling withdrawals from the ODI and T20 World Cups if its demands are not met.

This approach - which Shadra Ugra, Senior Editor at ESPNCricinfo, described as "blackmail" - is proving effective. On the 8^th of February the ICC passed a resolution containing the core components of the leaked document, with only the Sri Lankan and Pakistani cricket boards abstaining to vote.

The ICC marked the passing of the resolutions giving the Indian, English and Australian boards a greater proportion of revenue and power with the statement:

Full Members will gain greater financial recognition based on the contribution they have made to the game, particularly in terms of finance, their ICC history and their on-field performances in the three formats.

Cricket is a game known for its quirks and pomp and ceremony, arising from the game's long tradition. In recent years there has been a tension between cricket's traditional 5-day Test match format,which dates back to 1877, and the new "action-packed" Twenty20 (T20) format, which had its augural international match in 2005. Cricket lovers have watched nervously to see if these two w rs have watched nerviously hich dates back to of revenue and power with the statement: "formats will synergise; with the purist hoping the integrity of the 5-day game will remain intact, as the casual viewer is enticed by the big-hits and frequent wickets of the considerably shortened 20-over-aside T20 format. Caught somewhere in the middle is Kerry Packer's invention: the 50-over-aside One-Day format.

Close followers of the game generally agree that the Test match is the ultimate measure of mettle and is decisive in arbitrating who is the better team or player. The shorter formats while definitely requiring an impressive, yet slightly different, set of skills can be highly influenced by luck or the good performance of one or two players.

Some commentators have seen the coup in the ICC as benevolent, helping to grow the Test game, with part of the deal being to set up funds to support Test cricket through to 2023 and to support a pathway for new nations to play Test matches. For instance, former English captain Mark Butcher, talking to ESPN's Switch Hit program, expounded a hopeful view of the changes:

Do the other boards deserve to take the riches of the big boards who have taken better care of their business? Perhaps not.

Going on to argue that the Big Three, have seemingly proven themselves better custodians of the financial side of the sport.

However, there is good reason to be wary of how these changes will affect Test cricket. The tension between the formats is a financial one, and in recent times the dollar and rupee has spoken loudest.

Only the Big Three turn a profit on Test cricket; a format which takes a large amount of time and effort to stage and which wraps-up players for an extended period of time. For the smaller boards, the return is not great and is often a loss, especially compared to the T20 format which garners many casual viewers.

In the strictest sense, a board like New Zealand would find it much more cost-effective to have a player like the dynamic wicketkeeper-batsmen Brendon McCullum playing three T20 matches rather than one Test match. In this year's IPL auction he alone fetched a cool $525,000 USD, and when he plays for his T20 IPL team the Chennai Super Kings he'll be playing in front of more than 50,000 spectators; ironically, far more than the number of spectators he played in front of when New Zealand posted a historic win over India in the first Test across five-days at the beginning of the month.

Early indications of a preference for the lucrative money of the short formats over the Test format are the new regime's scraping of the proposal of a Test championship in favour of a reinstatement of the One-Day competition played by leading nations: The Champion's Trophy.

It is also revealing to see that in the leaked document, the Big Three had proposed a two-tier Test competition where they (the biggest earners) could not be relegated to the second tier. That is, that no matter their on-field results, India, Australia and England could not go down a division in the mused competition. That's not how sport is supposed to work, but it is technically good business.

But perhaps the biggest source of anxiety is simply the uncertainty that comes with knowing that now the whims of Indian cricket are going to be far more influential in structuring the world game. And if there is one board where greed and short-term gain prevail, recent evidence has shown, it is the BCCI.

N Srinivasan, the master-mind of the reforms to the ICC, is the president of the BBCI and current Chairman of the ICC. He is an ardent capitalist in his business life, having orchestrated hostile takeovers of rival companies in the cement game, where he made his name. He has a case pending against him in the Indian Supreme Court on the basis of conflict of interest, drawing from his dual roles as administrator of the BCCI and owner of IPL team the Chennai Super Kings. Of course, the BCCI had regulations against administrators gaining financially from BCCI competition, but further allegations suggest Srinivasan used his position to circumvent that clause. He is also accused of other instances of corruption to do with his business practices outside cricket.

Srinivasan's son-in-law, also a team official for the Chennai Super Kings, was last week indicted for passing on sensitive information to bookies during the 2013 IPL. This following a report into the IPL which contains allegations of spot-fixing, and as Indian police continue an investigation into a match between the Rajistan Royals the Super Kings last year. If these allegations pan-out we can only hope that these preferences for capital over cricket aren't transported to the international game.

Cricket Australia (CA) was perhaps the only board which could have stood up to the BCCI in these proposals but instead has fallen in line and joined them, taking the opportunity to further increase their financial share of the game's wealth. This is perhaps not surprising given the changes CA has made to its domestic competitions in search of larger broadcast revenue.

Again jeopardising the long form game, CA has season split-up the traditional Sheffield Shield competition into two halves, and placed the highly marketed - "flat-cap" and trampolinist-filled KFC Big Bash T20 competition in the middle. This moves the cash cow 20-over competition into the prime period of the cricket season with our four-day competition floundering at the edges.

This is a transparent - and apparently successful - move to gain large media deals. As is plain to see when you turn on to watch the BBL you often hear players on the field talking to the commentary team; sometimes even in-between balls while batting. As far as I'm aware, this is the only sport where players are expected to commentate and compete at the same time.

We have already experienced the difficulty this change in scheduling creates, because when it comes to selecting and preparing players for Test matches there is no long-form domestic cricket on offer. It also has an effect on the development of young players. The BBL franchise and state cricket team are different entities, with the former paying more than the later. The BBL further opens the door to even more financial incentives by giving young players a platform on which to be selected for the IPL - where players can earn over a million dollars US for three months work!

Learning to tonk the ball on a flat-pitch will get you a far larger payday than learning to go the distance and grind-out a score in difficult conditions - as is often needed in Tests. And in the last few seasons we have seen few centuries scored and fewer games go into the fourth day in the Sheffield Shield than has been the case in recent memory.

We have to ask what Cricket Australia's priorities are: is it securing the largest profit or the future of test match cricket in Australia?

While all this has been taking place, the WACA cricket ground - one of the game's most iconic pitches and hallowed home of Denis Lillee - faces financial uncertainty and real questions over its continuation as a test ground. All the pyrotechnics and chart-music blaring between deliveries in the BBL have successfully increased cricket's profile, but you have to wonder if similar effort was put into marketing the Sheffield Shield could the long-form game also grow under the spotlight?

There are seismic shits occurring in cricket at the moment. The recent influx of new money generated by T20 cricket and the rapid development of India seem to have brought with it issues which often accompany windfalls. There is no reason why these changes cannot be positive for the sport, in the same way the Packer revolution was ultimately beneficial in growing the game. However, we should also be vigilant not to compromise the tradition or integrity of the oldest form of the game. We should not lose sight of the fact that the role of money is to sustain the game for the fans, and that the sport is not a means to gain profit for the game's administrators. Now more than ever, cricket needs its fans to cast their attention on those in charge, as should always be the case when leaders ask for more money and power.