Piyush Chawla moved around the lobby, wearing an all-access pass. Greetings exchanged, he said, "Now, I'm a Shark," and pointed to the Sussex Sharks badge on his t-shirt. An Indian legspinner swearing allegiance to a foreign club. "People might have forgotten me as I don't play for India anymore, but I'm happy to represent Sussex," he said. Chawla's divided loyalties are a symbol of the cracks that are forming in the foundation of cricket.
Two years ago the IPL established a new order in cricket, introducing the franchise-based system to the game, and making cricketers a commercial commodity. Now the Champions League, conceived on the club-based model of the UEFA Champions League in football, has even greater potential to revolutionise the game: if it clicks, cricket's biggest prize-money event ($2.5 million to the winner) will undoubtedly place more pressure than there already is on players to give precedence to club ahead of country.
Show me the money
Cricket is the only mainstream team sport that survives on international competition. Every other sport lives off club-based or franchise-based competition. "There must be something in the model, for every other sport to follow club-based competition," Neil Maxwell, who was the CEO at Kings XI Punjab in the first IPL, says.
Cricket is the only mainstream team sport that survives on international competition. Every other sport lives off club-based or franchise-based competition. "There must be something in the model, for every other sport to follow club-based competition," Neil Maxwell, who was the CEO at Kings XI Punjab in the first IPL, says.
Maxwell, a former Australia A player, who was also once the marketing director at New Zealand Cricket, reckons the difference in the standards of play between the elite nations and the others, as a result of the FTP model, is hurting cricket more than anything else. "We are seeing the flaws in the country-versus-country model, where there is a huge disparity in the standard of teams. Some matches aren't competitive and some countries are choosing to play others more regularly, so you haven't got an even spread of the wealth generation."
Club-based cricket, on the other hand, provides regularity of competition and more balanced contests. That, Maxwell thinks, is the main reason why the Champions League is bound to change cricket.
A probable shot in the arm for events like the IPL and the Champions League is the increasing frustration on the part of players, and player associations, at the relentless international schedules designed by the administrators. Compare this to football, where countries play each other sparingly. Top footballers make US $5-10 million a season playing for their clubs, and though they get paid a pittance to represent their countries, it is the honour and prestige that motivates them to play.
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