The club versus country debate isn?t new. Football or soccer, for decades, has been plagued by this singular subject of debate. So much so that David Beckham?s metatarsal bone had become front page news in the UK before the FIFA World Cup in 2002 when a major debate had started between Alex Fergusson and Manchester United on the one hand, and Swen Goran Ericsson and the English Football Association on the other. Beckham, with a broken metatarsal bone, was crucial to England?s chances and Ericsson wanted to hasten his recovery process so that he could play in the country?s first World Cup game. Fergusson, by contrast, wanted his star player?s services for the rest of the season for Man U and was firmly opposed to the idea of rushing him to do national duty.
It was a debate very similar to the one brewing right now over Lasith Malinga, only the former being far more high profile. Malinga, key to Sri Lanka?s chances in world cricket, is happily playing the IPL slighting a niggling injury, a move that has prompted the SLC to ask him to return and undergo rehab. Malinga, turning reactive, quit Test cricket, a gesture that can surely be perceived as a veiled threat that he could give up playing for Sri Lanka altogether if he isn?t allowed to play IPL.
The real issue isn?t Malinga or Chris Gayle, who defied a West Indies board diktat to play for the Bangalore Royal Challengers. Of prime concern is how will the cricket world brace itself for this relatively new challenge posed by franchise-driven cricket? With the organisation of world cricket being fundamentally different from that of football, the seriousness of the challenge is potent enough to ruffle cricket administrators around the world. Unlike in football, where players play for their clubs for almost nine months in a year and wear national colours only during major tournaments like the World Cup, European Cup or major qualifiers, in cricket, it is the exact opposite. In cricket, players play for the national team for more than ten months in a year and only with the advent of the IPL have they started playing for clubs or franchises in a more orchestrated manner.
While county cricket existed in the past, the monetary lure of the IPL makes it a far more significant force to contend with for the national cricket boards. In this situation where national boards exercise a virtual monopoly over the players and the sport, they will find it exceedingly difficult to come to terms with the franchises, who, having spent millions, will want control of the players and the calendar, even if for a month and a half.
The plot is further complicated by the fact that Pakistani players aren?t allowed to play in the IPL. Any talk of creating a window for the million dollar league is rubbished by this one development. Can the ICC ever create a window for a domestic league which preempts players of one country from participating? To push the point home?if a window is indeed created, will the ICC not be party to Pakistan?s isolation from world cricket for the two months of the IPL? Pakistan, snubbed by the BCCI, will inevitably want to schedule bilateral contests during the IPL to demonstrate to the world that it can stand on its own two feet and isn?t dependent on the BCCI for monetary and other support.
Franchise owners, on the other hand, will do all they can to ensure they get the best to wear team colours during the IPL, clouding the ambience further. Their argument is simple?they have paid top dollar and now they want their money?s worth. With the players themselves moving towards the franchise owners, it wouldn?t surprise me if franchise-driven cricket assumes ascendancy in the next decade or so, considerably reducing the powers of the national cricket boards. It might well mean that there are more IPL style leagues, the Champions? league growing in stature to becoming as important as in soccer and the number of bilateral series restricted to not more than six months in a year with the ICC and national cricket boards engaged in a perennial power struggle with each other.
Whichever way, the power struggle pans out, world cricket should brace itself for some turbulent years ahead, giving us analysts and fans plenty to chew and think about!
The writer is a sports historian