October 2007

Test stars to score huge bucks

The establishment is fighting back. Maybe lessons have been learned from the raid on the game’s elite cricketers by tycoon Kerry Packer.

It looks like the world’s leading cricketers could be pulling wages akin to the mega-bucks soccer players – and they won’t be banned from their national sides.

We reckon you will see some of these top players strutting their stuff at the superb Shaikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.

The new set-up will see players offered the chance to play in a newly established Twenty20 tournament to feature domestic teams seeking to qualify for an international play-off and a share of $US5million in prizemoney.

The Champions League-style tournament is obviously a direct response to the threat posed by the rogue Indian Cricket League (ICL) and the Stanford 20/20 tournaments. It has been proposed by four International Cricket Council (ICC) full member countries - Australia, India, England and South Africa – and will be ICC sanctioned.

A major first step happened last month when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced a new domestic Twenty20 competition in India that will feature an ownership model similar to the English Premier League, where teams are owned privately or by investors.

The other bodies – Cricket Australia, the England and Wales Cricket Board and the United Cricket Board – are still investigating ways to capitalise on Twenty20’s popularity without detracting from the lucrative traditional forms of the game. They could follow the Indian model.

The top two teams from each country’s competitions will qualify for an international tournament, which is planned for late next year. Organisers are now searching for a two- or three-week window in the hectic international schedule.

Shane Warne – superstar

Games will be played in time zones convenient to the massive Indian market. Matches take only three hours so scheduling can be flexible.

The international competition will have a salary cap, with limits yet to be decided, and exemptions for marquee signings. Players will be able to be traded between teams, opening up a transfer market.

Team owners may explore on-and off-field marketing opportunities, meaning that Sachin Tendulkar could represent Queensland, or Adam Gilchrist could play for Mumbai. They could make hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few weeks’ work.

The tournament would allow the most sought-after players to significantly raise their incomes without jeopardising their place in official Test and one-day teams. Some national boards recently declared that any player who signed with the ICL would be banned from playing first-class cricket.
A few name players have already signed. But the BCCI is hitting back, targeting some of the ICL’s potential marquee players who are yet to commit to the rebel competition. The two biggest were Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath.

It appears that the ICL has caused a major shake-up among the establishment authorities. National bodies have cautiously embraced Twenty20, but the process of settling on a working model has been hastened by the ICL’s initial success and the knowledge among the players that their pay packets can now potentially compare with the world’s highest-earning sportspeople.

Insiders associated with the ICC-sanctioned competition say the ICL would be a second-rate format. It would be reliant on retired players and be mostly staged at unsuitable venues as a made-for-TV event.
The new competition, they believe, would have greater credibility, a higher standard and access to established infrastructure. They believe that it would eventually create specialist Twenty20 players and a new tier of stars.

It’ll work like this:

• Australia, India, England and South Africa each hold their own domestic competitions. India’s domestic competition will feature franchised teams.
• The top two teams from each country qualify for an international tournament, which will feature a $5 million prize pool.
• Teams can bid for marquee players, while other players must stay within a salary cap.
• The first international tournament is expected to take place late next year.
• The top players will earn big money from Twenty20 without being frozen out of official cricket tournaments.