Best Structure for Domestic Cricket

Well it seems Sri Lankan Cricket has hit a bit of crossroad (Option One or Option Two) when it comes to our domestic competitions. Finally our domestic game is starting to attractive some financial backing from corporate Sri Lanka. But the big question is how we use this money to turn our amateur domestic competition into a professional competition.

It seems they are likely to go down the road of Option two with a five team provincial competition, which they have been trying to put together since the turn of century. But have never found a way to feasible implement the competition, without draining all their resources. In theory this is the best option as the best players in the country will all play in the same tournament. Also this format is a better option for commercial backer.

The clubs have worked hard to improve the standard of the domestic competition with little help from the board apart from this season. But we were only ever going to get so far with the current format, as no corporate companies were ever going to get involved in domestic clubs, due to high level of politics. They were never going to have any control and clubs would just drain their money.

But is it the best option, yeah it works in Australia, but IMO that has more to do with structure below FC cricket, then the six team structure. They tired this concept in the past, but it didn’t work. Below are the reasons why it didn’t work:
1. The teams meant nothing to players. You can’t just make five random teams with no meaning and expect the players to give 110%. Players play for pride and their plenty of pride when they play for the club sides. There little pride when they played for these teams.
2. These matches were just seen as glorified selection trails.
3. Tournaments were just too short and players had little time to gel. With the proposed format this will be the first time they had more one tournament.
4. The selectors went for a lot of experienced players for the fringe spots for consistent performances. A lot of young talented players who ended making national squads a season later missed out e.g. Tharanga, Maharoof, Malinga.
5. The pitches were still crap and produce some really crap cricket.
6. Four teams weren’t enough, five teams seems a stupid number. Not enough money to support six teams it seems.

So what are your thoughts in general about the best domestic structure, not only for Sri Lanka, but in general?

3 stumps at each end is probably reccomended tbh.

sledger said:

3 stumps at each end is probably reccomended tbh.

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Haven't read the new ideas about Twenty20 Cricket and four stumps?

lol no, i was only joking earlier...

So these new teams for SL - North Colombo, South Colombo, South (Ruhuna).......

I don't know anything about Sri Lanka's regions or rivalries etc. but do you chaminda think that players will respond to these teams? I assume they wouldn't be the same ones that previously failed. Do you think they have enough identity for players to want to play for them?

Because in Australia it has always worked because the six teams that represent their respective states all have their own strong identities, especially as Australia is such a geographically large country and the states are quite separate from each other.

Two entries to my blog which are related here...

A (positive) rant about the ICL

After a brief hiatus, I am back posting my opinionated views about Indian cricket.

Now that I feel more informed and am aware more of Indian domestic cricket, I am starting to support the ICL more.

The BCCI are pathetic in banning people from their jobs (or making them enforce stricter hours) and from grounds. It perplexes me as to why they did not embrace the idea of grooming Indian talent in parallel to the BCCI tournaments. The idea of feeling threatened is pathetic too because I feel that the original intention of the ICL was a parallel (not a rebel league) and so the BCCI could have supplied grounds and possibly players in exchance for slight control over the league.
Reading an article on cricinfo, I have learnt that one state association introduced central contracts of just $500 a year (in rupees of course). For those not familiar of the Indian economy, that will go about as far as $1000 so it is hardly anything.

All domestic cricketers have jobs with allowances for cricket in return for playing in company games. This is insane, domestic cricketers should not have jobs outside cricket, they should be able to earn a living from their states and be paid in the winter too, to train and participate in winter training.

The whole idea of company games is a bit of a joke too, it just becomes a contest about money and who can hire the best players - where the hell is the pride in that? They might as well just compare turnover figures.

The BCCI are among the richest boards in world cricket, they should make sure that domestic cricketers are at least paid contracts of over $5,000 a year. This brings me on to my next point, cricinfo note that the ICL teams are being given access to trainers and physios who are 'streets ahead' of what they would have had in domestic cricket. Can the BCCI not afford quality trainers and physios? I doubt that a quality sports physio such as Liz would not have a fee beyong the unlimited funds of the BCCI. It is just stingyness and lazyness and I support the ICL's committment to quality of cricket.

*****Some irrelevant stuff to the topic at hand*****

The BCCI has had a major kick up the arse and have responded by throwing wads of cash at the Indian Premier League, the ICL should look to hire more abused domestic cricketers and make the BCCI realise that a solution will be complex and (God forbid), require some hard work on the part of the BCCI.

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A rant about Indian domestic structure

Aside from my rant about the ICL (the problems), now on to the solutions.

I think that India should have two overseas players for each team for the Ranji Trophy and Ranji One Day Trophy to up the level a tad which I feel is very low. The biggest target should be England whose season does not coincide with the Indian Ranji seasons (Nov-Jan & Feb-Apr). Another good target will be Bangladesh who rarely get a Test and who seem to always be hungry for competition. Bangladesh have a lot of talented cricketers such as Mohammad Rafique, Mashrafe Mortaza and Mohammad Ashraful who could really add a spark to Indian domestic cricket.

An interesting statistic is that 26% of the BCCI's revenue goes to the players - I wonder how much goes to Tendulkar. That being said, I never had a problem with how much money the BCCI gave to players, moreso the distribution of the money more evenly throughout both international and domestic cricket, I truly wonder what percentage of revenue goes to domestic cricketers. The BCCI gives approximately $250 (if I recall correctly) to fielder of the match, bowler of the match...etc, in ODIs and T20s, would that money not be better spent paying domestic cricketers, forming free academies for deprived youths or helping purchase backroom staff (physios, fitness trainers, video analysts) for the India A team and National Cricket Academy and perhaps state associations.

Furthermore, I think the BCCI need to spend much more attention to FC cricket. It would seem that they see a player with talent and pick them, almost disregarding how they have performed in the past or recently. This issue is tipified with the selection of Ishant Sharma for the Test squad, even though he has played just 14 FC games and today alone bowled 15 no balls (this is not a one off occurance either).

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On to an actual structure. I think that less is more, in most cases but it all depends on the situation and particularly the system behind it. England has a County Cricket system which works well from club and district at youth level, universities at 18-23 years old and premier league clubs for a lucky few. It is the largest aspect of division that the country has, with plentiful populations each.

Unless you have Australian levels of fitness, strength and coaching, you cannot expect the systems to be full of players pushing international players for selection. It is a fact of life that there will be 20 or so above the rest, but the introduction of a small amount of overseas players of international level (or A team level) and the often release of international players to play in domestic cricket is a good way to raise the level. I do draw the line at 'kolpaks' though.

Much like in the football industry (although preferably without the use of £20million talent), the introduction of tiers (or divisions) are a good way to help concentrate talent toward certain Counties who have, with their stars, reached the top and with transfers from earned money and reputation - stayed there. A 'survival of the fittest' system, in my opinion, is the best way to go in County Cricket, with the best at the top of division one and the worst at the bottom of two (or three or four..etc). A good transfer system is a necessity toward this and as County Cricket shows, this develops naturally.

"Warne also had strong views on the decision to cut the number of overseas players allowed from two to one per county from next year. "I also think it's important to have two overseas players per county," he said. "It helps these young guys to play against the best and they definitely improve for it." Hmmm...I wonder why Warne didn't join the ICL - there is some theoretical similarity here

More teams has its advantages too, where the biggest division is a smallish one. It gives people teams to support, more supporters = more fans and TV viewers = more money. I need not go into the positives of more money.

India have been criticised for having too many teams in the domestic competition (Ranji Trophy and Ranji One Day Trophy) and I agree that it may be a solution. This is a unique situation - on paper, state teams are a good proposition. There are plenty of players, but so little facilities, quality coaches, trainers...etc. There is no easy solution to such a problem but a lot of hard work in the off season. Take an example from the ICL, who in a season got:
-6 high profile coaches (I know of no high profile coaches in Indian domestic cricket)
-Physical trainers for each team (I am sure there are none of these in Indian domestic cricket, or else RP Singh wouldn't have improved so much at Leicestershire)
-Massage therapists for each team

Why can't the BCCI at least do this. I am sure they will have money to pay for proper stadiums too - not some of the shambles which some of the Ranji Trophy sides play on. If it is too hard to achieve in one off season, why not have a three year program like the ICL with gradual progress? Cutting down the number of teams may be an option - to start from scratch with the Duleep Trophy and slowly build the Ranji system over a period of a few years, but with there being so many domestic players, this would be a tough process to depart on. In this case, top to bottom is not the best way to operate.

What of franchises? Well, I think that it is unknown territory in cricket and can only be fairly assessed after one year of the IPL but foreign (ie. not from BCCI) investment seems like a brilliant way to inject money which can be used for coaches and facilities as well as support staff (who I believe play a very important part in long term development of players and the transformation of talent to star).

Damn! That was long!

river end said:

So these new teams for SL - North Colombo, South Colombo, South (Ruhuna).......

I don't know anything about Sri Lanka's regions or rivalries etc. but do you chaminda think that players will respond to these teams? I assume they wouldn't be the same ones that previously failed. Do you think they have enough identity for players to want to play for them?

Because in Australia it has always worked because the six teams that represent their respective states all have their own strong identities, especially as Australia is such a geographically large country and the states are quite separate from each other.

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Nah they basically the same five regions they had in past, only slight difference is a couple sides are actually called Colombo. When you consider 80% of the current clubs are from Colombo and only two sides represent Colombo I can't see the players wanting to represent these provinces for any other reason then money, as they mean nothing to them.

I suppose this question would also be relevant with Kenya being as a Professional league is set to be launched some time next year and from the reports that have been available to the press so far its going to be composed of 4 vaguely regional based composite teams with 4? centrally contracted players to buff up the players selected in each side competing against each other in T20, 45or 50 (I am not sure as yet) over and First Class cricket. Also this would represent the first solid effort by Kenya's cricket authorities to stage a competition that is really national in scope and would a a big (even if slightly belated step in raising the game's profile and overall cricket standards in general)

Although Kenya's domestic cricket is relatively wealthy in comparison to other sports bar rugby perhaps it, it is still recovering from a period of internal boardroom warfare between the various provincial boards and the national board that had effectively shut the game down and caused standards to plummet, thus on top of restoring confidence and quality to the current domestic league and teams this project still needs considerably more income flows to get the national leagues up and running and its of vital importance that this investment which has drawn the interest of some big names pays off ie. It actually generates cricketers who not only play a standard high enough to dominate other Associate teams but give Test class players a real fright on a regular basis while helping spread the game where there is real chance of it being taken up seriously.