As cricket stumbles its way out of the Covid-19 pandemic, the calendar will look increasingly cramped, with countries scrambling around to find gaps for previously postponed events. The push is on in India right now to prioritise this year’s edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) over the World T20 in Australia in October and, in cricket, what India wants is usually what India gets.
Recently, Ravi Shastri, India’s coach, added his influential voice to the notion that the IPL (and other bi-lateral series between nations) should be given priority over ICC global events on the resumption of play. “The difference between an international tournament and the IPL is that the IPL can be played between one or two cities and the logistics will be easier to manage,” he said, not unreasonably.
The chief-executive of IPL, Rahul Johri, insisted that any rescheduling would be determined by safety and government directives, but to add weight to Shastri’s voice, Sundar Raman, Johri’s predecessor, released a paper outlining just how important the IPL is to India, and by extension, to the global cricket economy. Raman estimates that cricket received $1.9 billion (about £1.5 billion) in global revenues last year, of which two-thirds were generated in or by India, about half of which came from the IPL.
Raman was the first COO of IPL between 2008-15, so he knows of what he speaks, in particular of the rapid growth and influence of that tournament. Raman estimates that for a tournament such as IPL, the lack of a potential crowd is less of an economic cost, given that broadcast and sponsorship account for 95 per cent of its revenues, ticketing the rest. Ticketing and match day revenues are relatively more important for the World T20, scheduled to take place in Australia in October, when crowds are unlikely still and travel uncertain. The cancellation of the IPL this year would be a permanent loss to the cricket economy, while an ICC tournament can be postponed and played later in the rights cycle with no loss of income.
The present ICC cycle runs until 2023 and is scheduled to include the Australia World T20, a World T20 in India in October and November next year and the 50-over World Cup, again in India, in February and March 2023. It is increasingly likely that the IPL will replace this year’s World T20, with the Australia tournament pushed to 2021 and the India World T20 to 2022, with the possibility of the 50-over World Cup moved back into the final quarter of 2023.
All this will have a knock-on effect on England’s selections for this summer’s behind-closed-doors schedule, and on their proposed tour of India in September, which was due to form part of the preparations for the World T20. Given the intensity of the allocated cricket, with six Tests, six ODIs and six T20s scheduled to take place in a two-month period, it was always likely that the selectors would have to make some compromises by separating to a greater degree than is the norm, England’s red ball and white ball teams.
Were the World T20 to take place in October, the selectors would have felt some pressure to prioritise by selecting some of their multi-format players in one-day cricket. If the World T20 is to be postponed, some of that pressure will be alleviated and there will be less incentive to select Ben Stokes, say, and Jos Buttler in one-day cricket over Tests. The six Tests form part of the World Test Championship, which should give them priority.
The next meeting of the ICC chief-executives’ committee is in early June, way before England expect to take to the field against West Indies. A decision on the World T20 in Australia is likely then and the expectation is that the IPL will win the day.
