Thought of the Day: Cricket Australia REALLY hates Cricket

Following on from my last post on Cricket Australia's (CA's) appalling approach to developing and marketing the game in Australia, this little Tweet came to my attention on the weekend:

That's right; over 100,000 people turned up to watch the Australian domestic soccer league last weekend, while less than 1,000 turned up to watch the Ryobi cup (the domestic one-day tournament).

Granted, there were more soccer league games being played, but even the average number of attendees at the soccer far outweighed those at the cricket games.

Keep in mind that it wasn't too long ago that the domestic soccer league in Australia was an absolute shambles and Cricket was the only summer sport, now the tables have turned on the back of some good management (soccer) and some equally poor administration (guess!).

The ridiculous scheduling of the Ryobi cup has been defended by CA as a good way of preparing players for a World Cup type tournament, though this seems odd given that the Cricket World Cup is usually played in front of large crowds.

Foreground: Ryobi Cup action. Background: Ryobi Cup crowd.

Stranger still is that the Ryobi cup ends in a matter of weeks, meaning the time between the World Cup and many of these players' next One Day game is a minimum of a year away.

Another strange excuse that CA has trotted out is that there aren't enough grounds available at the moment to host the event.  Given that all of the major winter sports have finished, I'm really not sure how this stacks up.  The American Baseball league manages to play games seemingly everyday all over that continent, why can't the same be done here?

While CA may truly hate the game, many of us don't and would prefer that it not only survived, but flourished.

Also, it helps keep Shahid Afridi well fed.

With that in mind, I'd like to propose the following changes to Cricket Australias summer schedule.  In the event of their being fixture clashes in the same city, games should be moved to appropriate regional venues to promote the game there.

Test Cricket:

• 6 Tests to be played every year from October to the end of January;
• 1 Test to be played in every Capital City;
• Each Test to be promoted as an event in its own rite (e.g. the McGrath foundations day at the Sydney Test);
• Hobart to host the New Years Test to coincide with the end of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race;
• Sydney to host the last Test over the Australia Day weekend;
• Where a 6-Test series cannot be played, 2 x 3 Test Series can be played against different countries

One Day Cricket:

• Return to a limited 3-team series to be played between the end of January and the end of February;
• Games to be played in all capital cities with a best of 3 final series;
• Games to be played mid-week, allowing people to go after work, and on weekends - limited Sunday games.

T20 Internationals:

• Limited games (1 or 2) to be played at the end of February, ending the season.

Sheffield Shield:

• Season to be played from October to end of February;
• Season to continue during BBL and other corresponding fixtures, giving opportunity to new players;
• No age restrictions on teams fielded;
• Proper pitches prepared to enable 4 day games & results.

Ryobi Cup:

• To be played mid-week or book-ending Shield games (people should be able to watch a game of cricket, free, every night);
• To be played at regional grounds with heavy promotion to ensure interest / attendance;
• Free to air coverage to continue

Big Bash League

• To continue being scheduled and played as it is, though sharing the limelight / grounds and players of the other leagues;
• Where players prefer to play T20 to other games, they should be allowed to, but not forced to.

A message to the Melbourne Football Club....

....just "find and replace" Cleveland Browns with Melbourne Demons

Thought of the Day: Cricket Australia hates Cricket

It's not uncommon for parents to have a favourite or preferred child and its not necessarily a bad thing, so long as the other child or children don't know it and aren't disadvantaged in any way.  After all, having a resentful child in the same house may pose a risk to the safety of baby Adonis.

With these guidelines in mind, it seems that Cricket Australia is a very, very poor parent indeed.

Governance, Cricket Australia style

Cricket Australia's remit is to manage and promote the game in Australia, if for no other reason than to keep themselves in a job.  Other benefits such as ensuring historical legacy is maintained, keeping the populace happy and participating in sport are also nice too - but don't pay the bills.

Now, I'm not sure how big CA's bills are, but it would appear that they must be considerable given the way that CA can't seem to look past a fast buck for the long term benefit of the game (and themselves).

The advent of Twenty20 cricket brought this apparent short-sightedness to the fore initially when CA abandoned the state-based T20 competition, removing over a century of tradition, and replaced it with a fabricated club competition.  Worse still, there were multiple clubs in some cities (e.g. Melbourne Stars and the Melbourne Renegades), causing consternation for fans around who to follow (often resulting them in following neither), while also depriving fans in other cities and towns a chance of having a team to follow.

The new T20 competition, the Big Bash, ran at a loss for its first few years but picked up last summer and seemed to get adequate crowds in and television numbers.  I don't really know, I've never watched a game; amongst other things, I still can't decide between the Renegades and the Stars.

Appealing characters and dropped catches?  How to choose? (photo courtesy of www.theroar.com.au)

Wanting to get as much out of this new golden child as much as they can, CA have now moved the schedules for their other children (One Day cricket and Test cricket) around, to the detriment of all of them.

The (still) State-based One Day competition, the Ryobi cup, has now been squeezed into a month-long tournament that is being played out of western Sydney during the middle of the week in front of crowds that The Quokkas would be happy with.

Given that One Day cricket is supposed to be a stepping-stone of sorts into the Test side, as well as a good way for fans with limited time to enjoy the game, this could be compared to a parent forgetting their childs birthday, or giving them some worn socks for Christmas.

Unlikely to be a gift from CA to One Day cricket

CA has claimed that one of the reasons for scheduling the competition in a one-month period is the lack of available pitches.  This seems bizarre given that they run the game & have access to the best pitches in Australia.  Even the aforementioned Quokkas (arguably the worst cricket team in history, though possibly the best club) can manage to get a ground.

Ryobi can't be best pleased with the value for money they are getting out of sponsoring the competition or its reception with fans and players, which is something other sponsors must be looking at.

Further, the Sheffield Shield competition (the matches played to prepare players for Test cricket) is being interrupted by a period months to allow CA to proudly show the Big Bash to the Australian market without the distraction of the two kids that everyone has been interested in for decades, or centuries.

With the Big Bash starting to make some commercial in-roads at the cost of the other formats of the game, it is almost a certainty that the quality of cricket will decline exponentially with the lack of competition, which will hurt the future of Cricket as a whole. 

To put it another way, the Big Bash's voice is going to break eventually, so it might be time to start thinking past the childrens choir.

This isn't to say that managing and marketing a national sport and three different formats of it is easy, but surely if you want to continue doing so (as in, still have a job), you could look at what works best in the short AND long term and make plans around that?

Former English batsmen Ed Smith recently wrote an excellent column about some simple steps that could be done to ensure interest in cricket, which included some basic Marketing steps around making each game an event. 

The Boxing Day test is one of the biggest sporting days of the year & it wouldn't be impossible to recreate this interest or awareness in other cricket matches, much in the same way that the AFL hs themed rounds, or soccer has about a million different competitions / cups?

Then again, maybe Cricket Australia just really hates cricket and is managing its execution through some excellent ineptness.

CA, inspired by John Candy movies since 1975

Sign of the Times: Ed Cowan can't take a trick

If it wasn't bad enough being dropped from the Test team, Ed Cowans luck seems to have left quicker than his strike rate if the screen grab below from melbournefc.com.au is anything to go by:

see second story in the news section. courtesy of melbournefc.com.au

Top 5: Reasons to support Hawthorn this weekend

It must be a very cold week in hell as for the first time in living memory; I will be supporting Hawthorn in a match.  It's not that I particularly like the "poos and wees", its just that I really dislike Fremantle Football Club.

I've blogged previously about my dislike for the Fremantle football club, but for those not inclined to read another diatribe, let me summarise:
1. Fremantle FC is the product of a Marketing plan, not a club that grew organically out of an existing community (which there was);
2. Fremantle FC is, therefore, a false product that the AFL has been peddling that the good people of Western Australia have been buying up in droves;
3. Fremantle FC apparently got sick of being a bit of a laughing stock of the league (read: trading the rights to Luke Hodge to Hawthorn for Trent Croad before losing Croad back to Hawthorn, not drafting Andrew McLeod, drafting Clive Waterhouse) so ungraciously sacked its coach and pinched another;
4. Said pinched coach managed to get the team to win, though with a very ugly game style that doesn't endear the game to anyone and will leave a forgettable legacy;
5. Their uniform and song are ridiculous.

Seen above, the old and improved Freo jumpers.  You tell me which is the improvement.

I realise that many of these criticisms can be pointed at other clubs, but this isn't about other clubs, its about the "Shockers".

And so, for this weekend only, I'm hoping they will be a happy team at Hawthorn.

Sign of the Times: Queensland needs to work on its Marketing

I've commented previously about the Marketing attempts of the South Australian government at drawing people to the state through the prospect of death in the woods, though it seems this may be a trend with State Governments, as evidenced by these Queensland plates spotted recently:

Queensland, just throw us away when you're done

Thought of the Day: England shouldn't be getting too chirpy ( & neither should Australia)

The completion of the Ashes series in England this week has allowed everyone involved to take a bit of a break from the game, go to bed a bit earlier and, in the case of some English players, do a little gardening.

Looking back on the series, the final result of 3-0 would indicate that England were the dominant team, though not as dominant as many in the media predicted at the start of the series.  Then again, it may be more of a reflection on how poor both teams actually are.  The Australian side may well have been the worst to visit England in recent times, but the side they were playing weren't as good as they were made out to be.

Not that they were as bad as the Quokkas CC

While England have now won 3 Ashes series in-a-row, they are hardly the might that the Australian team was during its dominant era, as badly as they may want to be.  Are Cook and Root the equal of Langer and Hayden? Hardly.  So let's drop that there.

Further, there was only one match in the series that England really dominated, the thrashing at Lords.  Credit cannot be taken from England for this game, they completely outplayed Australia, but this was the only game that they did.

England won the toss on 3 occasions and the weather stayed fine for all of these.  For the 2 occasions that Australia won the toss, draws eventuated that were very nearly wins.  Further, one of Englands wins was by 14 runs. Hardly dominance at all, particularly given the inconsistent make-up of the Australian team.

Australia used 17 players throughout the series, whereas England only used 14, with new players largely brought in to replace injured players rather than poor form.  The major exception here was the replacement of Stephen Finn by Tim Bresnan, which was an anomoly in a series that showed how shallow Englands back-up pool of players is. 

Englands talent pool.  Not shown: South Africa's talent pool.

While Australia was blooding new players and finding its best line-up, it still remained competitive.  England, on the other hand, looked increasingly dependent on the old-guard of Anderson, Broad, Prior, Petersen, Swann and Cook.  When this sextet failed or fell to injury, the lack of depth was further exposed.

The performance of Cook as Captain was particularly uninspiring for Cricket fans, with England playing for draws when winning was still achievable, providing some rather dull play.  This was particularly galling given the supposed difference in the quality of the teams.  This isn't to say that Clarke had a thrilling series, but at least he captained to win.

The final match of the series exemplified this approach best, with Australia declaring twice in the game to force a result despite Englands stoic play in the first innings.  That England almost provided an upset (through the cavalier Kevin Pietersen, not someone you could define as a loved member of the England team - or even as English) did not upset the balance of power for the game where Australia had control and the momentum.

"Hey Jacques, where do I get one of those shirts?"

While the England chase may provide them some momentum for the impending One Day tournament against Australia, Michael Clarke seems to have asserted his control over the series as the Captain in charge.

This isn't to say that Australia have anything to really gloat about.  While the much criticised batters seemed to finally work out their spots and how to play by the last Test, they were hardly convincing.  As one swallow does not make a summer, one Century does not make a great batsman, or in the case of Shane Watson - 3 Centuries in 7 years.

In all, this was a match closer series than we had anticipated, which is something that should be celebrated. With the next Ashes series only a matter of months away, we can surely expect a closer series on Australian shores, which is great for Cricket and Cricket Bloggers everywhere (because it's all about us).