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