Even though Sharad Pawar acts as if he is the power in the ICC, Raymond Mali is the President. The Acting President, that everyone seems to forget. He's so unknown, that his middle name is (seriously.. no jokes) Remember!! Anyway, this post is not about Raymond Remember Mali, but rather what I would do if I were to be the ICC president for a day.
So, here goes.
1a. Rule that the States/Provinces have no business running cricket teams. The IPL has shown that privately run teams seem to have a lot more incentive to make money, and so make cricket that much more fun to watch. I can bet there were more people in a single Kolkata Knight Riders game at the Eden Gardens, than there were for the entire home season combined of the Bengal Ranji team. Thus, the domestic game would completely be run by franchises. Each domestic season (all 11 test playing countries) would be between 15 - 20 weeks. All domestic first class games would begin on the Tuesday, and be 4-day affairs, till the Friday. The Sunday would be reserved for the 20-20 game between the two teams. Something like the NFL, all the 20-20 games would be televised on national TV. Assuming you have 8 teams per domestic circuit, by breaking them into two groups of 4, you can conduct the entire home-away business within 15 weeks, with 3 weeks for the first class knock-outs (2 semis, 1 final) and 1 week for the 20-20 knockouts. Foreign players can be traded (so, Mumbai Indians could trade Luke Ronchi from the WA Bushrangers or Ishant Sharma could play for the Sussex Lions) and will be with the team throughout. However, there would have to be a limit on the number of foreign players on the playing XI. (The IPL is again our savior in this regard). Thus, you can have your IPL, APL, EPL, SLPL, PPL, NZPL, or whatever the hell you want to call it. The English have the Premiership, the Spanish have the La Liga. That didn't stop Beckham from playing for Real Madrid. Can work for football, can work for cricket.
1b. A player can play for only one club in the world. Each top level team would have it's own minor league affiliations, which would also follow a similar schedule. Might even be a good idea to break countries into 4 zones, and each zone would have a minor league team from the premier league. The Minor leagues would be a great way of supplying good talent and also allow players returning from injury practice.
2. Announce that the 2011 World cup final would be the last one-dayer ever to be played. With 20-20 being such a success, 50-50 is not going to be such fun. India beat Pakistan recently by 140 runs, and a guy named Simao was on the Times Sports page above Dhoni. Nuff Said. There's too much cricket with ODI's in the picture. Remove those, and you get 30 days a year to actually rest.
3. Announce that Countries will only play Test Cricket. No point in having Australia play India for a 20-20 if we can have the real cricket being played. Thus, tours can be spaced a bit better. Each test series would be 4 tests played over 5-6 weeks. Tests would always start on the Thursday, ending on the Monday. Much as I would like to see the Boxing Day test at the MCG, it's not really practical any more. Each country would play 4 series a year. 2 Home/2 Away. That's roughly 22 weeks of the year if you count that every visiting team would also require a week to settle in. If the free market in #1 is followed, you won't need much settling in any way. When India tours NZ, it could have some players who play day-in day out in NZ. Needless to say, the rule that you have to play in your domestic circuit to play for the country, would have to be tossed as well. If you were to break the teams into two divisions, you can also end up with each team playing every other team in it's division in a year. So we can also have a yearly championship at the end. The bottom team from the top division gets relegated, and the top team from the second division gets promoted.
4. Have a World 20-20 cup once every year in September in South Africa. This could be either club based or country based, doesn't really matter.
5. BAN ZIMBABWE. I really don't understand why they are still a test nation. Enough of politics, they're quite bad.
There.. It's been on my mind for a long time. Spewed it all out.. Would love to hear from anyone who bothers to read this what they think about it all.
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