The Future of Test Cricket in Aotearoa is Dim (And It Goes Deeper Than NZC)
The ICC announced a few interesting changes to the laws of cricket this week. Nothing too dramatic and everything within the realms of common sense. There’s now a limit on how thick one’s bat can be. You can no longer be run out (or stumped) if you ground your bat behind the crease but it bobbles up at the time the bails are removed… as long as there’s forward momentum (if you get in and then leave again then you’re on your bike, champ).
There will no longer be any bonus DRS referrals after 80 overs in Test matches – just two per innings – but you also no longer lose a referral for decisions where the umpire’s call is the only factor preventing an overturn. Plus you can now complete a catch despite the ball hitting the helmet of a fielder, just so long as that helmet is being worn by said fielder. Short leg situations, more or less.
Pretty hard to argue with any of that. You know what would be really nice though? If the ICC would do something about the offensively unfair way that its money is distributed amongst its member nations so we can have more Test cricket in this country.
New Zealand Cricket will host only four home Test matches this summer. You already know that because our cricket stuff here pops like nothing else and frustrating/illogical decisions by the governing body tend to be a big part of that. Why you wanna recall Jeetan Patel at this stage of his career when you’ve already invested in two young spinners for the future? What’s this bloody thing with Ross Taylor not being picked for the T20 international side when he’s fit and willing? Mate, and why in the name of thunder-slugging Zeus are we only playing four home Tests this summer!?
Probably something to do with money, as per usual. There was supposed to be a fifth Test, a third match against the West Indies, but they decided it’d be easier simply not to play it. Guts to cricket fans in Christchurch, who were told that Hagley Oval was to have two Tests this season and now has just the one against England. Guts to anyone who’s a fan of the five-day game (aka: anyone who’s a fan of cricket full stop) because the Blackcaps’ last day of Test cricket was on March 29. Their next day of Test cricket is on December 1. Thanks to the odd lack of a winter tour (apart from the disastrous Champions Trophy effort and the upcoming limited overs sojourn to India) that’ll make it 246 days in between consecutive Test matches for New Zealand.
For the record, the last time they went that long between Tests was six years ago – 255 days elapsing between a home match against Pakistan and the tour to Zimbabwe. But that was 2011 and there was a World Cup in the middle, to be fair.
It’s a stat that’s been spun out a few times on TNC’s twitter: the Blackcaps last played a four Test series in England in 1999. New Zealand last hosted a four Test series in 1968 against India. That was one of only three four Test series that have ever been hosted in Aotearoa. New Zealand last played a five Test series in the West Indies back in 1972. New Zealand has never hosted a five Test series.
Since the turn of the millennium the Blackcaps has accommodated 31 Test series: three with only one Test (Zimbabwe twice and Bangladesh once), 14 with two Tests and 14 with three. However until the three Test series against South Africa in February/March, there’d been six consecutive two Test series in NZ. That pretty clearly shows you the direction these schedules are heading in.
If you thought the proposed Test Match Championship was gonna change anything then you’re wrong there too. It might mean a few more diverse opponents but it’s not gonna expand those series any wider. That new venture should be confirmed in the coming weeks and will probably come into effect in 2019. The Championship will also have an ODI arm, with a couple extra teams included. But we’ve got enough limited overs cricket, it’s the Test stuff that’s heading for a crisis.
Under the original Championship proposal the nine Test teams would play each other over a two year period, either home or away with the venues reversed for the next Championship. Series can be as long as anyone wants… but only two Tests per series count towards the Championship scores. So the Ashes will presumably remain a five-Test series but a country like New Zealand, which already struggles to schedule Tests, is gonna have no incentive to play more than two Test matches in each tour. David White, NZC CEO, has pretty much confirmed that the 2-3-3 format (2 Tests, 3 ODIs, 3 T20s) being flaunted this summer is gonna be the blueprint going forward.
It hasn’t even begun yet and the Test Championship is already complicated by the fact that India refuses to play Pakistan. The two nations haven’t played a Test match since December 2007 and, other than a limited overs series five years ago, only ever meet in tournaments now. The PCB has already refused to sign on with the Championship “without clarity on bilateral matches with India”.
The ICC therefore had two options: have a few words to the BCCI or just do whatever the BCCI tells them to do, as per usual, and bugger up their whole schedule to accommodate them. Guess which one they chose?
Yeah so now it sounds like the Test Championship that goes through will only require six series over the two years - meaning not every country even plays each other, for chrissake. However there will be an eight month window where nations can schedule whatever games they want (free play!) and this is what Pakistan Cricket are pissed off about. They want guarantees that they can at least get bilateral series against India during the free play window because if they can’t then they’re not going to be playing India for another decade and that means they’re going to lose a lot of money on their next broadcast deal.
For New Zealand the consequences are a minimum of six Tests over a two year period and probably not a whole lot more on top of that. The NZ Cricket line is that they dropped that extra Windies Test because they wanted to prepare for… well, here’s the quote…
David White: “If we look forward to the way Test cricket will probably go in the future, we are very hopeful that in October the ICC will sign off on a new Test Championship commencing in 2019/20. A typical tour will be two Test matches, three ODIs and three T20s so we are trying to get aligned with what we'll have in the future. We've got four Test matches which will be the norm going forward, with two tours, with 13 ODIs which is a lot but it is the start of our preparations for the 2019 World Cup.”
Terrifying as that prospect is, it’s also not the whole story. NZ Cricket lose a lot of money hosting Test matches. This next idea isn’t to take them off the hook for their short-sighted scheduling bollocks but if you think about it they’re expected to run a competitive national team with a parallel set of fixtures to the likes of India, England and Australia despite making a fraction of the cash that those big three reel in. They’ll be competing in the ICC’s competition, intended to bring commercial success back to its flagship sport, and will be doing so at a massive financial disadvantage.
If the ICC wanted to they could split their enormous income much more evenly across the nations in a way that would promote the growth and sustainability of the sport. Instead when the latest revenue model was revealed earlier in the year it was the BCCI receiving US$293m over the eight years from 2016-2023. That’s more than double what any other country will earn and yet barely over half of what the BCCI initially demanded (but less than last time, thankfully). England get $143m, Zimbabwe get $94m and everyone else $132m. The associate members get to split a pool of $280m.
The argument is sound enough, India bring in the most money so they get the most back. It’s the same theory that’s applied in the Spanish football league… and guess where that’s got them? Barcelona and Real Madrid break transfer records every few years and have won 12 of the last 13 titles between them. The English Premier League’s broadcast deal, meanwhile, sees 50% of it split evenly amongst its 20 teams with only 25% of it paid in ‘facility fees’ for each time a club has a match shown live on telly in the UK. It makes a difference.
US$132m over eight years adds up to about NZ$22.9m per year. NZC made a surplus of NZ$23.7m over the 2014-15 financial year, but that included hosting a very successful World Cup. They were anticipating losses over the next 12 months and whatdoyouknow… that’s exactly what happened (an operating loss of NZ$2m). The cost of hosting five-day events are enough that basically only the big three can really afford it. The new revenue model balances things out slightly but imagine if the ICC actually cared about spreading the wealth for the benefit of the sport. The players want more Tests. The fans want more Tests. If money weren’t such a factor then we’d be getting more Tests.
The implications of all this are worrying. The idea is that Tests need some kind of context and that’s what the Championship is for. The Championship has to fit in a certain amount of series, though, which means shorter (but more relevant) series. New Zealand doesn’t have a lot of money to spare and until now Tests have been costing them cash, so New Zealand needs no further inclination to settle for two-Test tours. The Championship is already selling-out to politics yet even still it’s the master plan that’s supposed to bring more relevance to Test cricket. The plan is more money from fewer Tests and this Championship only reinforces that.
Can we have our sport back, please?
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