Speaking ahead of the third Test against England at Johannesburg, AB de Villiers dropped a bombshell when he refused to rule out the rumours regarding his impending retirement and said that he was focusing on the rest of the series as of now.
“There has been a few rumours floating around and in most rumours there is always a little bit of truth,” said De Villiers after taking over the Test captaincy for the Proteas. “It is not just in the last while, in the last two or three years, I've been searching for the right answers to play a little bit less cricket in one way or another to keep myself fresh and to keep enjoying the game."
Cricketers these days are a pampered lot with their huge pay packages and king-size lifestyles. What De Villiers was clearly alluding to was a potential Test retirement which would make him available to feature in the T20 leagues around the world.
But when someone of the calibre of De Villiers, who is in the form of his life, considers retirement to opt for the more lucrative proposition of franchise-based T20s, it is surely not a great advertisement for Test cricket.
Cash-rich leagues promise huge financial gains
Perhaps for the first time in their lives, cricketers find themselves divided between their allegiances to the nation and the financial gains promised by the cash-rich franchises. Even when players want to be just content with representing their nations, their fortitude is being deeply tasted by the money that is being thrown at them by the franchises.
And that was exactly the point AB de Villiers was making when he said: "There are big tournaments going on around the world at the moment and some of them you cannot ignore because financially they do make a huge difference in our lives."
The payments involved are, in fact, so lucrative that they have tipped the scales in favour of franchise-based cricket. Andrew Symonds earned an incredible $1.4 million for six weeks work in the inaugural edition of the IPL back in 2008. Players like Yuvraj Singh and Glenn Maxwell have elicited multi-million dollar bids. And a defining case in point would also be that of Chris Morris.
In 2013, Morris started out in the IPL auction with a base price of US$20,000 but was ultimately snapped up by the CSK for an incredible $625,000 which was 31 times his initial base price. Morris earned a whopping 5.5 million in rands which turned him from an unknown quantity to a multi-million dollar player in the space of ten minutes. "I have never in my life seen this much money," Morris gasped.
Even though the Big Bash League brought up an increment of $100,000 in 2015, it's salary cap of $1.30 million is nowhere close to the IPL. The Indian Premier League has a player's salary cap of $9 million which makes it a natural destination for players from all around the world.
With so much money being thrown around, the structure of cricket is changing. Players anxious to have a share of the pie are not at all reluctant to forgo their international commitments. And the other side of the story is equally concerning: cricketers are growing up these days with the sole desire of being successful T20 cricketers. With franchise-based cricket able to lend them fame and financial security, representing the nation in the longer format no longer remains the primary choice for a budding cricketer.
KC Cariappa who was bought by the KKR for an astonishing Rs. 2.4 crore - 24 times his base price - had not come through the ranks playing Test cricket at the domestic level but was spotted for his good performances in the Karnataka Premier League which is a state-level franchise-based T20 competition.
And players like Chris Gayle and Kevin Pietersen who have been pariahs in their own cricketing worlds have managed to stay in the limelight, earning big bucks by belting out match-winning performances for franchises around the world.
Just cricket or entertainment?
While youngsters often use franchise-based cricket as a leverage to shoot through to fame, the more experienced cricketers take to it as it is less taxing. Though the level of commitment remains high and the T20 format is physically demanding, there is hardly the pressure that once undergoes while representing the country.
This form of cricket is also high on the entertainment quotient with the world of glamour coming together with sport to form a heady cocktail. Brendom McCullum speaking to cricket.com.au last year said, "The IPL – financially it’s obviously great for players and that’s one of the things that everyone views is that it’s this big money-spinning tournament, and yes it is. But geez I got to bat next to Ricky Ponting in my first ever game in the IPL.
"I idolised Ricky Ponting growing up and here I was at the other end to him, and leading into a game watching him train, getting alongside him, speaking to him about the game, sharing a beer with him. These sorts of experiences, they were never around before the IPL, and what it’s done for world cricket and the relationships it’s created."
And the strange thing is that it is not ostensibly cricketing skills but marketability that fetches a player huge price tags in these competitions. Speaking about how competitions like the IPL have altered the ecosystem of the sport, Rahul Dravid mused back in 2013, "The other day I walked the ramp as part of a promotional event. When I started my career, I never imagined this would be part of a cricketer's life!"
With spontaneous entertainment, king-sized lifestyles, an easy camaraderie between international players and of course, huge pay packages, franchise-based T20 cricket is a now a fun-filled and easy way for cricketers to earn the big bucks. No matter how much cricketers strike the politically correct notes of Test matches being the ultimate form of cricket, franchise-based T20s remain the ultimate cash cow that they are increasingly finding hard to ignore.
Nation versus Franchise
De Villiers was also right in emphasizing that apart from ICC events, fan interest in bilateral tournaments is dwindling. The alternative market of franchise-based cricket, with the money being pumped into it, is seriously on the rise like never before.
“The worrying thing is that the players are telling us that if things don’t change, they will be turning more to T20 leagues,” De Villiers said. “It varies from country to country. Countries where players are well paid and Test cricket is stronger have a big affinity to Test cricket. But in many countries that is not the case. Everyone in cricket has now got to the point where we need significant and proper changes.
“The two T20s leagues (IPL and Big Bash) are an internal market and free agency is on the rise. The West Indies are just a forerunner of the free agency change and we have got to do what we can to make international cricket as attractive as it can be to players.”
The present structure of the ICC is heavily skewed in favour of the 'Big Three' so much so that India, Australia and England can seriously pay their players enough to keep them away from rival T20 leagues. With the widening of the financial gains, countries like South Africa, Sri Lanka and West Indies will never be able to pay their players anywhere near to what franchises can offer them.
Michael Clarke had been critical of the West Indies players taking part in the BBL while the Windies were being annihilated by the Aussies in the Test series. Clarke said, "The players that are here playing in the BBL I think it’s really disappointing they’re not part of the West Indies Test team.
"There’s a number of players in Australia who would be in their number one picked Test team. I think it’s disappointing for the game and Test match cricket. I’d like to see that changed. That will come down to the ICC and West Indies Cricket Board trying to get together to make it work.”
But what Clarke fails to see is the basic flaw in the way the ICC is structured which makes it impossible for cricket boards outside the Big Three to pay their players satisfactory wages. The most disappointing case in recent history is Brendon Taylor's early retirement from international cricket citing reasons of financial instability. If cricket boards are not able to pay players according to their demands, it is only natural that cricketers would gravitate towards the cash-rich franchises.
An uncertain future lies ahead
Franchise-based cricket is here to stay and might well be the future of the sport. But the ICC needs to play a bigger role in regulating and re-structuring cricket. There is universal acceptance of the fact that new life needs to be breathed into Test cricket to resuscitate it from the dying embers. Organising a World Test championship, more Day/Night Tests and even franchise-based Test cricket might be a few desirable options to work with.
But all these are quick-fixes that hardly address the actual problem. The elephant in the room remains the ICC with its unmitigated greed and lust for power. And that it is a three-horse race at the moment is no secret with new financial restructuring set to lead to a 20 percent increase of the expected revenue of $2.5 billion which will be pocketed by the BCCI over the next eight years.
For countries like Zimbabwe and West Indies, it is a losing battle as they are sure to lose some of their finest players to T20 franchises over the next few years. Unless a re-structuring of the ICC with a radical financial remodelling is on the cards - which is extremely unlikely given the elite position enjoyed by its three core members - more countries will see a rapid exodus of their international superstars.
But interestingly, the ICC stands much to lose from such a development. The mushrooming of T20 leagues is slowly empowering private entrepreneurs to experiment with their own models of controlling cricket. This is bringing about a radical decentralisation as far as financial control and governance of cricket is concerned.
Should any such alternative blueprint of governance backed by private commercial players who do not lack in financial muscle catch the imagination of the cricketing fraternity at large, the ICC will find that its moves so far have fatally backfired.
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