T-20 and the future of cricket

The first season of IPL and the Stanford T20 saga have dominated cricket websites and sports pages (in the cricket playing world) over the last few months. A lot of pundits have speculated that T20 cricket will ultimately destroy both Test and one-day cricket. I believe that the three versions of the game can co-exist.

In this blog post, I talk about the current state of the one-day game and how it can be resuscitated.

There are two major issues plaguing one-day cricket today:

1) The “Middle overs”- The overs between 15 and 40 is the time where most teams consolidate after an initial burst and in preparation for a final slog. The cricket during those overs is generally mundane and predictable.The introduction of power plays has not changed the pace of the game during the middle overs.

2) Too many games- One day cricket has been a money spinner for years now and most cricket boards try to fit-in too many one day internationals during the calendar year and thus trivialize most games. Do you remember the details of any of the bi-lateral one day series/tri-series played over the years? I dont. There just have been way too many tournaments.

The middle overs issue can be fixed by either reducing the 50 over games to 40 over a side or by playing two 25 over innings. I am for the latter option. It would add more spice to the game and also increase the strategy element in the game. Captains will be forced to think “outside the box” and teams will have a chance to make up the deficit in the second innings, if they fall behind in the first.

The “too many games” issue needs to be looked at very closely as well -

1) Starting off with ICC tournaments, the Champions Trophy needs to be discontinued. The tournament is a big source of revenue for the ICC, but makes no sense. The competition is largely similar to the World Cup(actually it is far more competitive, as very few associate nations are involved). It’s time the ICC discontinued this competition. The only major tournament the ICC should organize is the World Cup every four years. The loss in revenues from discontinuing the tournament can be made up by working out a revenue sharing agreement with various T-20 leagues (which I will talk about in detail in a future post)

2) Next in line are tri-series tournaments. Ti-series tournaments these days typically involve two strong teams and one weak team. Half the games in these tri-series tournaments are either one sided or dead rubbers. Case in point is the recent tri-series in Bangladesh, which was a waste of everybody’s time. Pakistan won the tournament, but seriously who cares? Tri-series tournaments should be scrapped as well.

3) Bi-lateral series should be restricted to three one-day games per series. A lot of countries play 5-7 one day internationals during a series, often at the cost of a couple of test matches.

When we talk about the 50 over game (and the 5-day version of the game), we mostly talk about the international circuit. The domestic circuit is generally ignored. The bad news is that not much can be done for the domestic circuit in terms of improving crowds. With cricket played all round the year, it is impossible to get people to watch a 50 over domestic game during work hours. The authorities should resign to the fact that the 50 over domestic game will never attract crowds. However, by playing the 50 over game by splitting it into 2 innings of 25 overs each, the skillset required to play the game will be similar to the the T20 version of the game. The 50 over domestic game can then act as a “feeder” to the more lucrative domestic T20 circuit as well as a feeder to the international circuit, thereby guaranteeing interest among players in the domestic 50 over season. Also, a lot of the revenue generated from the T20 domestic circuit could be funnelled into the domestic 50 over season.


In my followup blog posts, I will discuss Test and T-20 cricket.

Ethos water

Ethos water is a subsidiary of Starbucks Corp. Starbucks sells Ethos water in all of their stores and are now working on deals to sell water in grocery stores as well.

According to Starbucks, Ethos Water is a brand with a social mission—helping children around the world get clean water and raising awareness of the World Water Crisis. This is a very noble cause. However, they donate just 5 cents for every bottle sold to the cause. Starbucks does not release financials for Ethos, but 5 cents is a minuscule percentage of the profits (each bottle costs $1.70). Ethos water is primarily a Profit Making Business (PMB) which donates a small percentage of its profits to charity.

Starbucks could do great things with Ethos water and develop it into a true social business. They can continue selling the water at current rates in the developed economies, and plough most of the profits into
1) Subsidizing the cost of drinking water in developing economies (a no profit no loss operation). Make drinking water accessible at a very low cost.
2) Providing free drinking water in the poorest parts of the world (operate like a traditional non-profit)

They are not about to do that anytime soon, are they?

I would rather buy other bottled water brands (A bottle of Arrowhead costs less than $1 ) for a lower cost and then donate the difference ( a lot more than the 5 cents that Ethos donates) to non-profits.

The Indian Premier League

So the Indian Premier League is off to a great start. The first few games have attracted full houses much to the delight of the BCCI and the franchise owners. But there's a still a long way to go for the IPL. The biggest issue I see with the IPL is franchise loyalty. In the first IPL game, it was apparent that the crowd was there for the entertainment and didnt seem to really care who won. Then again, this is a brand new concept for the Indian audience and it will take a few years before the franchises can build loyalty found in football leagues in Europe and Latin America.
I do not subscribe to the wide held view that T20 cricket will destroy Test Cricket. I think the flavor of cricket in danger is the 50 over game. Test cricket is the challenge most cricketers crave for and will survive the T20 mania. T20 cricket and the multi million dollars associated with it can subsidize Test cricket. Lets sit back and enjoy the T20 revolution. Cricket will never be the same again!

Triple Whammy

Clinton, Obama and Edwards were on The Colbert Report yesterday. Go watch it!

Bill Maher taping

Attended a Real Time with Bill Maher taping at CBS Studios in Los Angeles last night. Our view was obstructed by tons of cameras which were placed right in front of the audience. The content was very solid though. John Cusack and Tavis Smiley made some very interesting observations about the Iraq war and the Presidential race. And the opening and closing sketches were hilarious. Its a pity that the most incisive and intelligent "newsmen" in America today are all comedians. These days, most of the "real" debates on topical issues seem to occur on comedy shows like The Daily Show and Bill Maher. The mainstream news channels seem to concentrate on infotainment and sensationism than actual news and analysis.

Managing without managers

This Harvard paper by Ricardo Semler is a must read for any aspiring manager.

Alternate link : Click here

Amazon Kindle

I finally decided to take the plunge and buy the Amazon Kindle. The killer feature in the Kindle is the Sprint EVDO connection which lets the user download books without having to hook it up to a computer. However, the Kindle does not support color ink and renders images poorly. A book with a lot of illustrations is unreadable on a Kindle and so are magazines and newspapers.

In the video below, Jeff Bezos talks about the Kindle roadmap in an interview with Charlie Rose.