Mike Atherton: IPL million-dollar man Tim David highlights cricket’s bold new landscape

He’s never played a first class game, yet just made a fortune at the IPL auction. MIKE ATHERTON analyses the seismic change in cricket’s global landscape highlighted by Tim David.

Tim David went for $1.53 million at the IPL auction, having never played a first class game. Picture: Jonathan DiMaggio/Getty Images

For a moment the veteran Indian commentator Charu Sharma surveyed the room with due seriousness and then announced in his urbane voice: “Uncapped all-rounders, now.” A little more than three minutes later, after a bidding war involving six Indian Premier League franchises, Tim David, No.221 and the focus of this fierce attention, had been signed by Mumbai Indians for 20 times his base price.

At the risk of parodying the BBC’s media editor, Amol Rajan, this was the “GLOBAL MEGA AUCTION!!!” in action. More teams than ever before – two more franchises have been added since last year – more players up for grabs, more moolah to be unleashed and more breathless commentary around it in on social media. It was too much for poor old Hugh Edmeades, once of Christie’s, who collapsed under the strain of it all.

Sharma, the old pro who acted as Edmeades’s last-minute replacement, did not miss a beat as he ushered Mumbai to their destination. Mumbai’s philosophy in the auction was once described by one of their opponents in the auction ring thus: “We know that Mumbai don’t like to faff about at the end of the auction looking for cheap buys. They want to come in, find their players and bugger off.” At the drop of Sharma’s gavel, Mumbai had captured David’s signature for $1.53 million.

All-rounder Tim David has gone from the Hobart Hurricanes to the IPL, scoring a massive payday at the auction. Picture: Darrian Traynor – CA/Cricket Australia via Getty Images

It was another moment to wonder at the game’s changed landscape. While there will always be anomalies in any selection determined by both objective and subjective considerations, these auctions are now shaped by very mature market forces. As a result they are far more efficient than they used to be, when a name could guarantee a prize fee, and when a franchise could gain a competitive edge by being relatively smart.

That England’s premier short-form spin bowler, Adil Rashid, for example, went unsold this year is not so much a reflection on his ability, rather that India is replete with domestic spin bowlers. Australia’s Steve Smith may be regarded as the pre-eminent Test batsman of the day, but in this particular format he was not deemed worthy of a bid. And fair enough that judgment is. Put Marnus Labuschagne, Smith’s Australia teammate who also went unsold, in that category too.

As for hard-hitting batsmen who come in down the order, who excel at hitting boundaries to finish matches, who can bowl a bit and field well, there are fewer of them. David fits that bill: at 25 years of age, he is a strapping lad, six-foot-plenty, strong as can be, with a confidence to clear the rope at a moment’s notice against pace and spin alike. He is highly valued, therefore – a next-generation Kieron Pollard.

His is an unusual journey to riches, although who is to say that it will not become a more common one? David, after all, is uncapped by the world T20 champions, Australia (although he has played for Singapore, the country of his birth). Despite that, he became the top-earning Aussie in the auction, fetching more than his celebrated countrymen Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and David Warner, World Cup winners all.

More intriguingly, David has never played a first-class match. He has been more peripheral than other young players to the traditional pathways in his home state of Western Australia, moving essentially from club cricket into the Big Bash. First-class cricket is not on his radar and it is difficult to see, given the calendar, time considerations and limitless opportunities elsewhere, whether it will become so.

Tim David’s ability to clear the boundary and bowl tidy spin earned him a fortune at the IPL auction, despite him never playing a first class game. T20 tournaments have truly changed the landscape of cricket. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Readers may correct me but I cannot think of a cricketer of the past who has earned a good living from the game who has never played a first-class match. Even Pollard, to whom he is likened, has played 27 first-class matches, albeit not one since the season of 2014-15. Will David become the first? As Adam Griffith, the coach who took him to the Hobart Hurricanes in the Big Bash, said: “I think we’re going to see players potentially taking different paths to the Australian set-up. It’s not necessarily about piling on the runs in state cricket any more.”

For players even younger than David, it will become a key question. In England, where the culture of first-class cricket remains as strong – or stronger – than elsewhere, there is the sense that most still enjoy the feeling of batting as a craft, and that a dozen or two balls a game only, say – what David might expect to face in his position in the order in T20 – would lend itself to an unsatisfying career.

As well as talent, timing remains important for the IPL auction. The Under-19 World Cup in the Caribbean was completed fortuitously close to the auction, thus providing a platform for the brightest and best. The player of that tournament, the South African Dewald Brevis, was duly picked up by David’s franchise, Mumbai, for about $555,000 – a remarkable payday.

Brevis cites AB de Villiers as his hero, but which AB? Early, multiformat version, or the late-flourishing franchise version? “I love the IPL,” the 18-year-old said in an interview last year. “My brother and I live for the IPL.”

– The Times

Originally published as Mike Atherton: IPL million-dollar man Tim David highlights cricket’s bold new landscape