It's time for a European cricket competition
Can women's cricket avoid the mistakes of the men's calendar and offer a template to save the international game?
Twice when leaving Clontarf after an international this summer, a familiar feeling lingered. When Ireland men played Pakistan in north Dublin back in May, and then the women lined out against England on Sunday, the dominant thought was that we had just witnessed some good, proper cricket.
It was notable because of the novelty. Both Irish teams won rare games in front of a joyous home crowd. For the most part, both series were competitive, even if there were moments of opposition domination.
We don’t see enough of this on Irish shores.
This year, at least the women’s side did have a steady-ish diet of quality international matches. All told, they played 10 games across Dublin and Belfast, their busiest summer in recent memory. The men, however, only played four games. Both on and off the pitch, for player development and the building of a sustainable product to sell to a wider audience, more cricket is needed.
How do we get there?
A familiar refrain from those involved in women’s sport is to avoid shoehorning newly professional structures into historic male pathways. Don’t treat female athletes as new versions of the men.
With international women’s cricket’s schedule, there is a huge opportunity to avoid the mistakes made for the men. Bilateral cricket is dying. Unless England, India or Australia play each other - or a different nation at home - boards struggle to make money outside of ICC events. On the international stage, context-less cricket, matches which don’t serve a greater competitive purpose, are making less and less financial sense. If bilateral cricket serves purely as a loss leader to develop players for money-making World Cups, cricket’s bubble will eventually burst.
The women’s Future Tours Programme - the draft schedule which countries broadly stick to when setting their fixtures - runs out next year. A new calendar is being drawn up. There is scope to be creative, to look at the issues on the men’s FTP and avoid assigning them to women’s cricket.
To an extent, this has already happened. The ICC Women’s Championship means that bilateral ODI cricket actually means something towards World Cup qualification. In the same way the men’s Super League once guaranteed proper, meaningful cricket, the Women’s Championship serves an important purpose. However, the Super League was ditched, much to the frustration of Ireland, Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. No one is suggesting (yet) that the Women’s Championship could fall the same way. But there is historical peril to relying on the ICC to provide competitive context to bilateral cricket.
Women’s cricket has a big three in the sense that India, Australia and England are the best teams. Yet they don’t manipulate the schedule to play against each other to the same extent as men’s cricket. On the current men’s FTP, England and India were slated to play each other in five series. On the women’s? Two.
Granted, this could change. The men’s FTP is longer. Rare women’s Test matches happen pretty much exclusively between the big three. The men’s patterns are starting to seep in, but, perhaps thanks to the requirement to play other teams in the Women’s Championship, they haven’t yet taken over.
If Ireland want to protect themselves against uncompetitive cricket, they should lobby the England Cricket Board to lead the way on the creation of a new European structure. Akin to how India dominates the Asian Cricket Council, the body which runs the Asia Cup, England should create a cricketing Euros.
Can this happen in the men’s game? Probably not. The schedule is too packed. The horse has already bolted on the big three wanting to only play each other when not focused on their domestic T20 leagues. Such cannibalisation of the women’s calendar has not yet taken place - though it may be in its infancy.
Every September, after England has lured bigger names to its shores and the Hundred has been and gone, why not stage a mini-T20 women’s competition? Make it a week, 10 days, a fortnight even. England can host and pay for things initially. Invite Ireland, Scotland and the Dutch. Even if, at women’s level, the Netherlands are a fair way behind, regular fixtures may eventually see them catch up.
Down the road, turn it into a wandering festival. In England, ticket sales will be good. Perhaps they will be in Ireland, provided the games are in Dublin. Market it as England’s full side, but allow them to use this as an A-team tour, as they did last week in Belfast and Dublin.
Everyone wins. Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands improve. There will be scalps against a second string English side. The ECB gets a development platform which could well be stronger than regional cricket. Familiarity breeds contempt. In time, as games become more competitive and the smaller nations beat England more often, the big players will be called in. A proper rivalry, and therefore product, will develop.
If Irish terrestrial TV showed last week’s T20s, can Virgin Media and others be convinced to show a meaningful competition which takes place every year? Can this be cricket’s Six Nations-lite? Sponsors would lap that up. Imagine that in five, 10 years time, as other nations flounder for context and the number of women’s franchise leagues matches the men, a secure, local competition protects Irish cricket’s relevance and, to a certain extent, their commercial viability.
Extend this model to youth cricket. It won’t become a strong commercial product, but it will develop players faster. This week, Ireland’s U19 men were in Loughborough playing a tri-series against England and Scotland. The women did something similar in recent weeks. There is an Asia Cup at youth level. Why not bring this to Europe, even if Scotland have fallen behind at U19 level?
This, in reality, should be the model for senior men’s cricket in Europe as well. Only it won’t be. As traditional audiences become even more dissatisfied by the takeover of foreign franchise leagues, a European competition can keep English fans interested in the years when Australia and India don’t tour. The novelty will give things an initial interest boost. The Barmy Army would love semi-regular trips to Dublin, Edinburgh and Amsterdam, if they ever build the right infrastructure.
Men’s matches will be harder given the smaller boards can’t afford the required stadia. Plus, England’s male schedule is more packed. They are currently playing Australia in the back end of their summer. Would they give this up for a European competition which, initially, will see them lose money, even if one day it might make commercial sense?
The women’s game, though, won’t have the same issues. In Ireland, for attendance reasons, sadly you don’t need to do up the Malahide stands for a women’s match. They can still get close to 1,000 people in Clontarf, though. Unlike the men’s team, the women’s team has sponsors who can invest in geting this enterprise off the ground. Certa, after all, contributed towards the greater production cost of putting women’s cricket on TV.
International cricket outside of the major nations needs creative leadership to survive. In the women’s game, that creativity should be easier to put in place. Just as the the men’s game has become a blueprint to avoid, women’s cricket can offer a template for how to keep international matches thriving.
Will any of this happen? It’s unlikely. Does it make commercial sense? Not immediately. Akin to the Hundred, can it get somewhere with some bravery and willingness to lose before you earn? Why not? Should such an international structure become a priority ahead of the men’s Euro Slam T20 competition which will struggle to capture the public imagination? You tell me…
Someone needs to step up. It won’t be Ireland, Scotland or the Netherlands for financial reasons. There is only one country who can do this. If the other European nations aren’t snapping at English heels for some form of support which can turn into mutual benefit, then they aren’t doing their jobs.