The major flaw in the "they have no choice" argument for me is that the leading players (and in reality it's the leading players we're talking about here: no-one's going to be tearing their hair out about the quality of the NZ tour party if, say, Glenton Stuurman is or isn't in it, despite the fact that he's one of the country's better red-ball bowlers) are essentially opting to be mega-rich rather than ordinarily rich.
I remember Cricinfo publishing a few years ago a list of central contract salaries by country--and if I recall correctly, the only country where an average (not even top) centrally contracted player (that is, the kind of player who could expect to play almost every test and who everyone is wringing their hands about) wasn't earning at least 10 times the median wage in that country was New Zealand. That's the key point to me--otherwise it's like being a lawyer and saying that you're poor compared to Leonardo di Caprio's lawyer when in reality in most countries lawyers are very rich people.
That means that essentially we're talking about greed--no more and no less. The players we're talking about are generally ALREADY unimaginably rich by the standards of the average South African, English person or Barbadian. (It's more complicated, I know, for those on domestic contracts outside the "Big Three"). Even this is relatively new--25 years ago the best-paid English player was being paid somewhere around what a player like Jake Libby, who's never been near the England team, is getting from his county now.
If you define the entire future of the game according to the di Caprio's lawyer scale, then it's just a race to the top (or bottom). Literally nothing else matters--history, ethics, national pride; caring about your fellow citizens who can't afford to come and watch you play or those poor sods on domestic contracts and without a SA20 deal who'll be out of a job by 2028; what your investment is supporting (great! a super-money Saudi league! Oh well, who cares about a bit of homophobic violence, some institutionalised misoygny and cutting your political critics into bits!)--even the sustainability of the system you've created.
So ultimately there is a choice--just as those of us in any other job can choose to have an ethical dimension in our job choices. It is to say no to the IPL juggernaut--and sure, it's not an easy decision because you could be putting your career at risk if you're under about 30 if the strategy doesn't come off. It means saying "if I'm going to witter on about valuing national pride or test cricket, then I'll play for South Africa against New Zealand rather than sit on the bench for DSG--or play for DSG. And if that means that my own board is going to blacklist me, then as a group of players we need to bring about personnel change in that board. And it probably means finding a way to do without some or maybe even all of the income we get from the BCCI, which will mean accepting a considerable pay cut. But hey, Pakistan manage it--and anyway as a leading player I'm on x times the median wage so I've got more than enough, and many times what any previous generation of players would have earned even without franchise money".
The alternative to this is helping to set up a system where by 2030 there is no cricket, even franchise cricket, which isn't run out of India or maybe Saudi Arabia. And that IS the death of cricket--unless your only values are those of wanting to be as rich as di Caprio's lawyer. But a leading player has to make the first move.
The major flaw in the "they have no choice" argument for me is that the leading players (and in reality it's the leading players we're talking about here: no-one's going to be tearing their hair out about the quality of the NZ tour party if, say, Glenton Stuurman is or isn't in it, despite the fact that he's one of the country's better red-ball bowlers) are essentially opting to be mega-rich rather than ordinarily rich.
I remember Cricinfo publishing a few years ago a list of central contract salaries by country--and if I recall correctly, the only country where an average (not even top) centrally contracted player (that is, the kind of player who could expect to play almost every test and who everyone is wringing their hands about) wasn't earning at least 10 times the median wage in that country was New Zealand. That's the key point to me--otherwise it's like being a lawyer and saying that you're poor compared to Leonardo di Caprio's lawyer when in reality in most countries lawyers are very rich people.
That means that essentially we're talking about greed--no more and no less. The players we're talking about are generally ALREADY unimaginably rich by the standards of the average South African, English person or Barbadian. (It's more complicated, I know, for those on domestic contracts outside the "Big Three"). Even this is relatively new--25 years ago the best-paid English player was being paid somewhere around what a player like Jake Libby, who's never been near the England team, is getting from his county now.
If you define the entire future of the game according to the di Caprio's lawyer scale, then it's just a race to the top (or bottom). Literally nothing else matters--history, ethics, national pride; caring about your fellow citizens who can't afford to come and watch you play or those poor sods on domestic contracts and without a SA20 deal who'll be out of a job by 2028; what your investment is supporting (great! a super-money Saudi league! Oh well, who cares about a bit of homophobic violence, some institutionalised misoygny and cutting your political critics into bits!)--even the sustainability of the system you've created.
So ultimately there is a choice--just as those of us in any other job can choose to have an ethical dimension in our job choices. It is to say no to the IPL juggernaut--and sure, it's not an easy decision because you could be putting your career at risk if you're under about 30 if the strategy doesn't come off. It means saying "if I'm going to witter on about valuing national pride or test cricket, then I'll play for South Africa against New Zealand rather than sit on the bench for DSG--or play for DSG. And if that means that my own board is going to blacklist me, then as a group of players we need to bring about personnel change in that board. And it probably means finding a way to do without some or maybe even all of the income we get from the BCCI, which will mean accepting a considerable pay cut. But hey, Pakistan manage it--and anyway as a leading player I'm on x times the median wage so I've got more than enough, and many times what any previous generation of players would have earned even without franchise money".
The alternative to this is helping to set up a system where by 2030 there is no cricket, even franchise cricket, which isn't run out of India or maybe Saudi Arabia. And that IS the death of cricket--unless your only values are those of wanting to be as rich as di Caprio's lawyer. But a leading player has to make the first move.