Time for tough calls

These are tumultuous times for cricket. And seminal too. Cricket is a bit like molten lava at the moment: for sure the game is changing, but no one's quite sure what will emerge. It is a period of anxiety, uncertainty, fear and suspicion. And it also seems a time for knee-jerk decisions.

Without doubt the monstrous success of the Indian Premier League has changed the landscape of cricket irrevocably. The good part of it is that it has managed to widen the base of cricket and opened up a new dimension to the commerce of the game. But while it is natural for other countries to be anxious about being left behind, they would be foolish to try and replicate the IPL, because the circumstances in India are uniquely different from those in the rest of the cricket world.

Monopolies are unhealthy and the idea of building a counter-balance to the BCCI is worthy. But there seems to be a touch of desperation about the two initiatives, one formalised, the other embryonic, coming out of England.

Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire who by his own admission is indifferent towards Test cricket, and the ECB make the most incongruous bedfellows, and Stanford's US$100 million investment seems to be based on no apparent commercial or marketing logic - perhaps he sees it as a long-term investment in Twenty20, a game for which he sees a future in the US - and the $20 million prize for winning one match has the feel of a grand lottery. It makes the IPL lot seem like honest toilers. A proposal like this, it can safely be said, would have been treated with a great deal of cynicism, if not outright contempt, had it been made before the IPL.

There is far more merit in the proposal jointly drafted by Keith Bradshaw, the Australian chief executive of the MCC - interestingly Mike Brearley, the MCC's president, has publicly dissociated the club from the initiative - and David Stewart, the chairman of Surrey. While Bradshaw and Stewart, who have apparently been working on the idea for months, will have applied themselves rigorously, the numbers do seem optimistic on the face of it. The proposal is a virtual clone of the IPL, but the problem is that there are some fundamental differences between India and England. English cricket simply lacks the scales in fan base, passion, and corporate sponsorship that the IPL managed to generate. Cricket in India is equal to, or perhaps even greater than, football, cricket and rugby put together in England. An English Premier League is a good idea in principle, but it must be based on realistic ambitions.

And, of course, it cannot happen without a shake-up of the domestic structure and the sanction of the counties. The English cricket establishment must make up its mind about how many limited-overs competitions, and indeed how many Twenty20 tournaments, a season can absorb, and it must resolve how the wealth is to be distributed. The idea of the IPL sailed through the BCCI because the state associations stood to benefit equally from the riches, whereas in England's case at least half the counties have reason to fear they will be left with crumbs if the structure put forward by their affluent brethren takes form.

But a far bigger question for the administrators, if they are willing ask it of themselves, is of how cricket must realign itself in the post-IPL world. It is staggering that the matter received no serious attention from the ICC board, which spent a massive amount of time and energy earlier this month to achieve almost nothing. Almost farcically, Sri Lanka's tour of England next year, swiftly arranged to replace the visit by Zimbabwe which figured in the calendar earlier, is now in danger of either being curtailed or being robbed of the presence of the star Sri Lankan players, who would rather fulfill their IPL obligations instead. Sixty-four per cent of the international players polled recently by the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations said they would consider giving up international cricket to play in the IPL.

Depending on from where you look at it, Twenty20 is either the ultimate dumbing-down of the most cerebral of field sports, or the ultimate sexing-up of a game that's out of tune with contemporary life. Either way a space must be found for it because the crowds are loving the entertainment aspect and the players are loving the money.

It is in the interests of the three major forms of the game - cricket is blessed that it can accommodate so many - that a healthy balance is found. It is tempting to write off the 50-over game, but it is still the financial bedrock of the game, and the World Cup is still cricket's biggest event, and the ODI format retains the ability to provide drama and thrills if the balance between bat and ball remains healthy.

No more compelling evidence can be found of this than the recently concluded series between England and New Zealand. In comparison, the Asia Cup was a crashing bore because the bowlers were hardly in the game; it was not until Ajantha Mendis started flicking those mystery balls that the tournament came to life. The 50-over game need not die; it merely needs to be invested with a bit more meaning and purpose. A start can be made by reducing the numbers. Seven-match bilateral series should be the first to go.

The worlds of Test cricket and Twenty20 are so far removed from one another that the shortest form is almost not a threat to the longest - in terms of viewership at least. Those who are drawn to the unique charms of Test cricket are unlikely to abandon it for the wanton and ephemeral pleasures of Twenty20, which they might allow themselves to indulge in occasionally. Indeed, there is hope that some of the new audiences might, in the course of time, develop a taste for Test cricket.

In fact, the advent of Twenty20 just might present the opportunity to restore Test cricket to its rightful place. At its best, Test cricket is incomparably enthralling. But between unequals it can produce unending tedium. The Future Tours Programme was drawn up with the noble objective of providing equal opportunity to all members, but in reality the idea of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh participating in the same number of tours as Australia and India is simply a travesty. Mercifully, Zimbabwe haven't played Tests for more than 18 months. It's time to take the right call on Bangladesh.

But the right calls might be too much to ask for. In these uncertain times, cricket could do with wisdom, sagacity and vision from its leaders. Unsurprisingly, none of these has been forthcoming. What has come to light instead are conflicts arising out of clashes of self-interest, which have made compromises seem the best possible outcome.

Cricket has always been, and is likely to remain, a small society. The threat is that this society is getting increasingly fractured. The ICC is hostage to the narrow interests of its major constituents, and as a result, while cricket is in a flux, the game's global governing body remains in a limbo.