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Greed is killing the game

Posted on | June 16, 2010 | No Comments

The Asia Cup is under way in Sri Lanka but does anyone outside the four countries taking part really care?

I’m not being disrespectful to India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, the others involved, but there are so many tournaments around the world that one-day internationals have now become just another game and nothing special at all.

When England played Australia it used to be a mouth watering event which took place once every four years in each country. But last summer we had the Ashes, T20s and five one day internationals, and now the Aussies are back this summer for another five ODIs and two T20s, they visit in 2012 for more ODIs and T20s and it’s the Ashes in 2013. So the only year they’re not in England is 2011 and what was once a special occasion is not any more.

It’s all too much and it’s taking its toll of the players. Australia started resting some of their team a while back, India do it now and England have started to do the same. But as soon as we get a break in the international calendar the IPL comes along, takes up six weeks and tired or not the players are going to go for the large sums of cash on offer.

The game has become just a money-go-round for players and administrators.

The men who run cricket in the various countries know the TV companies are queuing up and can’t get enough of it. It’s a sellers’ market because many of the satellite TV stations have between three and seven sports channels and they need to fill that air time. Cricket is ideal because a Test takes up six hours, a one-dayer seven and when you add on lunch and tea intervals, the pre match show and the post match discussion and analysis by us experts it easily rolls into a nine or ten hour slot. So the TV stations are mad keen to out-bid each other and the administrators know it’s easy money. All they need to do is ring round, arrange another competition (it doesn’t matter what it’s for) and just count the money as it rolls in. It’s got to the point of over-kill and now a one-day international is just another day at the office for the players.

This is the sadness of it all. Many of us who love the game want to see quality and it’s ridiculous that some players are totting up 500 ODIs in their career.

The administrators say they need the cash to feed the grass roots of the game and they produce figures to prove that’s what they’re doing. But, as Benjamin Disraeli said: “There are lies, damned lies and statistics”.

The part of the game that is suffering most is Tests and outside of England Test matches are played to nigh on empty grounds in some countries. They have suffered from this saturation coverage and eventually ODIs will too because people will say ‘we’ve seen it all before’.

But while TV is ready to pay there is no chance of it ending, particularly in Asia where cricket is so much more popular than golf, football, tennis or rugby.

You might have a favourite meal but you wouldn’t want it for breakfast, lunch and tea seven days a week. Too much of anything is no good and we’ve got to make cricket special again if that means putting cricket first and taking less money, then so be it.

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