You might not know it, but a Men’s T20 World Cup is currently underway. Do not bother flicking on to Channel 7 or 9 to see it. Nope, not even Kayo. It is on Amazon Prime; yes, the same one that brought you The Test.
In case you wanted to know, it has been a bizarre tournament so far. It has been played in the West Indies but also the USA. The cricketing powerhouses made it through to the second stage of the tournament – the Super 8s – however, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka did not. Instead, Bangladesh, the USA and Afghanistan made it through. Weird, I know. Weirder still, Afghanistan went a step further. They, along with England, South Africa and India booked semi-final tickets in one of the strangest T20 WCs in recent memory.
Strange things are also occurring off the field. This World Cup has adopted unorthodox scheduling practices for an International Cricket Council (ICC) event. In the Caribbean, major fixtures are traditionally set during the balmy days of March and April. But this World Cup is being played in June and July, the wet season, which is having an adverse impact on results as you can imagine.
Matches are also being played at times unseen before in white ball cricket, from 10.30am starts and finishes that run well past midnight. Even Cricket Australia’s website conceded the time difference was “a bit of a dog’s breakfast for Australian viewers.”
Virat Kohli. (Photo by Jan Kruger-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
Perhaps the strangest move was the public disclosure of the location and timing of the semi-final match from one side of the draw, without the accompanying disclosure for the opposing semi-final match.
If you had not guessed already, former English batter Mark Butcher, speaking to Wisden, can reveal the reason for these oddities: “It’s because TV audiences, as far as India are concerned, pay the bills and therefore they were kind of promised or delivered a scenario whereby they would know exactly where their semi-final would be should they reach it. And I find that incredible.”
Butcher’s explanation fits. The West Indies cricket authorities have all but given up trying to schedule meaningful fixtures in March and April given this period coincides with the running of the all-powerful Indian Premier League. It therefore has had to make do with one of the last remaining windows in the cricketing calendar not taken up by franchise cricket or the summer months of the Big 3 nations (India, England and Australia).
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Likewise, the timing of matches in the early and late hours of the day has certainly not been done to accommodate the locals, but rather to fit in with prime-time streaming hours for audiences in the sub-continent.
This India-centric formatting of a supposedly international tournament is now all a part of the commercial playbook for cricket. At the 2023 ODI World Cup, eyebrows were raised when the ICC folded to a Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) request (or demand) that it change the Wankhede Stadium pitch to a more spin-friendly one shortly before the semi-final match against New Zealand. “I can’t believe that,” cried SEN radio host Gerard Whateley. “It’s felt like a tournament in India for India and for India to win.”
Cricket writer Gideon Haigh, reflecting on India’s shock defeat to Australia in the ODI final days later, pondered whether the BCCI would in future “argue that in their overwhelming contribution to cricket’s financial health, India should be allowed to field fifteen players to everyone else’s eleven.”
Jasprit Bumrah celebrates after taking the wicket of Babar Azam. (Photo by Alex Davidson-ICC/ICC via Getty Images)
Cricketing pundits from outside the high walls of the BCCI continue to huff and puff at this distasteful trend. But while concerns of India’s absolute power corrupting absolutely may be legitimate, is their outrage somewhat feigned?
Over the upcoming 2024-27 scheduling cycle, the ICC is predicted to earn roughly $600 million annually from cricket world-wide. It is also known that at least 80 per cent of this windfall will come directly from the Indian consumer and sponsor. With such financial clout inevitably comes a voice at the table, and a loud one at that.
Do not get me wrong, I do not condone India’s strong-arming of world cricket for its own sectional interests. Its mounting proclivity to contort ICC events, and cricket at large, to their liking remains at its heart a compromise of the game’s integrity for the sake of the almighty dollar.
Nevertheless, cricket, like all elite sport, gave itself over to capitalist ideals long ago, where the bottom line holds as much, if not more, importance as what occurs between the white lines on the pitch.
So while it might not be morally right, is it really that shocking when the key driver of that commercial success throws its weight around? And if we do wish to see the game grow and expand beyond its current borders, do we not have to accept that cricket may need to bend to India’s will every once and a while, so that it doesn’t break?
Finger wavers in the Anglo-Australian sphere might also do well to remember our own uses and abuses of power when we were kings. Kerry Packer’s takeover of the sport in 1979 precipitated an Australian economic dominance that made it feel entitled to the best real estate on the cricketing calendar, i.e. the Christmas holiday period. Old rivals England and a powerful West Indies outfit received regular invites owing to their commercial appeal, while relative minnows India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and New Zealand were lucky to get an occasional look through the window.
This economic might translated into hard political power. Australia and England retained privileged access to special “veto” powers on the ICC for decades, which it used for its own sectional interests when it suited. It only relinquished such rights in 1993, when confronted by its Asian counterparts, headed by a rising India.
The huffing and puffing goes on, as it should. But while India pay the rent, India call the shots. And if their star-studded team cannot finally make good on the pitch and take home the 2024 Men’s T20 trophy, maybe we will see an Indian fifteen v Australian eleven at the next one… It’s India’s world after all.