Andrew Breetzke an attorney and the CEO of the South African Cricketers’ Association and a Board Member of the World Cricketers’ Association. This is a guest post in cricexec.
People regard the International Cricket Council (ICC) as being the governing body of cricket. It’s not the governing body of cricket. It’s a members association to which countries belong. Whilst we have this mindset of ‘it’s a governing body.’ It’s not.
If one looks at FIFA and World Rugby in comparison to the ICC you would think they’re all the same, but there’s one massive difference: FIFA and World Rugby control the calendar.
So it doesn’t matter how powerful the football clubs in the world are or the rugby teams. If you control the calendar, you control the sport. You are then able to govern the sport.
So Real Madrid and Manchester United can be as powerful as they want, but when there’s an international window, their players have to go. That is not non-existent in cricket. The ICC do not control the calendar, so they are not in control of cricket. The evidence of this is the proliferation of franchise t20 leagues and the pressure being placed on the bi-lateral international cricket schedule.
If the ICC is not in control of cricket, where does the control lie? Well, the control lies with the most powerful country, which is India.
So until the ICC are willing to actually say, ‘let’s take control of the calendar’ they will not control cricket.
The ICC could for example create windows where franchise leagues are played and if it means there’s a league up against a league, so be it. Then there’s space for bilateral international cricket to be played.
Otherwise it’s a free-for-all in the market and that’s what we have at the moment. Where FIFA and World Rugby can say ‘no this is the window where you must play club football’ we don’t have that in cricket.
So ultimately if you don’t have central control like that what then governs the destiny? The economics govern the destiny. And whether that’s the IPL that stretches for eight weeks or 10 weeks or 12 weeks, it’s the economics.
So sadly, I think that’s our challenge. We need the ICC to effectively take hold of the calendar.
To give an example: South Africa made the World Test Championship Final. There were some countries that complained and said ‘it’s not fair, they didn’t play everybody, they didn’t play England and Australia, etc.’
I’m very proud we made the final and we played all the teams that were put in front of us and we beat them.
But having said that, if between three big powerhouses (India, Australia and England), you want to play each other so many times and basically dictate the calendar, then logic tells you that there’s a good chance that one or two of you might not make the test final if it doesn’t go your way because you’re playing each other all the time. So you effectively cancel each other out. So you become your own worst enemy because you want the schedule that suits your economics.
We need strong leadership at the ICC that starts by looking at the calendar. Because that’s what other sports do.
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Name of Author: Andrew Breetzke
