Don't yearn for the Old Days

There's no Point

    There can’t be too many places more likely to provoke an attack of nostalgia than the county ground at Canterbury, on a hot summer’s day. With a touring side being watched by members who’ve been attending for 40 years. It was the day South Africa’s new T20 league announced the signing of its first 30 marquee players.

    In terms of tourism, Canterbury is forward-thinking and modern. The £14 entrance fee to the famous Cathedral seemed a bit steep but, as the welcome notices pointed out, they receive nothing from the government for the upkeep and maintenance of the place which dates from around 600 AD to 1850 with the majority of it built somewhere between 600 and 400 years ago.

    With play not starting until 11:00am there was plenty of time to go for a morning explore. Not being an especially religious person, I was more interested in the lives and living conditions of the monks in their Monastery for centuries before Henry VIII had them all removed, or killed. I learned that the communal toilet had 55 seats and was referred to as the ‘Necessarium’. A few years ago I had a school teacher who would say: “We all need to do the necessary.” Finally, I understand what he was talking about.

    The monks were instructed to wash before meals and prayers, but baths were too much of a luxury. But they did have fresh water directed into their quarters from a nearby spring sometime in the 12th century. As I was walking through the crypt beneath the Cathedral an earnest-looking priest walked towards me with his white collar clearly visible. Only when he passed me did I notice the small diamond earrings, in both lobes.

    Will Dewald Brevis ever play for South Africa, never mind in a Test match? Does he want to? How many of the best cricketers in future generations will play for South Africa? And if they do, on what basis will they be selected? If, as seems inevitable, they are playing T20 cricket in leagues around the world for between six and nine months per year in the near future, when are they going to play first-class cricket? Will there be first-class cricket?

    If national teams maintain the ‘tradition’ of selecting Test players from their first-class tournament they will almost certainly be picking a ‘B’ or even ‘C’ team. The UAE and SA leagues are already offering $500k contracts to their biggest name signings and the IPL player salary cap (a notional concept anyway) is set to be doubled next year following the renewed, $6.5billion broadcast deal. That means $4 million deals at the top end.

    At the moment, thanks to players like Virat Kohli, India retains an interest in playing Test cricket – and it remains commercially viable thanks to the broadcast deal. England and Australia have the Ashes and that will never change. The only question is whether they can exist in effective isolation if the other (current) Test playing nations cannot support their own first-class competitions. The idea is that their T20 leagues will provide the revenue to pay for the rest of the domestic season but that presupposes that independent Franchise owners will release their players to play domestic first-class cricket. Why would they?

    There is no reason whatsoever for the Mumbai Indians not to seek maximum exposure for their brand and sponsors, and that means every available week and month outside small windows for ICC events, including the minimum two-match Test series between the ‘small-seven’ nations in the World Test Championship. But already there is serious, informed speculation that the WICB won’t be able to sustain Test status with the cost of inter-island first-class cricket and so many cricketers filling domestic leagues around the world.

    Even the English first-class game is under pressure with aggravated talk that the number of counties playing it in a meaningful, professional way will be reduced from 18 to 12. The move is already being dressed up as ‘streamlining’ and sugar-coated as a means to improve the England Test team – which happens to be playing its most thrilling, winning cricket ever at the moment with no more than a simple change of mind-set.

    Walking around the St.Lawrence Ground in Canterbury, its loyal supporters deck-chaired on the boundary edge with their sun-hats and packed lunches, filling in their scorecards at the fall of each wicket, it became obvious that their days of peaceful contentment would soon be at an end. In future village club cricket would have to suffice. From what I’ve seen and heard over the last 10 weeks, that doesn’t appear to be under threat, yet. That’s progress.

   And it is progress. The dilemma of first-class cricket being financially unsustainable but a critical training and proving ground for other, more lucrative formats, has been around for many decades. Maybe England and Australia can keep the Ashes alive on a skeleton schedule of first-class games and perhaps the other nations can play a few ‘exhibition’ Tests each year, just to keep the ‘tradition’ alive, on the back of couple of extra long net sessions between T20 games. The future is just a few years away.  

It will mean less chance for players to ‘see the world’ outside airports and cricket grounds, but they’ve been on the wane for decades already. Less chance to see old towns like Margate and Whitstable, which I was delighted to do. Less chances to do lots of things but more chances to make more money than ever before.