No saliva, no celebrations, no crowds...post-COVID cricket will be different but not unrecognisable
No saliva, no celebrations, no crowds, Sheffield Shield practising public social distancing (haha!), administrations growing bolder ... cricket will certainly be different in the wake of the coronavirus, but not unrecognisable.
Cricket
Don't miss out on the headlines from Cricket. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Wax works if no spit - but ICC against ‘external substances’
- Tubby tells cricket administrators to make a call
The future looks less uncertain: the T20 World Cup almost certainly won’t happen, the IPL will. India will almost certainly tour Australia this summer, the players won’t spit on the ball or celebrate the taking of a wicket with the same intimacy.
But the game shouldn’t be unrecognisable.
Authorities might turn a blind eye to a bum pat or two for old times’ sake.
Relive the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 on KAYO. Watch complete and condensed replays of the biggest matches. New to Kayo? Get your free trial now & start streaming instantly >
Crowds look less uncertain by the day, but the Sheffield Shield will continue the tradition of practising strict social distancing from the public.
Administrations grow bolder, West Indies are set to brave the virus-infested British isle and the notoriously risk-averse Australians may even follow for a bit of short-form cricket later in the year.
At home there are clusters of concern. Queensland is the latest state to slash its staff. Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria have been there, Western Australia is going there but the body count varies according to states.
As every week passes it becomes harder to understand why cricket has been so keen to cut throats. News Corp Australia understands that, at most, the cancellation of the Cricket World Cup will see the host nation lose $25m, but the big-ticket India tour will guarantee a flood of revenue from Fox Cricket, Seven, Sony and BT Sports from September to March, which should sustain the game for some years to come.
A good manager never wastes a crisis and most Australian states have used it to either cover their financial mismanagement or trim extra weight carried over from the good times.
Australia-wide the job losses are well over 100, with staff from Queensland, Adelaide, Tasmania and Victoria shown the door. WA is set to add to the list of unemployed and Cricket Australia is yet to announce how many will go, but the vast majority of its staff have been on 20 per cent pay since mid April.
Head office is asking the states to take a 25 per cent cut in the grants due to them this year, but NSW at least has held out and demanded to know why.
Apparently it has still not been given a satisfactory answer.
This week the players are bracing themselves for an adjustment to forecast revenue (a downward adjustment) which will guide their payment in the remaining two years of the pay deal.
So, it’s been something of a bushfire and only when the smoke has cleared will it be apparent what has survived. Some are firmly convinced there was more smoke than fire, but it doesn’t mean all the koala colonies are as they once were.
Another to use COVID-19 as cover is India in its two incarnations: the BCCI and the IPL.
Before this event the Indian board was back singing that song about how it did not get a large enough share of the cricket revenues it generated. Many years back this saw India, Australia and England form the Big Three to carve out a larger share of ICC grants for themselves (England and Australia figuring selflessly that they, too, may as well profit from the raid).
The subsequent dismantling of India’s cricket administration in the wake of various IPL-related corruption issues saw this structure all but dismantled and the ICC’s socialist structure strengthened.
India was back working another version of this argument in the summer with the suggestion of a super series of ODI cricket between England, India and another nation instead of the ICC’s idea of squeezing another international tournament into the calendar.
COVID-19 has seen the idea that bilateral cricket is the best way out of the crisis advanced and the argument has some merit. India’s tour of Australia is estimated to be worth $300m — that’s a lifesaver (but won’t bring back those who’ve already lost their jobs).
In South Africa the financial crisis predated the pandemic but an appeal from Graeme Smith, the country’s director of cricket, to India for help resulted in a meeting with BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and company last week.
It appears India could tour South Africa in August, which will help the financial situation no end. It may also help Ganguly, who appears to have his eyes on taking over the ICC’s top job when it becomes vacant in July.
Smith was understandably impressed with the former Indian captain.
“Now it’s even more important to have someone in a role that can provide leadership to cricket; that understands and can navigate the challenges in the game today,” he said after their meeting.
“Post COVID-19 and with the things that are going to come our way, we need to have strong leadership and I feel like Sourav Ganguly is best positioned for that at the moment,” he said last week.
“I know him well. I feel that he has got the credibility and the leadership skills and is someone that can really take the game forward.”
The IPL is flexing its muscles, arguing cricket can survive with a postponed World Cup but if its domestic tournament doesn’t get a look-in soon, everyone is poorer.
It’s an argument that becomes shakier the more it is scrutinised — the vast bulk of the money goes to players, franchises and Indian cricket — but one that has significant momentum.
Now there’s even talk of an expanded IPL.
Post-COVID cricket is going to be, as the drug dealers on the hippy trail used to say, “same, same but different”.
It will be, as it generally was, an interesting trip.