Twenty 20 cricket's very English crisis

Back at the start of the Friends Provident Twenty 20 competition, we predicted that the greed exhibited by the counties in raising the number of games this year to a mind boggling 151 (from 97) could well prove to be their downfall (read 151, English County Cricket and Pure Greed here). 

Unsurprisingly, these fears have proved correct  and the groundhog day nature of the competition has caused supporters to vote with their feet. So despite the excellent weather, the feelgood factor of England winning the World T20 and the presence of stars like Adam Gilchrist, Kieron Pollard and Andrew Symonds, attendances have fallen alarmingly. Twenty 20 cricket in England appears to be at crisis point. 

Having survived a flirtation with Allen Stanford, being imitated and then surpassed by its more ambitious Indian cousin and being only at the margins of the prosperous Champions League, hubris and alarming avarice from within seems to have tipped Twenty 20 in England over the edge. As such, the county chairman gathered at Edgbaston last week to discuss the falling crowds and to plot the way forward.

This has prompted much mirth in the media. Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail compared Twenty 20 to a passing fad "like Pixie Geldof or the Liberal Democrats". Although Martin makes several good points about how Twenty 20 has evolved in England, we are not sure we agree with him on this point. The IPL continues to go from strength to strength despite Lalit Modi's high profile problems and the ensuing corruption allegations. This suggests Twenty 20 certainly on a world scale is no flash in the pan. If English cricket had put self-interest to one side, gone down the franchise route and limited the number of teams to ten, who's to say that England couldn't have had a more successful and better run Twenty 20 competition than the IPL?

Unfortunately, it is this self-interest that has allowed Twenty 20 in England to spiral out of control. Too many matches, too many teams and dreadful scheduling has led to the current crisis. Hopefully, the county chairmen now realise the extent of the problem and do something about it in time for next season.

For what it's worth, the Reverse Sweep's solution would include:

1. Moving from 18 counties to a maximum of 10 city based franchises backed by the counties so the money goes back into the game and grass roots - imagine the interest if London was taking on Manchester at a packed Lord's on a sultry summer evening?
2. Allowing each franchise to play three overseas stars within the starting XI and sign up to four for their squads
3. Creating one solely Asian side to spark interest within the large British Asian community. A team including the likes of Bopara, Shah, Mahmood, Panesar, Rashid and Shahzad plus overseas stars like Sangakkara, Sehwag and Afridi would attract huge crowds
4. Better scheduling, with a big televised match on Friday and Saturday nights starting at 7.00
5. Limiting the competition to a lean and mean four week period at the height of summer when no football is being played and Wimbledon has finished
6. Building a window into the international schedule to allow England players to participate for the whole competition. It's crazy to expect fans to flock in if the likes of Pietersen, Collingwood and Swann are not on show

However, even if the county chairmen now realise the extent of the problem, the radical move to a franchise league won't happen (turkeys don't vote for Christmas). Whatever solution  they come up with must at least see the number of matches dramatically reduced - we must never again see 151 Twenty 20 matches in a single season. Surely, common sense will preveil? Don't bet on it.   

Comments

[Russ]

RS, I think you are misdiagnosing the problem focusing on the 151 matches. That many matches is not unusual for a league competition - the EPL has 380 for example. The problem lies in the scheduling. The normal format for a league is a weekly competition, where every team plays at once. It has a nice rhythm we are all familiar with: anticipation, games, review. The audience focuses on their local games, set within the broader league context.

But for reasons best known only to themselves, cricket authorities always seem to schedule T20 like a tournament: daily games with no discernable pattern to the fixturing. Tournaments "work" by building throughout separate stages to a finale, and it is that lack of perceived progression that is lacking.

I'd therefore propose something simpler (and common): play the league in rounds of mid-week (Tuesday/Wednesday) and weekend (Fri/Sat/Sun) rounds, with the tv content on Monday and Thursday being review/preview shows. And lower ticket prices, unless the stands are 75% full they are too high.

[The Reverse Sweep]

Russ, you make a good point about the scheduling - it is awful. But, I guess to attract overseas stars like Gilchrist and Symonds for a six week period is much easier (and cheaper) than over a whole season with scheduling a la football's Premier League. So it may be that cricket is more tied to a tournament like format for its T20 leagues - if that is the case, they are better making them leaner to avoid overkill and keep interest higher. But if cricket schedule a T20 league as you suggest, it certainly merits a closer look.

[Russ]

RS, that is the strange thing. By scheduling in a way that the can show as many games as possible on tv, the current format spreads the fixtures out so much it is actually no faster than having two rounds per week (16 games should take 8 weeks plus 1 for finals). I've argued elsewhere that they should institute four 6-week T20 domestic windows across the year (12 per hemisphere) which would be more than enough for even a large competition and champions league, properly scheduled.

[The Reverse Sweep]

That would certainly be a cleaner way of doing it Russ and as you say would only make the tournament eight weeks long. Interesting food for thought. I still think 16 games is too many (as is 18 sides), but it would make sense for the ECB to try your idea.