How Much is Enough?

    England batsman Jason Roy’s recent decision to give up his central contract with the England Cricket Board is being seen as a watershed moment in the history of the game. West Indians have been doing a similar thing for over a decade and Trent Boult did the same a couple of months ago but, one of the ‘big three’ countries…

    The era of multi-year, multi-tournament, multi-million Franchise dollar contracts are just around the corner. But I can’t help wondering how simple they will be. Not on the paper of lawyers or agents, but for the players themselves. Practicality above possibility.   

    When the ECB eventually give up on their silly ‘Hundred’ tournament, turn it into another T20 competition and sell the teams to the IPL, world domination will be almost complete. If the BCCI do actually team up with the Saudis and make their players available for yet another new league – a second IPL, effectively – it will be complete.

    Almost three decades ago renown Sport Scientist, Professor Tim Noakes, travelled with the South African national team at the invitation of the head coach and personal friend, Bob Woolmer.

    To this day most cricket followers have no idea just how far ahead of his time Bob was. They remember some of the gimmicks and quirks of his innovative thinking, like the ear-piece worn by Hansie Cronje in a warm-up match before the 1999 World Cup, but there was so much more depth.

    Fascinated by the ruthlessness with which cricketers were treated by their employers during his own career, Bob wanted to explore ways in which on-field performances could be enhanced with a more informed and empathetic approach to playing schedules the balance between work, rest and play.

    Noakes travelled with the team to the 1996 World Cup on the subcontinent and observed the playing squad and management at close quarters without intruding. One of the conclusions he reached was that player performance would inevitably begin to decline after between five and six weeks on tour, away from home.

    There would be exceptions which proved the rule, naturally – a young Herschelle Gibbs gave the impression he would have been happy living the touring life for five or six months at a time. But for the majority the emotional if not physical toll began affecting their bat and ball output at about the same time.

    The IPL lasts almost double that length of time so it is to the great credit of the majority of the players that they maintained their standards – although the decline in the last couple of weeks was clearly obvious amongst the teams which were first to eliminated, Delhi and Hyderabad.

    The good news for the IPL Franchises is that all the other tournaments in which they have a stake – ILT20, CPL, SA20 etc - last only a month so all their players should be at their spanking best from start to finish. Except…how much quality revitalisation time will they actually get between tournaments?

    Comparisons between cricket’s new future and the English football’s Premier League are understandable. The football clubs own the players and are required to release them in FIFA-designated windows to play for their countries. Unless they have retired from international football. Or are ‘injured’.

    The difference, of course, is that the footballers get to live in their lavishly comfortable homes for at least three or four days a week. No five-week tours for them every few months. The World Cup is the longest they are away from their home comforts and that’s a maximum of a month every four years.

    And what will the Franchises do with their stars between tournaments, once they have signed them up? Send them home for rest and recuperation? Maybe. But the likelihood is that sponsorship and marketing commitments and mini ‘exhibition’ tournaments will take up much of their free time between tournaments. They will be on 12-month contracts, after all.

    Quinton de Kock would be a prime candidate for such a contract. As things stand, if he continues on a CSA contract and plays in the now mandatory annual ICC event, he stands to earn around R15million a year. A Franchise contract would be worth at least double that, possible three times as much.

    But a couple of years ago he moved from Johannesburg to Thesen Island in Knysna, for the golf, fishing and general lifestyle. That’s what playing in the IPL can do for you. Would he be prepared to spend just a couple of weeks a year there in order to play virtually non-stop T20 cricket around the world? Maybe.  For a year or two.

    There will be some players for whom such a lifestyle is appealing. Others may feel they need to ‘catch up’. Heinrich Klaasen turns 32 in a couple of months and has been under-appreciated and under-valued by the Proteas for years. He’s watched Faf du Plessis play a dozen years of IPL with earnings in excess of R100 million from that tournament alone. Nobody should blame Klaasen if he accepted such an offer.

    But as Noakes concluded all those years ago, sportsmen go stale pretty quickly living out of suitcases and cricket, even the short-form version, takes a toll unlike any other.

    History tells us that most of the best cricketers have gone ‘where the money is’ but that’s because there was virtually no money where they were – playing for their countries. These days the equation is slightly different. How many will go ‘where there is more money’ – or ‘most money’ – and at what personal cost?

(The pictures? A lifelong dream come true courtesy of my dear, 82-year-old father. My first cruise. Never thought it would happen. What a place to write a column. That’s Santorini in the background…)