Is West Indies cricket dead ?

[Making_Splinters]

Ultimately i think the BCCI is just using this as an excuse to cull a low profit set of fixtures from their timetable.

[Dr Cricket]

good article by pringle.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricke ... fling.html

The head of WICB should probably resign over this.

yeah BCCI are just doing this to cut teams they ideally only want 6-7 teams playing which is why they would probably run survival of the fittest for the boards.

that would allow India to have 2-3 home tours and visit 2-3 times a year and not waste time playing WI/NZ/Sri/Zim/Ban when they could be playing Pak/SA/Aus/Eng most of the time.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Ultimately i think the BCCI is just using this as an excuse to cull a low profit set of fixtures from their timetable.

Probably something in this.

Which is really a reason why starving the poorer cricketing countries hasn't got a future. India have to play against someone. Without international cricket, IPL hasn't got its great stars.

[Dr Cricket]

I think they are only starving the poorer nation till they reach the perfect number and would probably not help like they did in the past.

WICB are probably close to death now and might just become an T20 specialist team.
That is literally the only format their actually win games or tough to beat, Dreadful in ODI and Dreadful in Test matches.

Once they reach optimum numbers they would stop and the Boards that survive would get more money since they would play top 3 far more then before.

BCB/Zim/WICB are likely to go

Although I reckon West indies Cricket will start again with an another board or new personnel and would just play T20 games and far fewer international games until they perform well or bring money into game.

In my opinion ICC/BCCI/ECB/CA got 2 main criteria in picking which teams it will play in future, Performances and Money brought in the game.
If you fail both criteria it is likely the top 3 will not tour or invite them for games.
I know for a fact ECB hates may tours where crowds are down, Tv ratings down and bad touring teams plus they hate the fact IPL clashes with it so less global interest and players would ideally want IPL and not May games.
CA had a nightmare home summer when SA/Eng/India didn't come in one of the summers, Australia people generally only watch Ashes or top quality cricket one reason why Pak/NZ/Ban/Zim will never or hardly visit Australia.
BCCI even saw this when NZ toured in 2012, WI in 13/14 if those teams don't bring money then Attendances and Ratings become important but with one sided games and usually poor cricket these come down.

In short if the Teams don't perform it is likely they won't visit on away tours and would probably have home games just so they get money to survive every 2-3 yrs.

I can see NZ doing well here they got the players to be competitive and challenge the top teams and they would be perfect opposition before the main cricket series for all the top 3 boards.
Sri lanka win in England was massive means the top 3 boards would still invite them on tours and play them if schedule is free.
WICB can't remember the last time they won a test against the big 3 can't see them actually being invited much by the top 3 if they don't improve.

ICC were kind of right when they said Meritocracy was important to them Unless you are the big 3 everything will be decided on merit.
Teams will only get games if they perform or have the best finances or don't have political trouble I suspect we are seeing that now with WICB pretty much bankrupt.

50/50 on this one don't want teams to be finished but I also don't want so many one sided series being played so don't mind if teams that perform get more games and if you don't you get less games.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Can WI not become a competent side in the way NZ have in the past few years. Three years ago they were similarly ranked. Probably given political issues, Pakistan have the greatest risk of disappearing. SL feel vulnerable. SAn crowds are poor even though they have a winning team... Unless international cricket is seen as a single organism, the whole game will suffer. My feeling is that short termism definitely rules at the ECB. and probably at the BCCI and CA too.

[rich1uk]

a little off topic for this thread maybe but it is a worry how priorities are changing and what that might mean for not just test cricket but international cricket

was watching last nights ODI between NZ and SA and near the start of the game they were doing a pan around the crowd at the groups of schoolkids in the ground and one of the commentators was saying it was good to see so many kids in even on a school day, and that coming to the cricket even if it means missing a day at school should be encouraged given how lucrative becoming a cricketer can be now if you can make a career of it. what he said next kinda took me back a bit, he said "you never know there could be a couple of future IPL players sitting watching this game" not future NZ internationals but future IPL players, and this was coming from a NZ commentator.

[Dr Cricket]

Not really surprised with that comment from the New Zealand commentator.

NZ board got a deal with the players of NZ that it will never stop players from missing IPL and that in return the players get charged 10% of the IPL deal not sure if this is from the players or the BCCI since every board gets paid 10% from BCCI for every player in the competition.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/ ... 75062.html ( not sure how much it is but 10% is usually mentioned)
If it is separate then NZ would be getting 20% of the income which is very good income.
NZ board, Players and fan/media tend to be very IPL pro anyway remember IPL was mentioned all the time last year when India toured treating it like an IPL Audition.

Can see where that commentator is coming from though especially from NZ/WI/Ban/Zimb since they hardly play meaningful cricket and when they do it feel like no one cares about them so the only way they can get fame and money is through IPL and other global events like ICC World cups/T20 but that might be difficult if the other players in your team is crap.

I really hope NZ play lots of cricket against big team in the future they are probably the team I love watching now Boult, Taylor, Williamson, Southee are so talented will be a great loss if they don't play much meaningful cricket in the future.
Not singling out Atherton but his comment before 2012 T20 world cup was heartbreaking but that is what 90% of the people actually think.
He basically said he has hardly seen Taylor and when he did he usually fails, he didn't really rate him.
Annoying aspect was that Atherton didn't really see much of him even though he will be one of NZ greatest players ever.

Compare his career with Cook made debut around the same time yet taylor played 57 test matches and doesn't usually get the credit he deserved in International cricket and Cook played 107 Test matches.

Players from those countries never get credit unless they play india/England/Australia and they will hardly ever play them in their career some might never tour those countries, If you were a top class player the best player in the world and you came from Bangladesh what will you want in your life? Playing Zimbabwe, WI,NZ or playing IPL and other big T20 leagues.

I would choose the IPL/T20 route every day of my life unless I play for the top 3 or if my nation can guarantee me meaningful games, I would seriously hate playing the same nations and not being talked about in the media. I would be very KP like in this topic.

[Dr Cricket]

Can WI not become a competent side in the way NZ have in the past few years. Three years ago they were similarly ranked. Probably given political issues, Pakistan have the greatest risk of disappearing. SL feel vulnerable. SAn crowds are poor even though they have a winning team... Unless international cricket is seen as a single organism, the whole game will suffer. My feeling is that short termism definitely rules at the ECB. and probably at the BCCI and CA too.

Not sure WI were actually decent 3 years ago the fixture list flattered them.

Beat Ban home and Away I think
Beat Zim home
were semi Competitive against India/England only decent result was the draw or series win against pak can't remember the result.

NZ currently are a far better side than WI were in 3 years even though they were in the same position in the table NZ are close enough to finish 4/5 in the table WI were never Gonna reach 6th in the table 3 yrs ago.

TBH not sure I can see WI ever being good in cricket they just have so many issues and they don't really care about the West indies any more.
Pollard and many players care more about the Champions league then they do for the West indies.
Pollard and co were so desperate to play for their countries in that competition but you don't see the same feeling in International cricket.

Pakistan will be fine they one of the in between teams get paid the 4th most by ICC and increased india vs Pak games will be worth a fortune for them although International exile is a worry if it doesn't end soon.

Yep the big 3 think very short term now.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I meant three years ago, NZ were as bad as them.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I'm no NZ groupie, but I rate Taylor really highly (much more so than Williamson). Cricket history is written by the winners, and the players of the big sides get the hagiographies. But the best of the other sides do get recognition. Sanga, Younis, Taylor and Chanderpaul are recognised.

[Making_Splinters]

The BCCIs motives are clearly on display: We're not going to play you internationally, but your money makers can come and play in the IPL.

There was some comment when the changes in how the ICC was run went through that we might see a slow shift in who plays who, with the big three prioritising tours between themselves. Seems there was some truth in that.

It is to a certain degree understandable, no one aside from Bangladeshi fans cares about Bangladesh tours. No one cares about Zimbabwe tours. Why should the big sides waste the time of their viewing public playing cricket that deep down we simply don't give two shakes about?

Of course this attitude will ultimately damage international cricket, but I've said for a long time that Bangladesh and Zimbabwe should be stripped of their test status. Now there is no longer need to buy votes at the ICC, this is essentially what is happening just through other means.

[Dr Cricket]

Making splinters is not just Ban/Zim that fans don't really care about even Pak,NZ, WI, Sri lanka tours suffer the same fate especially in this country where Pak/Sri games are not covered by Sky.
Sky sports didn't even bother showing NZ vs West indies series last year.
Especially when NZ/WI have a very bad period where they can't even win games or even be competitive viewer ship and total interest on them drop down by a big margin.

TBH not sure Ban/Zim were even the teams the Big 3 were worried about considering those 3 never played these team in what 5-10 yrs and were not even scheduled to play them much in the future.
NZ/Wi/Sri lanka were the ones they were trying to get rid off the ones they had to play regularly but it just didn't create the interest in the country or the cricket quality was crap.

[Arthur Crabtree]

We've seen over the past tow yeaers with the extra Ashes series and yearly ODIs between the sides, that the top three playing each other has a limited appeal.

India in England were hardly competitive, so there might be some hypocrisy in the BCCI jettisoning series for that reason. Though the creation of home pitches is something the ICC should look at.

I thought there was merit in the money from ICC competitions being shared among the ICC nations. The ECB and BCCI are modern businessmen who only see as far as the next shareholders meeting and making the biggest operating profit they can in the short term. That's what they are. We can't expect them to stop being scorpions, and not to sting the frog, even if it kills it.

[Dr Cricket]

Depends how you class those series as a success.
England VS India in 2014 was the biggest test series in terms of money ever ECB got paid 50M pounds by Indian Broadcasters for just one tour IE ECB made at least 100-120M in one year when you count the Sky money for the year as well that doesn't even include other incomes.

Once the money is a success not sure ECB/BCCI would even care about the result/Attendances/Ratings for the games since they already made the money before hand. The competitive argument only comes in when the boards need Ratings, Attendances to make the money.


Also not sure those extra games had limited appeal.
It is a fact that more people watch Eng vs Aus ODI games like wise with India then they would if Eng played a test vs Sri lanka,NZ,WI.
The main reason for the shift in the fixtures is that people don't watch other teams so broadcasters/Boards and Sponsors don't want to play them any more just not worth it.

That is one of my reasons why I hate the Ashes now since at least twice or treble of people only watch Ashes cricket and if that continues cricket will die in most cricket apart from the Ashes/India games.

The only really way of saving the other teams is if people watch those games and Shareholders/Broadcasters see the other teams making money but that isn't happening.

[Arthur Crabtree]

There seems to be a risk that more will be too much. Who is looking forward to next year's Ashes series in England? last time, I queued up on a phone for 6 hours while renewing my computer... next time I won't go. There are other reasons for that, but even if there weren't, I'm not sure I would. Are India fans going to keep watching a side that loses on the road? Or get their national pride from the success of the IPL? This model (like the ECBs Sky deal) is mainly intended to keep the books healthy on their watch. A healthy game means maintaining, and potentially expanding the appeal of the game. A strong West Indies/etc is good for India.