Self-interest overrides global development as ICC confirms ten-team World Cup

April 6, 2011 2 Comments

With the World Cup final still fresh in the memory, the ICC Executive Board met on Monday and confirmed that the next tournament, to be held in Australia and New Zealand, will be contested only by the ten Test-playing full members. That means there will be no place in 2015 for associate members such as Ireland and the Netherlands.

It is a decision which says much about the ICC’s determination to maximise commercial revenues and protect its elite club of full members at the expense of the game’s global development. It will also try the patience of both fans and casual viewers, many of whom consider the current format too long and drawn-out.

In its press release following the Executive Board meeting, the ICC said:

The Executive Board confirmed their decision made in October 2010 that the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 in Australia and New Zealand and the ICC Cricket World Cup in England in 2019 will be a 10-team event. The Board agreed that the 2015 World Cup will comprise the existing 10 Full Members, however, they gave notice to all Full Members that participation in the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup will be determined on the basis of qualification. It was also agreed that post the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 there will be promotion and relegation introduced in the ODI League.

The Board had also decided in October 2010 that the ICC World Twenty20 will comprise 16 teams. This would allow six Associates or Affiliates the opportunity to participate in an ICC Global event every two years.

What’s the impact?

First of all, don’t be distracted by the expansion of the World Twenty20 tournament from 12 to 16 teams. The net effect remains that the associate member nations have been relegated from the sport’s showpiece tournament. Yes, associate members can play in an ICC tournament every two years, but it is like being told you are no longer eligible for the Champions League but can participate twice a year in the Europa League instead. It is scant consolation.

Ireland's Kevin O'Brien will not have the opportunity to repeat his World Cup heroics in 2015

Secondly, why restrict the tournament to only the full members? The ICC one-day international rankings shows that Ireland are currently tenth, one place ahead of full member Zimbabwe. The Irish more than held their own at this World Cup, winning two matches including a thrilling triumph over England, and in the 2007 tournament even qualified for the quarter-finals ahead of Pakistan. Zimbabwe beat only lowly Canada and Kenya and have progressed beyond the initial group stage just twice in their history (1999 and 2003). Indeed, the majority of their previous participations have resulted in a bottom-place finish.

Can you imagine FIFA deciding to scrap the qualifying competition for the 2014 World Cup and instead declaring that it will only be open to the nations represented by the 24 members of its Executive Committee? I think not.

The ICC’s decision now means that an Ireland side who are more than capable of holding their own with the Test-playing nations will be unable to participate until at least 2019. And even then, that is uncertain, with the ICC cagey as to the exact qualification format. It is hard to avoid the feeling of the governing body protecting its nearest and dearest at the expense of other ‘lesser’ countries whose continued development can hardly be helped by exclusion from the top table.

Unsurprisingly, Cricket Ireland chief Warren Deutrom reacted to the news by pointing the finger directly at the ICC:

We’re outraged by this decision. It’s a betrayal of sporting principles and it flies in the face of all the evidence we saw at the World Cup, which was that an associate nation could compete with the best teams in the world.

It’s baffling but am I surprised? Not really, because clearly there are instances where protection of existing privileges is considered more important than any other principle – including those of sport, fairness and equality.

In the last four years we have been ranked above one of the teams that now has automatic qualification for the World Cup, Zimbabwe, and there isn’t a single point you can take from that that is remotely justifiable.

When questioned about the possibility of legal action, which could include an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Deutrom added:

Nothing is being ruled out at this stage. Legal action could be a relatively slippery slope but we will examine every possible option.

I have worked in the ICC for the best part of eight or nine years, and I can say that today I am ashamed to be part of that apparatus.

With entry to the World Cup now apparently barred for at least eight years, there is a danger that talented Irish players will not consider a place in the World Twenty20 tournament to be sufficient incentive and will declare themselves eligible for England or abandon cricket altogether. This would set back development of the sport in the country – it is certainly not going to encourage it. How can this be a good thing?

A mixed reaction in Australia

It has been interesting to note the divergence of reaction to this news from different stakeholders in Australia, co-hosts of the next tournament.

Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland was supportive, believing that a tighter format might reinvigorate the tournament:

Fourteen [competing nations] was unwieldy and sub-optional with a lot of mis-matches and long breaks. Though there was an element of uncertainty about the David-Goliath games, it was hard to generate public interest in them.

However, the Australian media has been more critical, with the Daily Telegraph in particular pulling no punches:

Australia has just become host of cricket’s Shame Games. The showpiece 2015 World Cup, to be held in Australia and New Zealand, now carries the unmistakable stench of rampant cronyism. By banishing Ireland in favour of the game’s most corrupt country, Zimbabwe, the Afro-Asia dominated ICC has once again driven a stake through the heart of the game’s credibility.

Will a smaller World Cup be a shorter World Cup?

One of the few key arguments in support of a smaller World Cup would be the shortening of a tournament which ran to an unwieldy 43 days this time around (and 47 in 2007).

Should any global tournament take this long in an already hectic calendar? Players are away from their families for extended periods and with little opportunity to recharge their batteries between domestic seasons and international tours. This takes its toll physically but also places a heavy mental burden on players, as we saw in this tournament with Michael Yardy‘s withdrawal due to depression.

The ICC could point to the Rugby Union World Cup – this year’s tournament lasts 45 days – but the physical nature of that sport precludes games being played closer together. Besides, that competition involves 20 teams – some of whom are the equivalent of the ICC’s associate members – as opposed to cricket’s 14. And football manages to invite 32 teams to its World Cup and still have everything wrapped up in 31 days.

I know there were big commercial considerations, but was it really in anyone’s interests to have a group phase which took 30 days and 42 games to whittle 14 entrants down to eight quarter-finalists? Indeed, it was not until day 34 – nearly five weeks in – that it felt as if the tournament had started properly, when India dethroned three-time defending champions Australia. That surely cannot be right.

Thankfully, the two semi-finals and the final were thrilling affairs. But that should not cloud the fact that the excitement had been a long time coming, and we had to endure a long, hard slog to get there.

True, the move to a ten-team tournament could result in a shorter tournament. However, it was worrying to read the following tweet from the BBC’s Jonathan Aggers:

As I understand it the [Australia/New Zealand] World Cup will largely be one match per day because TV deal already done. Fewer teams but same [approximate] length.

It’s easy to see why commercial considerations could lead the ICC down this path. If true, it would certainly echo comments made by ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat, who told BBC 5 Live’s Sportsweek last Sunday that he considered the length of this year’s tournament to be fine, and that most people seemed to agree. Really?

Learning from football

I’m not normally one to praise FIFA, but the way it has expanded its World Cup should be an object lesson to the ICC. Football’s World Cup has gradually increased the number of participants without becoming bloated, in a tournament which takes just one month.

Furthermore, FIFA does not automatically protect its oldest members. The number of places reserved for European teams has gradually eroded – 13 in 2010. If qualification was based solely on historical importance or FIFA ranking Europe would have closer to 20 places, and there would be barely any teams from outside Europe and South America. (There were 14 at the 2010 tournament, six of whom were ranked outside the top 32.) Okay, that means every now and then a ‘major’ power such as England or the Netherlands fails to qualify, but the finals tournament is never any worse for that.

Just imagine what the football World Cup might be like if FIFA behaved as the ICC have just done. The World Cup would probably be reduced to just 16 teams – including Scotland as an automatic qualifier – with Asia, Africa and other smaller confederations left out in the cold. There would be one game a day, and the tournament would probably take closer to two months than one to complete. Ridiculous, no?

I realise I’m being a bit harsh on the ICC here. The differing attitudes between it and FIFA are driven largely by the political power bases in each sport: Africa/Asia in cricket versus the disproportionate power wielded by men such as CONCACAF’s odious Jack Warner in football. But the fact remains that a football World Cup is a celebration of diversity and growth in which England scrape through the group stages only to lose early in the knockout rounds, whereas the cricket World Cup is, for 2015 at least, a closed shop in which England scrape through the group stages only to lose early in the knockout rounds. One is democratic, the other an elitist boys’ club. I know which system I’m happier with.

A potential solution?

To attract casual fans and keep them engaged, the tournament certainly needs to be shorter. So what is the solution?

I would actually advocate increasing the number of teams back to 16 and returning to a format of four groups of four. This would reduce the first phase to 24 matches – this year’s two groups of seven required 42 games – and could be finished in less than two weeks, as it was in 2007. Yes, there would still be some mismatches, but viewers will accept a handful of one-sided games if they are scheduled at a decent pace. And, lest we forget, matches between bigger teams can be equally one-sided, with two of the quarter-finals in this tournament (West Indies versus Pakistan, England versus Sri Lanka) being won by ten wickets.

It would also have the benefit of making the eight qualifiers less predictable. Did we really need to spend 30 days to determine that the eight quarter-finalists would be Australia, India, Pakistan, England, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies – i.e. the top eight nations?

In 2007, the shorter group format promoted Bangladesh and Ireland into the last eight at the expense of India and Pakistan. The ICC came under fire for allowing two of their biggest markets to exit the tournament so early – which is presumably why we had the turgid groups of seven this time – but that should be the teams’ problem, not the ICC’s. Nobody wants to see too many favourites exiting early, but equally no one wants things to be utterly predictable either. Two qualifiers from groups of four is a system which has worked perfectly well at the football World Cup. Why not cricket?

After the group phase, we would move straight into knockout quarter-finals, and so on. The tournament would be done and dusted in four weeks, and the quality of the group round would undoubtedly improve with the added importance of not slipping up early on.

Of course, it will never happen. It is in the ICC’s interest to squeeze every last drop of revenue out of the tournament, and in the host nations’ interest to wring cash out of sponsors and fans – even if the quality of the product suffers as a result. And it is also important for the top countries to minimise the risk of an embarrassingly early exit. But what is the point if casual fans simply ignore the group stage, and if the smaller countries never really have a shot at progressing? How does that promote the game to a broader global audience?

The ICC’s move may well maximise the revenue-generating potential of the World Cup and keep its more powerful members happy. But if part of its role is the development of the game in terms of both participation and reaching new viewers and fans, I fear this is a sadly misguided – and utterly selfish – step backwards.

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Pakistan betting scandal only a symptom of cricket’s wider disease

August 31, 2010 5 Comments

One of the things that makes sport such a compelling spectacle is the knowledge that you are watching teams or individuals striving to produce the best possible performance they can and defeat their opponents.

Or so we are led to believe.

The exposure of the doping culture which is prevalent in many sports has done much to undermine fans’ belief in their idols, but at least it can be rationalised that they are still trying to win, albeit by illegal means. The same goes for gamesmanship or plain and simple cheating which we have increasingly come to accept as commonplace.

But what about when individuals commit deliberate acts which diminish their team’s or their own performance: the jockey who eases up on his ride, the striker who intentionally misses the target, or the bowler who knowingly over-steps the crease to deliver a no-ball?

Even if the transgression is an apparently minor one, what effect does this have on the way we view sport?

That is the question at the heart of the furore which has engulfed a Pakistan cricket team which hardly has a gleaming record in such matters.

The allegations

Mohammad Asif

Mohammad Amir

Four Pakistan players – captain Salman Butt, wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal and bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif – were placed under investigation for spot-fixing events in competitive matches. (Akmal has now been dropped from the police investigation.)

Allegations in the News of the World centre on three no-balls delivered during England‘s innings at Lord’s – two by Amir, one by Asif – which are said to have been ‘arranged’ by cricket agent Mazhar Majeed in exchange for £150k. Majeed has since been released by the police on bail, without being charged.

Video footage of the three incidents, particularly in the case of the two Amir deliveries, appears damning. The bowler clearly over-steps by a full boot-length on each occasion, a huge margin of error for a professional bowler.

In addition, the Pakistan team is already under investigation for suspicious incidents in matches on their winter tour of Australia, in which they lost all three Tests and all five one-day internationals.

Butt’s response to the latest scandal fell some way short of an outright denial:

These are just allegations. Anybody can say things about you, that does not make them true. They include quite a few people, they are ongoing and we will see what happens.

The players were booed by their own supporters at Lord’s on Sunday, and some threw tomatoes at the team coach to register their disappointment and disgust at the front-page revelations that nobody associated with the game ever wanted to see again.

Pakistan’s dubious history

On the face of it, being whitewashed in Australia is not in itself a reason for automatic suspicion – England lost the last Ashes series down under 5-0 – but eyebrows were certainly raised during the series at certain idiosyncratic incidents.

Wicketkeeper Akmal dropped four catches in the second Test at Sydney, a match which Australia won by just 36 runs. And Amir dropped a simple catch off Australian captain Ricky Ponting during the third Test in Tasmania.

Of course, neither of these events is proof of any wrongdoing – Amir is not the first player to spill a straightforward catch, and Akmal is hardly the best gloves-man ever (he has kept wicket poorly this summer too). It is important not to read meaning into events which may have none, as England captain Andrew Strauss said on Sunday:

With these sorts of allegations, you start questioning things you shouldn’t be questioning.

Nonetheless, when both events at Lord’s and other dubious chapters in Pakistan’s cricketing history are taken into consideration, the weight of circumstantial evidence would trouble even the broadest of shoulders.

Asif was implicated for ball-tampering in the infamous 2006 Oval Test (which Pakistan forfeited in protest), and subsequently served a one-year ban for using the prohibited drug nandrolone.

A previous major investigation into match-fixing, conducted by Justice Malik Mohammad Qayyum at the instigation of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) in 1998, led to captain Salim Malik and bowler Ata-ur-Rehman being banned for life. (The bans were subsequently rescinded.) Serious but unsubstantiated concerns were also aired over senior players such as Wasim Akram and current England bowling coach Musthaq Ahmed.

Qayyum told The Times:

The current situation is very unfortunate. It is very shocking. Is it surprising? No.

Not just Pakistan

While Pakistan certainly have the most notorious reputation when it comes to match or spot-fixing, they are by no means the only ones to have been involved in cricketing corruption.

South Africa captain Hansie Cronje is perhaps the best-known such case. He was dealt a life ban in 2000 after an investigation following a recorded phone call with Sanjay Chawla, a representative of an Indian betting syndicate.It transpired Cronje had accepted several payments over a period of four years to influence the result of matches, and had also offered teammates bribes to deliberately under-perform. India captain Mohammed Azharuddin and batsman Ajay Sharma also received permanent bans as a result of the investigation.

At least three players – including Australia’s Brad Haddin – are known to have reported being approached by individuals trying to set up spot-fixes during last year’s Twenty20 World Cup.

And Australian all-rounder Shane Watson has come forward today to reveal that he was invited for a drink by a member of a betting syndicate during last summer’s Ashes series:

It happened a couple of times in London and I just went and told [team manager] Steve Bernard. It was an Indian fan, or that’s what I thought it was. I didn’t think too much more of it until I found out a bit more information that he was actually one of the illegal bookmakers that was trying to get involved.

Nor is such activity restricted to international cricket. Currently two Essex players – one of them Pakistan leg spinner Danish Kaneria – are under investigation for suspected offences similar to those alleged at Lord’s. Other county players are also known to have been approached by Indian ‘businessmen’.

How does this happen?

There are a number of factors which mean that cricket – and Pakistan in particular – is particularly susceptible to betting corruption.

Firstly, cricket’s demographics and structure both encourage spot-betting on a huge variety of micro-events which do not directly influence the match result. The sport’s immense popularity in India and Pakistan, coupled with the huge (and illegal) unregulated gambling industry in India, means there is big money to be made and lost on cricket betting. From the runs scored by a batsman or conceded by a bowler (either in total or over a particular timeframe) to the number of lbw’s, dropped catches, no-balls or wides, if you can place money on it, there is someone who will offer you a price on it.

Pakistan’s cricketers are also more susceptible than most.

From an economic standpoint, the team’s centrally-contracted players are only paid around £25k pa – marginally more than the minimum wage for a senior county cricketer – which compares poorly with up to £400k for England’s team. Add in personal endorsements and the riches on offer in the IPL (which Pakistan players cannot participate in) and the sport’s superstars such as Sachin Tendulkar can easily earn in excess of £5m in one year. The temptation to accept a payment from a bookie is therefore a compelling one. (This is why county cricket is also a common target for corruption, with the added benefit of having a lower and less-scrutinised profile than international matches.)

It should also not be forgotten that many of the nation’s cricketers are from under-privileged backgrounds, and a financial inducement of even a few thousand dollars can make an enormous difference for the players and their families. Mohammad Amir is a prime example, the youngest of seven children from an impoverished family, who grew up playing ‘tape cricket’ (a common form of the game using a tennis ball wrapped in electrical tape).

In addition, the international team is effectively homeless and nomadic since the terrorist attack on the Sri Lanka team bus in Lahore in March of last year, increasing the players’ vulnerability and the opportunity for external contact. And there is also the feeling that match-fixing is almost an accepted part of the country’s cricketing culture, with the rewards far outweighing the perceived risks.

Speaking about Amir, former captain Ramiz Raja said:

I blame the people who got an innocent 18-year old thinking in a devious manner. It is that and the unhealthy atmosphere around the team. I blame the leadership, by which I mean management, the atmosphere in the dressing room, the entire cricket culture back home. They all think they can get away with it.

The consequences

The various authorities are now scrambling to complete investigations into the Lord’s affair, and also the winter tour of Australia.

A PCB enquiry is ongoing, with Pakistan’s Federal Sports Minister Ijaz Jakhrani calling its outcome “a matter of honour and dignity”. The ICC has also promised it will complete an initial investigation before Pakistan’s next match against England (a Twenty20 game) on Sunday, although it is unclear exactly how rigorous this can be.

ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat told BBC Radio 5 Live:

The reputation of the game has been tarnished and it is something we must make right. There is no question that people’s confidence will have been swayed. We’re busy with the Metropolitan Police and hope, before the weekend arrives, we can get to some sort of a conclusion.

We are working hard, but it’s important to remember that an individual is innocent until proven guilty. At the moment, it is appropriate that the game continues. We shouldn’t let everyone suffer because of a couple of individuals that might have got caught up in corrupt practices.

The vast majority of players are not guilty of any such behaviour. We shouldn’t let a couple of individuals, a few players, bring the entire game to a standstill.

Responses from the cricketing community – players, media and fans alike – have ranged from outrage (many) to sympathy (a few).

Strauss is one of those who has come down quite clearly on the side of making an example of any wrongdoers:

If someone is found categorically guilty, the only way for me is for you to not be able to play international cricket again.

Former captain Michael Vaughan agreed:

The game has to be cleaned up. This is the chance to change the game forever and stamp this kind of thing out.

Others from outside the English game, including former Pakistan captain-turned-politican Imran Khan agree:

If these allegations are true then there should be exemplary punishment. If the players are found guilty they should be shunted out of the team [and] replaced by others.

Certainly, past precedent would suggest that life bans are likely for any players found guilty.

Former England captain Mike Atherton, now The Times’ cricket correspondent, points to the case of the 18-year old Amir and the opportunity this presents to purge Pakistan’s cricket culture of its disease of corruption:

Amir’s rehabilitation should be at the heart of the cleansing of Pakistan cricket. The brilliant young bowler is not the cause of the problem but the most tragic consequence of it.

Regardless, it is vital now that any investigations and subsequent punishments do not shy away from meeting the issues head on. Writing on the BBC Sport website, cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew says:

The investigation, for the good of cricket, has to be thorough and absolute. The game cannot afford for this to be swept under the carpet and if that means Pakistan, when this tour comes to an end, must serve a temporary exile from international cricket then so be it.

In the meantime, the tour continues, although it is unclear whether Butt, Akmal, Amir and Asif will play again. Pakistan play Somerset on Thursday, and are still scheduled to play two Twenty20 matches and five one-day internationals against England.

The moral question

This story will run and run for at least the next several days, with our perspectives on it no doubt changing as new evidence is made public. But the fundamental question I posed at the beginning of this post remains: even if the transgression is an apparently minor one, what effect does this have on the way we view sport?

To say that the full extent of Pakistan’s alleged deception was to concede three inconsequential no-balls in a match England won by an innings and 225 runs is a facile and ignorant argument, not least because England were on the ropes at 102/7 before Jonathan Trott and Stuart Broad staged their world record eighth wicket partnership. What if one of those no-balls, if bowled ‘properly’, had dismissed Trott or Broad early in their stand? What if it had struck the batsman’s head, unsettling him for a future wicket-taking delivery? What if the ball had reared up unexpectedly, planting a seed of doubt in the mind and geeing up the other bowlers? What if? What if? What if? No one delivery in a cricket match can be considered to be a wholly independent event, just as a single move in chess inevitably has repercussions on the rest of the game.

So much of sport is about winning (or losing) the battle in the mind that it is hard to believe that a player consciously committed to under-performing in one aspect of his game would not also be subconsciously affected at least slightly in others, and at the highest level it is these marginal differences that often make all the difference.

What was the cost to Pakistan of those three no-balls? Just three runs? I don’t think so.

There is also the question of whether the suspected players (or conceivably others) also committed other acts of falsification which remain undiscovered, a point raised by former England captain and Sky commentator Nasser Hussain in the Daily Mail:

I find it hard to believe that we’re just talking about a few no-balls. I’m furious with Pakistan for going down this road again. My hope is that, if the allegations are true, the authorities are strong.

The reality is that the breadth of corruption extends far beyond this match, the Pakistan team and the players under investigation. The News of the World‘s allegations only scratch the surface of a far bigger problem. But starting with the visible tip of the iceberg is as good a place to start as any.

I am indebted to The Times, and in particular correspondents Mike Atherton, Simon Barnes, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, Ashling O’Connor and Matthew Syed, from whose reports the facts and quotes for much of this post have been drawn. Any errors in this article are strictly my own.

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