Double whammy cricket monster?

When the Indian Cricket League emerged as an unsanctioned competition, there was gnashing of teeth, frothing at the mouth, voodoo dolls at the ready and an almighty hue and cry from cricket administrators screaming about the dangerous monster that is cricket that has not been endorsed by the BCCI and the ICC.

At the time, back in August 2007, the ICL was heavily criticised as an agent attacking the fabric of cricket, and its financial lures were derided as blood money only to be taken by international cricket's player mercenaries.

NZC boss Justin Vaughan was quoted as saying: "Events such as the ICL could have the potential to compete with official international events and erode their value. Added to this, the proposed rebel league is scheduled to directly conflict with the [New Zealand] tour to South Africa as well as the start of our domestic season."

How ironic, then, that it was never the shambolic ICL that threatened the weave of the game. As NZ Cricket Players' Association boss Heath Mills predicted at the time, it was always the "official" BCCI-endorsed Indian Premier League behemoth that had the most potential to disrupt the primacy of international cricket.

It is the IPL and its ilk that are now competing with official international events and threatening to erode value. If the reports in the Sunday Star-Times are to be believed, the Indian domestic tournament and its clones, little brothers, and off-shoots are most likely to lure the players away from the black cap - and these players and the international cricket that they play are the geese that lay NZC's golden eggs.

The NZC chief executive also said at the time: "We depend upon the value of the media rights associated with official international events to provide a majority of our income. It is therefore in the best interests of New Zealand Cricket not to support unofficial events such as the ICL." But the ICC, and NZC, share of revenue from these domestic events is minuscule. They might be official but they are much smaller money-spinners for NZC than the status quo: a strong NZ side that other teams want to play, complete with highly recognisable players that the world wants to watch.

It is not a time for hands to be sat on. In England and Australia, the domestic Twenty 20 tournaments are now high-profile, lucrative extravaganzas of cricket. They are also increasingly open to the presence of overseas stars and will continue to hunt for players from across the cricketing globe to participate in their local tournaments.

Is it realistic to expect our players to continually turn down hefty offers from Australian domestic teams (plus an alternative avenue to take part in the lucrative Champions League) asking New Zealand cricketers to take part in their domestic T20 tournament, The Big Bash? By the same token, if a NZ player was asked to turn up to play for Middlesex in the ECB's equivalent T20 tournament, and that clashed with NZ's tour to Bangladesh, things could be severely tested and the romantic notion of national honours might take a hit.

By a quirk of fate, the local game has won out this year, but it is not hard to comprehend that unless the remuneration is commensurate, offshore lures will become an irresistible force of attraction at some point. Can the HRV Cup become an IPL-type tournament, with a clear window each year, and all the big-name players fronting up?

Cricket's commercial base is morphing from its existing model of near-pure concentration of eyeballs and money around the international game, to a mix of international cricket and domestic province/state/club/franchise competitions. The days of administrators having national teams playing 11 months year in nondescript series all over the show are numbered as the torrent of international cricket pouring on to audiences all year will inevitably clash with the burgeoning domestic T20 competitions.

Players respond to what is put in front of them after the calendar wrangling is completed by the fish-heads. The buck here lies with the administrators who schedule the cricket.

For New Zealand, a huge issue arises if our best players are "freelancing" 12 months of the year for mighty sums, walloping leather about the cricketing galaxy for a number of different teams in different countries, and only playing for NZ when it suits - if at all.

The impact will be a further diminishing of New Zealand cricket's political and economic stake in the game. It is a potential double whammy: not only does international cricket look set to be played less, but commercial interest will wane if there is no certainty the country's best players will be turning out for New Zealand.

Given international cricket's role as a catalyst for the funding of the sport throughout the grassroots of this country, the results of a hit to the commercial base could be cataclysmic at every level. Could cricket end up like many other sports in New Zealand, with infrequent national appearances for the NZ side dictated by money-spinning clubs, relatively low-profile domestic competitions, funding battles at the grassroots level, and the best players making their cricketing hay everywhere but here?

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