Is Ben Stokes the Canary in the Mine?

"Something has to give..."

    As the IPL juggernaut staggers towards its protracted end with fewer and fewer players having the incentive of actually winning it, many games are becoming an emotional slog as well as an actual one. But you will never hear a player, any player, say that publicly.

    There is a perception that the Indian players are immune to the length of the tournament, the travel, training and exhausting logistics. It’s an absurd notion, like saying they don’t feel the heat in the same way as the overseas players when it’s 40 degrees. It was writ large on the face of Shubman Gill, captain of the struggling Gujarat Titans, after another defeat: “It is such a long tournament, but we must keep going…”

    Three more matches for half the teams with little prospect of reaching the Play Offs and then…the T20 World Cup for many of them. Followed by Major League Cricket in the USA straight after that. Although not for the Indians, obviously. For those involved in all three events, it is going to be an extremely lucrative few months netting them between R20 and R30 million.

    At the end of it, Kagiso Rabada, Heinrich Klaasen, Aiden Markram, Anrich Nortje, Marco Jansen and Quinton de Kock won’t have been home for almost five months while Dewald Brevis and Nandre Burger should be able to pop into South Africa for two or three weeks during the World Cup before heading to the United States. Unless they have creative accountants who’ve advised them to ‘keep moving’ to qualify for the non-res tax status.

    The upside is the cash. The downsides may not be obvious to those without experience of the way professional sport plays with your mind and emotions, or of extended periods of travel.

    There has been a lot talk in recent years about the number of domestic T20 leagues there are for players to choose from, but less about the number of ICC Global Events.

    The International Cricket Council is a management and events company. It does a huge amount of good work in collecting and distributing money, especially to India, but unlike FIFA in the soccer world, it has no control of the global game’s calendar.

    Whereas FIFA creates ‘windows’ for international tournaments and their qualifying matches – Continental championships and World Cups – and has the power to suspend any country which fails or refuses to comply, the ICC can only make recommendations and rely on the philanthropic good will of those who volunteer to be managed by them. Which evidently is a flimsy structure.

    In order to remain relevant and provide its ‘members’ with the cash they crave, the ICC had to become just like each one its members and organise a tournament of their own every year. World Cups have become diluted. If a player missed out on last year’s World Cup in India, then there’s next month’s T20 version. If they miss that then there’s always the Champions Trophy next February.

    England’s Test captain, Ben Stokes, retired from ODI cricket and chose to be unavailable for T20 selection this time around. Not to rest but to play first-class cricket for his county, Durham. Could he prove to be a canary in the mine in the years to come? A schedule so packed with largely meaningless cricket may be lucrative but it’s also not healthy. Stokes is not the first to smell the gas, but he may be remembered as the first to get out of the mine.

It will have been over 100 days since the last Test match was played anywhere in the world when England play against the West Indies at Lord’s on July 10. Rather than being bad for the game, such an absence will make the heart grow fonder and the format stronger. Abstinence needs to be managed, however. South Africa, for example, have four Tests next summer ending on Jan 7 and will not host another for almost a year. That will more kill the game than make it stronger.

    It’s all well and good for Stokes to follow his heart and instinct and play the cricket which nourishes his soul and provides him with personal value beyond dollars – he is already comfortably wealthy and there is no shortage of Test cricket for him to play. England have 16 Tests this year.

    If there are any South Africans (and there are) who would prefer to play less franchise cricket and more first-class and Test cricket, they can’t – unless they pursue a county career in England. Ireland are currently scheduled to host more Tests than South Africa in 2025.

    David Wiese spent almost 12 months playing for eight different franchise and provincial teams last year. At the end of it he said: “Something has to ‘give’, it can’t carry on like this. There were guys in the change rooms already talking about where their next gig was before the tournament we were playing was even finished.”