Despite an overwhelming feeling among cricket’s cognoscenti that international T20s should be limited exclusively to World Cups, the men and women who count the money continue to schedule them, in increasing numbers, and will continue to do so.
The England cricket board has just made a small fortune by staging a three-match series against India, which was entertaining rather than interesting or even relevant. Three packed houses and prime TV time. Loads of cash. That’s their job and they do it well, albeit short-term. India won 2-1.
In Harare last week was another tournament of even less apparent importance, a triangular among Zimbabwe, Australia and Pakistan.
What could it possibly mean, and what interest could the players have in competing for an arbitrary trophy sponsored by a paints company and a fancy clothing outfitter?
Inzamam-ul-Haq was the best batsman of his generation. Or should have been. He was better than Sachin Tendulkar, or should have been. He’s now Pakistan convener of selectors.
A lot, apparently. Perhaps we lose sight of the small picture in pursuit of the big picture, as important as the big picture is.
Two South Africans featured hugely during the tournament, although you would only have been aware of one, peripherally.
Mickey Arthur may have Australian citizenship these days and his dedication to Pakistan is profound, but he is and always will be from the Eastern Cape. That’s where his values come from. He threw himself into the Pakistan head coach role determined to change the culture of relaxed, confident indifference that defined the country’s best years in the early to late ’90s.
Inzamam-ul-Haq was the best batsman of his generation. Or should have been. He was better than Sachin Tendulkar, or should have been. He’s now Pakistan convener of selectors.
Arthur asked him why his generation — including Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis, Mushtaq Ahmed, Aamir Sohail, Ramiz Raja and many others — did not dominate the world game.
"Because we didn’t know how to push ourselves and didn’t have anyone to push us," Inzamam said. It was all Arthur needed to implement what he believed elite coaching was all about. It’s not about "pushing". It’s about setting standards and allowing players to choose if they want to meet them or not.
The way his current squad trained in Harare suggested they didn’t just want to maintain their No1 T20 ranking but also to make up for the decades of decadent coasting enjoyed by their predecessors.
Arthur negotiated for a minimum 20% salary increase for his players. Captain Sarfraz Ahmed is still on a monthly retainer of $8,500 per month. By contrast, Australia’s 20 players with national contracts range from Josh Hazlewood at the top with an annual retainer of $1.98m to Marcus Stoinis at the bottom on $750k a year.
The disparity made no difference on the field; Pakistan thrashed Australia in the final.
It was odd Zimbabwe even took to the field. Their players haven’t been paid at all for months and are still owed match fees from a year ago. The decision makers at the International Cricket Council (ICC) have an appetite to cut the cricket team from the Future Tours Programme and withdraw the funding it receives, which keeps the game alive. They have grown tired of Zimbabwe Cricket’s (ZC’s) debts and apparent inability to get its house in order. In a final, desperate effort to show faith and give ZC one last chance, ICC CE David Richardson asked Vince van der Bijl to accept a three-month consultancy to come up with a business plan acceptable to both ZC and the game’s global administrators.
He had less than a month before presenting his initial findings to the ICC board, which was overwhelmingly sceptical. Reluctantly, they endorsed Van der Bijl’s proposal of a "business rescue" operation which will see funding drip-fed into the administration with eyes on the ground to supervise the revamped operational structure.
Without Van der Bijl’s passionate conviction that the cricket people of Zimbabwe deserved their support, the ICC would have cut ZC adrift and watched it float away in the direction of Kenya cricket.
It is difficult to estimate how many people depend directly and indirectly for their survival on the game in Zimbabwe, but it would be close to 10,000.
As the Proteas prepare to take on a weak but spirited Sri Lankan team in Galle later this week, South Africans can be justifiably proud that this country continues to produce cricket people of the highest calibre, both players and administrators, whose influence internationally helps make cricket the game it is.
It is legitimate to ask whether we’re actually better at contributing offshore than we manage within our borders.
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