Che Guevara and Cricket

Why Authenticity will always, hopefully, matter

    A dear old friend of mine from Zimbabwe recently paid a visit while on a shopping, eating and drinking trip to Cape Town. He’d witnessed the inaugural Zim-Afro T10 in Harare and even invited several of the overseas professionals for a braai and a beer at his farm.

    On another occasion he hosted a couple of team owners who will pay Zimbabwe Cricket $10million over the next 10 years for the privilege of owning their Franchise. The tournament hopes to expand into Southern Africa in the years to come playing matches in South Africa and Namibia, perhaps even Kenya and Uganda.

    But there are no pretentions of grandeur or global domination. Just a slither of the global cricket pie, the chance to have a slice of the action, own a team, visit Africa once a year and go on safari. It was a delightful start for several of them who had entourages of more than a dozen family and friends, enjoying the delights of African lodges and game drives.

    The money paid for the chance to be a part of cricket’s revolution was, by all accounts, small change and, if not irrelevant, then certainly unimportant. A return on this ‘investment’ would be nice, but not necessary. Break-even would represent a bonus, given that the prestige of participation in team-ownership was the primary goal.

    As for the players, the locals were beyond thrilled at earning between $10k and $15k for the jaunt. Including long since past their sell-by date veterans like Elton Chigumbura and (40-year-old Director of Cricket) Hamilton Masakadza. The overseas players, too, were happy to take the cash, and considerably more of it. They were paid between $30k and $50k. One was reportedly paid $75k. More on him later.

    It is true that many players in the Franchise world have forgotten which teams they are playing for in recent years, have packed the wrong kit and confused the mottos and mentorship of the management. After all, many cricketers represent as many as seven teams in a year. It’s hard enough remembering what the coach from one team tells you.

    England spinner Adil Rashid has played for seven teams in five countries across four formats in the last year: “It can be different with some franchises, where you might only play for a year or two and, you love playing for them but you may not have that connection. I think in franchise cricket that’ll always be the way,” Rashid recently told the Guardian newspaper.

    “You definitely have a lot more connection with some franchise teams than with others…it may just be quick in, quick out, on to the next one. It’s that kind of game, that kind of sport that it’s turning into.”

    Is it sustainable? Not just financially, but emotionally? Fans may or may not develop a strong enough affinity with all the world’s new teams, but of more interest is the ability and willingness of players to keep roaming from one team to another, collecting their cheques and playing what are, let’s be honest, largely meaningless tournaments.

    It comes down to the authenticity that most of us need to feel satisfied with our lives and worthwhile in the world. This is not short-term, but medium to long-term. A brick-layer may do the same thing over and over, each job feeling much like the last, but the longer he does it the more likely he will be to drive past a house, school or hospital and be able to say: “I helped build that.”

    Professional sport is different to other jobs, obviously, but rather than being ‘less’ anchored in authenticity, there may be an even greater need for it. Especially in cricket which does, after all, have one of the highest recorded suicide rates for any job in the world.

    Authenticity in the art world, for example, is far more fluid. There are seven ‘grades’ of authenticating a piece of art. Was it painted or sculpted by the master, let’s say, Rembrandt? Or is it ‘in the style of,’ or ‘from the house of’? A silkscreen of Che Guevara, authenticated by Andy Warhol, once sold for over $100 million – and he didn’t even know it existed when it was sold. It was done by his assistant, Gerard Malanga. There is a brilliant book on the subject – ‘Authenticity’ – by Alice Sherwood, if you’re interested.

    Perhaps, in a decade or two, once all the T20 Leagues are established and have a bit of ‘history’, like the IPL, winning them will provide the authenticity and sense of achievement required to fulfil their participants. Or maybe not. It’s possible that just a very full bank account will do the job. But there may also be a hollowness to winning, a void difficult to fill.

    Former England captain, Eoin Morgan, was apparently paid $75k to play in the Zim-Afro T10. He was rightly the highest paid of all. The tournament was seeking attention and it certainly caught mine when I saw Morgan’s name. What did he add to it? Authenticity. And, as always throughout his career, he cared so much about the commodity that he dropped himself from the final two games because he knew he couldn’t deliver it on the field.

    Authenticity matters in cricket, and hopefully always will. There have been numerous other smash-and-grab raids in history. And each one, over 150 years, has been gloomily hailed as the one which will ruin it forever. This is no different.