Is cricket ready for a Saudi-steaned Grand Slam circuit?

Plans for a new circuit in Grootsslam style of T20 tournaments, with financial support from Saudi Arabia, based on a blueprint drawn up by player associations, represents a bold attempt at a cricket raid outside the closed store that is a traditional cricket board.

But for all the flutter that has created the revelation of the plan, it is still to be seen how far it will go if it does not cooperate, or at least interest, the organization that has the key to the largest cricket market: the BCCI.

Talk about one Saudi -Arabic access to cricket Is of course not new. It has been a fixture for two years, with only the precise way of accessing a variable: an interest in an IPL franchise, a completely new competition, a non -specific but wholesaler takeover of the sport, make your choice. In the meantime, the actual entry of the country has been much more gradual. Sponsorship at the IPL, a partnership connected to the ICC and, most recently and certainly the most prominent, as host of the IPL auction.

It is time, some will claim, given the impact on other large sports. It has always been a football nation – a great Asian force – but it is the trips to boxing, tennis, F1, MMA and Golf who have indicated his wider intentions to become a sporting force.

At the moment there is few details about these plans. Seven to eight teams from all over the world, who play four tournaments in a year, every tournament that has in mind to take 10-12 days. These are early sketches with few details about how such tournaments will fit into what is already a calendar that is bursting with the seams. To be taken successfully, it should almost certainly cause collateral damage, probably for some formats of international cricket, such as bilateral odis and T20Is without context. Which countries will be involved? And which teams will they send? National parties, such as a suggestion, or that of the already established T20 franchise competitions (and is this a revival of the Champions League?), Or another geographical representation of Elite?

Just as important as the involvement of SRJ Sports Investments, the sports arm of the Saudi Sovereine Wealth Fund, is that of the Australian Cricketers 'Association (ACA) and the World Cricketers' Association (WCA). It is said that the idea is the brainchild of Neil MaxwellThe former NSW and Victoria Allrounder and former ACA board member who is now a prominent player manager. It has been since last year, not before. The ACA has confirmed to the Age Dat het achter het idee zat: “De vroege interesse van de ACA in het verkennen van dit concept wordt gemotiveerd door een wens om collectieve onderhandelingen van best practice te ontwikkelen en te normaliseren en een internationaal loonmodel voor mannenkosten voor mannelijke en vrouwelijke cricketers. En om een ​​​​concurrentie te ontwikkelen die waarde creëren voor distributie voor distributie voor distributie van Cricket voor de bestuursorganisaties om testen te beschermen en Test Cicket to be subsidized and the continuous growth of the women for all nations. “

WCA, who has been arguing for a number of years for change in the broken international calendar, is now supposed to take the lead on plans. It has not commented on this, but is currently working on something that is not at all related: A Extensive assessment of the worldwide structure of the gameThe results of which it is due to the immediately release. Is more cricket the answer? No, but perhaps the first tournaments guided by the player in the cricket calendar, somewhat like ATP of Tennis, (although the Tour is currently the subject of a lawsuit by players).

This is not unimportant. Players are at the sharpest end of the impossibilities of this calendar and are pronounced about the need for change. Given the players' associations involved, some of the world's leading players will be behind this. But this will not be exactly like the ATP, because the plans also represent an interest in the ICC. According to some reports, it is assumed that Danny Townsend, the Chief Executive of SRJ, had dealt with Jay Shah on the sidelines of the IPL auction and briefly raised these plans. It would suggest that Saudi Arabia does not want to make the kind of turbulent and disruptive access to cricket that it has in Golf, for example, where it has completely created a parallel circuit.

The conversation so far is that the income from the circuit is divided into a formulation between SRJ, the player association and the ICC. The statement of the ACA acknowledges that income will find a way back to administrative bodies, in the hope that test cricket can be subsidized.

That income will of course be the thing, because it is not clear how and how much such a competition can generate. The IPL apart, how many competitions have actually brought in large temporary money? And there are numerous signs that the market for broadcasting rights of Cricket may have reached a peak and that the ecosystem is now under stress, as the continuous tension Between the ICC and Jiostar Deal suggests about their rights. The Saudis can use the type of money to start a competition, but what are the prospects for making it – and much more – back?

And of course the reality is that, to happen, the Circuit Indian players needs. That is why Shah was searched for the IPL auction, since he was a BCCI secretary at the time, as well as the ICC chairman. Few things of this size can happen successfully in cricket without Shah – or the BCCI – buy it. And why would the BCCi buy a concept that, in its complete ambitions, actually on the IPL competition?

The earliest sounds of another major administration have been of extreme skepticism. Richard Gould of the ECB has the Age Uneven “There is no scope or question about such an idea”, has undoubtedly encouraged the injection of a premy-bounty of half a billion pound into the hundred. Other memberships can be influenced by the prospect of another income flow, but the Bottom Line is, if the BCCI is not on board with the plan, a large temporary employment deal becomes much more difficult.

A final point to think is the idea of ​​the WCA and the ICC that collaborate. The WCA is increasingly – and rightly – frustrated by the way the game is run by the ICC and its members. When it launched his assessment in the structure, the chairman Heath Mills said that the “hope had given up” that the leaders of the game could establish a “clear and coherent structure”, both international cricket and domestic competitions.

The relationship has sometimes been an opponent. A number of full members, including the BCCI and PCB, do not even have player associations. Both the ICC and the WCA recently sparred about The use of the first of the image rights of players. The WCA led the WCA to sign a long-term agreement with the winners' alliance (a branch of the professional tennis players' association supported by Novak-Djokovic, the body that is currently marking the ATP), which will negotiate collective commercial deals for players who are members of WCA-Gelioened players' associations. A competition led by the player would be a victory for the WCA, but how easy is it to be when many of those players continue to contract with the different members of the members that form the ICC?

It is almost inevitable that Saudi Arabic will come into play. It is broken in most other major sports and since attracting Indian tourism remains an important goal, Cricket is an obvious. It is just far from certain whether this is the case.