So it seems the 'administrators' of the game have decided that their role is not in fact 'to minister to' the game of cricket but instead is self-aggrandisement, to play empires, appeal to jingoism and maximise short-term money for their own organisations and in certain cases no doubt personal enrichment too. Given the reigns, they've decided they are no longer servants of the game; instead the game is servant to them.
As per the other FTP thread, we need to consider the ICC's purpose; once The Goal of the organisation is understood then all means are arranged around the achievement of that goal. The Goal is in the name: International Cricket Council - the goal is Cricket. Money is not The Goal, it is merely a necessary condition to achieve that aim. Some business sensibilities are required to ensure the game can stand up economically, but for these to overwhelm the purpose of the organisation is the tail wagging the dog.
There is no way Cricket is best served by this proposal; any cursory examination of the dynamics involved would forecast that the nations outside the top 3 will be marginalised, resulting in the self-perpetuating cycle of a loss of interest and competitiveness. In the short term this represents a revenue increase for the top 3 (play each other more often) and a cost saving (don't have to play other nations). In the medium to long term it means one by one the marginalised nations fall victim to that negative feedback loop are no longer functional - and it's very hard to reverse that. That's bad enough - the goal spectacularly not achieved in those countries. What's left of the international game of cricket is robbed of it's diversity, and whether people in the big three countries are satisfied still getting served up the same **** sandwich year after year is a further question (probably are tbh).
Test cricket is the other component that is marginalised and possibly eventually left to die. While I love test cricket, I appreciate that many particularly outside this forum do not. That's ok. However the test format is the wellspring from which a depth of expertise, passion and skills flows downhill to the T20 format. It's a marine reserve that spills over to make the surrounding fisheries profitable. It's the repository of expensive and experienced seniors that a company must keep around because they're the ones that understand the company and it's clients. It's the fine wine that people move into when they're no longer satisfied with sweet cordial, and then they sit around discussing the ins and outs of that fine wine for hours afterwards and go to wine-tasting events and make up flowery words to describe it. But this is not just flowery talk - get rid of test cricket and you gut the cricket world of the people that care most about the game and provide much of the interest and expertise that makes it work - that's a monumentally stupid strategy from any perspective.
Particularly when there's already masses and masses of lowest-common-denominator entertainment out there. On that note, it's a fantasy that domestic T20 is going to become big in England and Australia; two countries that are already super-saturated by dominant domestic football codes with broad-based passionate appeal. And if we must use market-speak, frankly T20 is just not as good a product as those football codes. It's taken hold in India most likely because cricket already held a privileged position and didn't have quite so much competition as elsewhere. And forget other markets like the US that are themselves hyper competitive for the sporting entertainment dollar. Any realistic proposal for the good of the game needs to accept as a starting point that the Indian market does and is always likely to make most of money, and the IPL is a big part of that, and then move forward from there. Domestic T20 elsewhere will continue to be attended by people mildly interested in a bit of light amusement and a beer or two on a balmy summer night - not people that care passionately about a result one way or another.
Also can the person clogging this thread with ideological the-free-market-is-God babble please **** off. Just so much bull**** that I don't have time right now to ridicule for the counter-to-reality nonsense that it is.
