“(Diego Costa) played how he has to play and that’s why you have full stadiums and you sell to televisions around the world for millions and millions because the game has to be played like that.”
Jose Mourinho’s words resonated when I went to see the excellent Death of a Gentleman, Sam Collins’ and Jarrod Kimber’s documentary. Full stadiums at the IPL. Sold to televisions around the world for millions and millions. But does it have to be played like that? Do players like Costa, managers like Mourinho, and administrators like Giles Clarke have to treat the fans with such contempt?
Discounting the sense of overkill, it seems odd to be contemplating the death of Test cricket in the wake of an Ashes trilogy played in stadiums every bit as full as in the Premier League. But, the Ashes aside, Test cricket is on its arse.
Perhaps the real death here is that of the British Empire, its influence finally at an end. With the exception of the enduring Ashes rivalry, the narratives of commonwealth cricket have been played out. Consider the West Indies. American sprinters are now the goliath figures. Cricket? Viv and Co won. Chris Gayle and Co are free. Free to go and earn shed-loads of cash in the IPL. Not that I can blame them or that the West Indies board is in any position to stop them, financially dependent as it is on India deigning them worthy of a tour.
Part of me doesn’t mourn the diminishing power of nationalism, but if it is to be replaced by corporate power then Test cricket will be about as international as rugby league. Talking of rugby, could cricket go the way of twin codes? Tests and T20s. Would Test cricket survive? Will it survive if the current trends continue? If the two codes continue to be in competition? If conflicts of interest at the very top of the ICC are unchallenged? If the market is allowed to run to its logical conclusion?
It’s not difficult to foresee a time when, as in football, club comes before country. And how long before clubs become corporations? The oil barons will move in, we’ll all be paying through the nose to watch the Gazprom International T20 League.
So T20, no doubt dominated by India, will survive, and so too the Ashes. It’s bombproof. That’s the Big 3 sorted, but what of the rest? World Cups and World T20s. There’s no money in anything else. Perhaps the death of Test cricket is inevitable, an anachronism with no global future in a globalised world.
But that’s a story almost as old as cricket itself, and cricket has always somehow endured. What’s changed, as Death of a Gentleman brilliantly exposes, is that, even if the death of Test cricket is inevitable, it’s now a case of assisted suicide at best, murder at worst. Buried alive in Indian cement, maybe, the Ashes played on in remembrance.
Which is why, despite being funny and warm, the film left me feeling angry. Angry that the game I love is being run by such greedy, arrogant bastards – a perception that I suspect didn’t need to be embellished by judicious editing.
The first line of the Woolf report of 2012: “Cricket is a great game.”
Cricket is a great game. It shouldn’t have to contract. Tests and T20s shouldn’t have to be in conflict. It can’t be that hard to have T20 windows when there is no Test cricket. But room in the calendar is not enough. Test cricket needs to mean something in a post-colonial world, and the meaning has to come from the best players playing the best game in the best conditions. It sounds straightforward, but it must be marketable – if T20 cricket relinquishes its monopoly on marketing, that is. A Test championship is a must, and surely not that hard to set up.
The Woolf report goes on: “It deserves to have governance, including management and ethics, worthy of the sport. This is not the position at the present time.”
With so much unapologetic self-interest and so many conflicts of interest at the very top of the ICC, it’s hard to come away with much hope from Death of a Gentleman, but it is an important film. I urge anyone with even a passing interest in cricket to go see it – and to sign the petition. If I knew how, I’d post a link. Here, make do with a hashtag:
#changecricket