We should not be too surprised by the decision of the International Cricket Council (ICC) to deny Ireland and 94 other countries the opportunity to play in the 2015 World Cricket Cup One-day. After all it is now common practice for world governing bodies to make seemingly bizarre decisions. It is only a few month since FIFA decided to award the 2018 soccer world cup to Qatar.
Last Monday week the 10 ICC “full member” countries met in Mumbai to plan the 2015 one-day World Cup. The “full” members are the countries who are acknowledged as being of sufficient standard to play international cricket in all three recognised forms of the game – five-day test, one-day (50 overs aside) and Twenty20 (20 overs aside) cricket.
The “full” members are England, Australia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, the West Indies, South Africa, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. They consider themselves to be the driving force and the inner sanctum of world cricket. Every other country in the world (95) is recognised as a mere “associate’ members.
In truth, the 2011 World Cup, which was won by India last Saturday week was very successful, but it had its problems. The most serious being that it took the 14 competing countries over six weeks to complete the competition. The second problem was that only Ireland of the four “associate” countries that competed were in any way competitive. To use a GAA phrase, the other three, Canada, Kenya and Holland ‘could hardly keep the ball pucked out’ to their opponents.
It was inevitable that there would be changes made to the 2011 format. What people did not expect was the actual change the Big 10 decided to make. Instead of reducing the time it takes to run the tournament by playing two, or even three games on the one day, as they do in the soccer world cup, it was decided to debar the “associate’ members altogether and make it a 10-team competition.
The new format will see each team play the other nine in a league format, with the top four qualifying for the semi-finals. It will increase the number of games played (50 including the final) from the current format. In the course of one meeting, the ICC took the world out of their World Cup by making it an exclusive 10-team tournament and increased the number of meaningless contests between teams at the bottom of the league.
There are a number of forces at play in the ICC decision. The most powerful of these is the force of commerce. Money, or to put it euphemistically, revenue is the reason why the world one-day cricket World Cup exists at all. In cricket, real revenue does not come from bums on seats, it comes from television rights. The television companies in turn depend on viewers, and the greatest number of viewers in the world can be found in sub-continent of India and Pakistan.
The Ireland cricket team, by virtue of their magnificent performances in both the 2007 and the 2011 competitions, are probably one of the primary reasons why the “associate’ countries have been kicked out world cup. In 2007 Ireland defeated Pakistan and Bangladesh defeated India. Both Pakistan and India failed to qualify for the latter stages of the competition, and it turned into a financial flop. By defeating England a few weeks ago, Ireland again threatened the financial structure of the tournament. So they had to go.
As much as the television companies need India and Pakistan, they also need England. The reason for this lies in what the former West Indian cricket star Viv Richards said in reply to the question he was once asked. “Why do the West Indies always play well against England?” The Antiguan replied “Because you (England) were once our colonial masters and everyone likes to defeat their former colonial masters.”
In the new format, England, India and Pakistan are guaranteed nine games and the others “full” members will all get their cut of the “former colonial masters”.
Nobody should be surprised at these developments. Cricket, for all its skills, heroes and heroics, was born out of gambling, as much as any desire by individuals to master a ball with the stick they held in their hand. The former Prime Minister of England, John Major, outlined this in his book “More Than a Game, The story of Cricket’s early years”
A typical tale of cricket in the 1700s concerns an account of a game between the team of Edward Stead (Kent) and a team from Chingford. “On one occasion, Stead’s men were in a winning position when their Chingford opponents refused to finish the game. The cause of their refusal is unknown, but a large wager depended on the result, Stead went to court to get his money… There is no record if the game was ever completed or the wager settled.” More than 250 years may have passed since that particular game, but as we have seen from various betting scandals or recent years, the men of the nod and a wink culture have never been too far from the centre of the game.
There was a headline in the Sunday Times last Sunday which read “How England repaid us for Bangalore humiliation” The article by Peter O’Reilly hinted that England played a significant role in the decision to exclude the “associate” teams from the 2015 competition. Once again history seems to show that this would be true to form.
The 1932-33 Ashes series between England and Australia became know as the “Bodyline” series. This is because of the tactics employed by the England captain, Douglas Jardine. He instructed his bowlers, including star bowler Harold Larwood to bowl in line with the Australian player’s bodies rather than at, or around, the wicket. This resulted in many injuries to the Australians and very nearly caused a diplomatic incident between the two countries.
The England captain, Jardine was from an upper class background while the bowler Larwood was a coal miner. England won the series. In the aftermath the England cricket authority, the MCC asked Larwood to sign a letter of apology to them for his bowling against Australia. Larwood correctly refused, stating that he had bowled according to his captain’s instructions. Harold Larwood, hero of the Ashes victories, never played for England again. He moved to Australia where he was well liked and lived a long and happy life.
The lesson is, if that is how the England cricket authorities treat their heroes, how can you expect them to treat their opponents any better?
Finally, if you really want to put the decision of ICC in its proper perspective, have a look the documentary “Out of the Ashes, The journey of the Afghan Cricket team to the world cup.” It was shown on BBC 4 television recently. The documentary follows a group of men who live in an impoverished country, with no money, no facilities but a lot of heart and desire and a dream to play in the cricket World Cup. The Afghans lost out to Canada for the final place in the recent world cup but you would want a heart of steel not to feel for the Afghani team and their manager.
This romance is what the ICC has discarded when they chose the call of the Dollar over the spreading of the game. The competition may gain a lot of money but it will have lost its integrity. What they have done to their game is not cricket, it’s just hardball.