T20 Not the only Future?

The wise men of the ECB have announced a new innovation for the new competition, dumbed the EPL, arriving to a ground near you, or not, in 2020.

Ignore the year of launch, this new competition won't be T20, 20 overs per per side but  has been announced to be 100 balls per side, with a countdown for spectators to keep on track.

Traditional T20 cricket was deemed to be too complicated for Joe Public to follow with 20, 6 ball overs to be bowled; instead those wise men have decided on 15, 6 ball overs followed by one10 ball over (90 + 10) to make the span of the game 45 minutes shorter.

Clearly the man / woman / child on the street is incapable of counting down from 120 or being away from Fortnite for 3 whole hours..

Unnecessary complication?

BUT REMEMBER IT'S NOT FOR YOU ANYWAY

Is T20 the only Future?


The ECB aided and abetted by County Officials (it does seem) are hell-bent on ushering-in a red ball-free diet of T20 cricket into this country, all with the full backing of certain current players...,  but is this oversimplified model sustainable, for counties or for future players of the game?

Living a life of Reilly

Why wouldn't you want to do less work for more return? You get less stress on body and mind, it's a win, win scenario so say those living the dream now or those looking forward, green-eyed to a time when they too can take advantage of it.

The likes of KP or Chris Gayle, tour the world playing each of the T20 tournaments, rewarded with six figure sums for each cashing-in while they can but how many players can live that dream? How many international globe-trotters does the current "system" allow?

Think of a number

Eight teams each with 3 or 4 overseas players in their stable - that is 32 individuals. Add to that 8 for domestic fluctuations and clashes and another 10 for injured players at any one particular time; 50 players in a global market making mega bucks - of course that's just a wild guess, pulled out of thin air on my part, but if anything its on the high side of reality I would suspect - especially at the moment while International cricket still offers a lucrative return to the more talented players in India, Australia and England.

Domestic players playing in the IPL will be set-up for life in their country and I would suspect domestic players in the CPL also find themselves with dramatic positive lifestyle changes but in the UK, would the same be true. I'm not talking about those that globe-trot, they're the elite, but those that have played the Blast for their county and are then drafted to a franchise; if franchise squads are of 16 (3 of which are overseas), that's just 104 domestic players out of perhaps 250 or more that would have played Blast cricket for a county that go on to cash-in on the plastic-team bonanza and make a comfortable life for themselves, perhaps but with on idea if they'll be drafted the next year.

So what happens to the poor-relations at counties, those left behind to play down-graded One Day Cup games, probably on a Wednesday at an out ground somewhere off the beaten track?

The counties, as part of their incentive to hand over any remaining control to their own fates, are guaranteed £1.3M each. In Nottinghamshire case, let's just divvy that out to the current number of employees at the club which is 110 individuals - £11.8K each, not a life changing sum of money but of course that's not how it would work in reality but just highlights that if you erode other incomes by making them publicly less important/significant (for example Blast will just be a warm-up act for the main event in 2020 and onwards) then the compensation doesn't go very far. Counties will also have to factor-in larger playing staffs too to counter those taken away, stretching the compensation a little further still.

Could a young lad make a career in cricket in 2021, would a young lad choose to take a risk on making-it into the elite 100 players necessary to have a sustainable career by 2024? If one of the last remaining sources of young players is from private education establishments, would an educated young lad choose cricket as a viable career option or would he go off to university and fall out of the cricket system at 18, as the MCCU is being axed? Probably not, creating a massive pot-hole in your player pathway, just after the young people set off on their journeys.

Cricket already loses a lot of talented players, that choose to take other more lucrative and/or longer lasting career paths, long before they hit 30 years of age.

Assuming the new tournament is a runaway success and more diverse individuals want to play cricket in general, what happens in the short to medium term, who will be playing at the highest level in around the year 2030? The highest level being of course the T20 domestic franchise cricket!

Is it all about the game or about £££?


DDG