This AFL industry bigwig predicted Test cricket’s future a decade ago. He’s been called in to fix it

AFL players’ chief Paul Marsh is working alongside a FIFA expert to help build an alternative calendar and financial model for international cricket amid global concerns about the future of Test matches beyond 2027.

Marsh, who served as chief executive of the Australian Cricketers’ Association between 2005 and 2014 before moving on to run the AFL Players’ Association, has been an advocate for league structures in international cricket, first mooting a model for one-day internationals in the early 2000s.

Paul Marsh.Credit: Getty Images

He has been joined by former FIFA regulatory expert James Kitching as part of a panel to devise a new schedule for international matches, most likely involving multiple calendar windows for international games that would sit alongside the burgeoning Twenty20 franchise circuit.

The group has been put together by the World Cricketers’ Association, formerly known as FICA, and had its first meeting late last week following a summit on the future of cricket at Lord’s that was attended by Cricket Australia chair Mike Baird and his ECB opposite number Richard Thompson.

Marsh, Kitching, former Pakistan women’s captain Sana Mir and former WCA chair Tony Irish will consult widely with players and other expert figures in the game before pulling together a model that will take in scheduling, economic and regulatory frameworks.

Their goal is to do so by the end of this year, to generate constructive discussions among world cricket leaders ahead of the end of the current Future Tours Program in 2027.

Earlier this year, Marsh took a three-month sabbatical from his role at the AFLPA, after a difficult period that included football’s response to COVID-19 and then the death of his father, former Test wicketkeeper Rod Marsh, in February 2022.

While the alternative calendar model is unlikely to be adopted wholesale by cricket’s governing bodies – partly because the powerful Indian BCCI has always refused to recognise player unions – its intention is to look proactively at how cricket might best evolve.

In particular, an attempt to carve out specific windows for international and high-paying franchise cricket would, believe many of the WCA’s senior figures, reduce the need for players to choose between playing one or the other.

“Windows is something we would be prepared to look at,” the WCA chair Heath Mills told this masthead in March. “If you can agree there will be three windows where T20 franchise cricket needs to be played, you’ve also virtually restricted your players to only playing in three competitions as well.

Paul Marsh, flanked by Patrick Dangerfield and Gillon McLachlan at an AFL media conference.Credit: AAP

“Then you might be preserving five or six months of the year for international cricket, where the best players can play.

“Maybe within that five or six months, we scale back bilateral international cricket to have meaningful qualifying tournaments for world events and a meaningful Test cricket program. Because we’re playing less, it might be more valuable because of scarcity. There’s a lot of options here.”

Shortly before his move to the AFLPA, Marsh predicted a scenario whereby substandard international teams would start to appear without regulation of the calendar, as more players were drawn to franchise cricket.

“I think smaller countries will have to focus their energies and resources on the limited-overs formats as they won’t be able to compete in Test cricket and therefore their investment will move away from domestic long-form competitions,” Marsh had said.

“The other major risk I see is the increasing competition between the scheduling of domestic T20 events [in particular the IPL] and international cricket. There are already numerous examples of players choosing T20 events over international cricket, and I think there will be a tipping point for some countries where international series will be cancelled because the quality of players available will be substandard.”

At the Lord’s summit, Australia’s captain Pat Cummins delivered a pre-recorded message to delegates.

“Franchise cricket for some countries is more lucrative, more appealing than international cricket,” Cummins said. “If I went and played franchise cricket, I could probably be away for a half or a third of the amount we are for Australia.

“In Australia you know Test cricket is from November to January and basically no other cricket is going to get in the way of us playing Test cricket then. If we can have specific windows for IPL but then also Test windows, that makes the decision-making for the players a lot easier.”

The International Cricket Council is currently holding its annual conference in Sri Lanka.

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