The IPL is a business, at the moment it will exist almost solely for the purposes of making money. Franchisees have invested heavily from the outset with this in mind. The league is driven by the money poured into it from advertisers and the franchisees themselves. The main factor behind this is the potential money that can be gained back from the burgeoning Indian middle classes.
The Stanford Twenty20 is the original Twenty20 superleague, but is largely a black hole for the riches of Alan Stanford. There is not money to be made in West Indies cricket at the moment, and the investments he has made have been largely benevolent. Without the man the league would not exist and would not survive. Commercially it is simply not viable.
So to the ECB; like fishing with dynamite, or the Pro40 league, criticising the ECB is hardly sport and is barely enjoyable any more. However the staggering incompetence with which they are reacting to the Twenty20 storm is a special treat.
My personal views on the IPL have not changed (see previous articles), but I am currently puzzled by the bizarre logic being applied by the ECB. They seem convinced, some would say justifiably, that the International game and the county game are doomed. A view I do not share, but I am prepared for a minute to indulge them. The reasons for this opinion is that the IPL is swimming in money and can offer England internationals, and county players astronomical sums to play in their league. In the face of such offers they conclude, everyone will join the IPL and the Test and county sides will be bereft of players.
Their response to this conclusion? Take a perfectly adequate domestic Twenty20 league, that is there, or there-abouts at saturation point and make it bigger. This, they reason, will have a dual effect; the first will be to suddenly capture the interest of vast majority of people in the UK who currently don't give a stuff about domestic cricket, including television companies. The second outcome will be that faced with a choice of $1m for 6 weeks work, or the chance to play Somerset 4 times (!!) in Twenty20 cricket, people like Kevin Pietersen will not even have a decision to make. If we rename Warwickshire "Birmingham" and Durham "Durham City" then surely we'll have people coming the other way! The only concern will be whether the IPL can keep enough players themselves to make their own tournament viable.
There was an episode of South Park once called "Underpants Gnomes". The underpants gnomes were running a business with a clear plan. Part A was "collect underpants. Part B was "???", Part C was "make lots of profit!". Its nice to know that the England Cricket Board has a similar corporate strategy.
Monday, 14 April 2008
ECB Misses the target once again
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Loudon for IPL?
Well, this story is entirely fictitious and not based in reality. Following the news that there will be a further IPL auction next week, which is expected to contain some as yet unknown, non-centrally contracted English based players I got to thinking about who these players might be.
It seems unlikely that they would be current contracted county players as they would require one of these fast-becoming famous, non-objection certificates, from their county. (Which incidentally I see as making it into the Oxford English by the end of the year, never mind Facebook, or IPhone, Non-Objection Certificate will be the word of 2008). Taking aside fully contracted players, that then, surely only leaves non-contracted county players, or ones signed on some kind of dodgy contract, specifically I would think performance/appearance related contracts. The theory being that if the county are showing less faith in said player then the contract must be easier to break on the part of the player. There may also be one or two players who as yet are not formally signed up to play for their county for the coming season.
This reasonable train of logic then led me onto conclude that Alex Loudon is going to take a holiday from his new job in the city and go and collect a tidy paycheck to play for the Rajasthan Royals. Remember, you read it here first.
Sunday, 24 February 2008
An Old mind trapped in a young head ponders the IPL
Abstract: IPL - load of gimmick based rubbish or not? I ponder the question, decide yes and put forward the theory no-one outside India will actually care about the games. (- There you go Tim)
First up I have to confess that this post is slightly off track for me, being as it doesn't directly relate to The Bears. However being as every other journo and bar-propping theorist is espousing views on the Indian Premier League and the future of cricket I thought it would be remiss of me not to take up the baton myself.
Firstly I want to pose the rhetorical question; "How can the only one of something be the "premier"? Surely there needs to be at least one other lesser league in order that the top one can benefit from any denomination at all. Expect to see the ICC cotton onto this marketing wheeze for the "Premier World Cup of Cricket".
Leaving aside grammatical pedantry for a minute (hard as it is for me), I have some other things that are thoroughly confusing me about this new cricketing phenomena.
The first is the players themselves. It appears that each franchise can 'hold registrations' for up to 8 international players, playing up to 4 of them at any one time. Some of these 'internationals' are current members of the Indian national side, which further confuses me. The thing I really can't get my head around is that currently each franchise has bid for the services of their internationals for a period of three years, presumably having already "bought" them they are committed to paying their wages regardless of injury/loss of form etc. So there doesn't seem to be any scope for introducing new players over the next three years, short of paying off players and sacking them. This seems to be a bizarre oversight on the part of the organisers and I have been searching in vain for something in the rules summarises on the internet to explain it.
I am not going to touch on the player valuations in the auction, because I believe the franchises are trying to make back money first and foremost, and with this in mind have, I believe, thought along football lines and bought, or at least paid for some players on the strength of merchandising sales.
I have been quite interested to read all the articles in the press about how this is a day that changed cricket and to a certain extent I can see what they mean, however a lot of the logic in the pieces talking about the demise of the international game just doesn't stack up. For example:
The week that changed cricket forever
Firstly I feel comparisons with Kerry Packers World Series and with the English football premier league are largely erroneous. The format seems to have a lot more in common with American sports, particularly American Football. World Series Cricket, whatever your feelings on it, was largely based on a moral and financial debate around TV rights, Packer had a clear agenda and that was that by hook or crook he would have international cricket on his TV station. Although he wanted it in order to make money, he had a clear objective.
The English Premier League in contrast is built upon years of tradition, particularly within its participant "franchises". One of the reasons it succeeds overseas is because there are many long-term fans who associate with the teams in question and their history. It is also in a format which grows and develops over 3/4 of the year, feeding people's interest in the developing drama. It is also relatively simple to understand and a single game can, and often does, turn in the space of a few minutes (or seconds).
American Football conversely is harder to understand for the casual observer, is over a much shorter season and is played in few countries, and historically, despite sustained marketing has never successfully caught on outside of its traditional catchment.
Fundamentally I don't feel that this format and idea has the legs to kill off the international game. And I am not convinced it will even catch on with spectators outside of India. The games are scheduled for 9.30 and 14.30 GMT, which is not going to get English or African fans watching, this is late evening and the middle of the night conversely in Australia, which is also unhelpful for them. It is therefore unlikely to gain much live watching interest outside of India, Pakistan and the UAE.
I think if anything what the IPL could spell is the end for is 50-over cricket in general. I believe if India (by this I mean the BCCI and the public) grow lukewarm on the 50 over format we could well see a switch to a couple of 50 over games (if any) on all tours and a full 20-20 series. Over the past few years I would say India and Australia have been the strongest advocates of the 50 over game, Australia have already scrapped the traditional CB Series 50-over-fest, in favour of shorter bilateral OD series and if India shift their support to 20-20 it could see a different "limited overs" game being played primarily. The seeds of popularity having been sown with India's triumph in the 20-20 World Cup (In a similar way that their triumph in a 1970's 60 over version sparked interest in the format at home). This might also (if we're lucky) kill off the woeful Pro40 league on the county circuit.
International cricket may well have to adapt and introduce a window for this tournament to prevent any conflicts, but I just can't see a mass exodus of top international talent to it.
I see the future of this tournament as shoddy cricket being played purely for money making and marketing reasons. Unless they can double, or even treble the number of franchises and matches I can't see it replacing, or even overtaking international cricket. It feels to me a lot more like ITV Digital and the football league than BSkyB and the Premiership.
Friday, 22 February 2008
Pollock deal off
It was confirmed earlier in the week that Warwickshire have terminated their interest in signing Shuan Pollock for the forthcoming season. It was felt that his commitments in the IPL would mean he would only be available for the latter half of the season. This follows on from news a few weeks ago that Shane Warne would not be playing for Hampshire until July or August due to IPL and other personal commitments.
Thursday, 17 January 2008
Zondeki and Pollock signings "close"
George Dobell is reporting in the Post this afternoon that the deal to bring Monde Zondeki to Edgbaston should be completed today. While Cricinfo is reporting it as a done deal. George Dobell also reports that International duty with South Africa might mean he misses the first match of the season (against Worcestershire).
Also encouragingly Shaun Pollock is believed to have given a verbal assurance to Giles that if there is place for him at Edgbaston he will not be going elsewhere. This looks like being on a season long kolpak deal, however as far as I am aware he has commitments with the IPL Twenty20 tournament in India, which runs in April and possibly into May. So it is likely he will miss the first few weeks of the season as well.
It appears that Dobell has been faithfully reading the Raggy Bear, as I can only assume his comments regarding the irony/moral dilemma faced by Giles with the potential signing of Pollock following on from his pledge not to sign kolpaks; "His words and actions do not contrast quite as much as some might suggest". I can only think he must be referring to my post earlier in the week, where I pointed out the problem Giles has, which is largely restricted to a personal moral dilemma and one entirely of his own making.
I think the whole thing is probably a reflection of the relative inexperience Giles has in dealing with the media as a leader/figurehead (director of cricket), rather than a part of a larger entity (player for England/Warwickshire). It may well be that his comments have been reported out of context, or given undue weight, but in the 4 or 5 interviews where he has been quoted this winter he has consistently given soundbites/quotes promising no kolpak signings. Obviously he was referring to the likes of Alfonso Thomas and other journeymen on the circuit, not to players of the quality of Shaun Pollock. No sensible person would oppose the signing of Pollock, regardless of any commitments/comments/promises they believe Giles may have made, or on the basis it is likely to be a kolpak signing. Quite apart from anything else the rule to reduce counties to one overseas player is ridiculous when it is possible to sign so many inferior non-England qualified players. For this season it will likely mean that every Warwickshire player is technically England qualified, apart from two top class South African bowlers, which I for one wholly support.
I will also not lose too much sleep over the possibility of some of the younger seemers having reduced oppurtunities. Purely because I only expect both of the overseas players to be available for about 4-5 championship games (in May-June), neither to be available for the opening game. Furthermore there is now a proven bowling coach in place, coupled with the fact that having a chance to see how a bowler and cricketer of the class of Shaun Pollock conducts himself on a cricket field can only be a good thing. The biggest gap in the team was a senior seam bowler, I don't feel it is job Neil Carter can necessarily do.