Cricket: Well… It’s just not cricket anymore!

Location: Mohali, India

The standard of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct within cricket has historically been so high that the expression “It’s just not cricket” was used to describe unfair behaviour or something not in keeping with proper decorum. The game of Cricket being the high bar to which not just other sports but general social etiquette were judged.

But how the times they have changed, with the gentleman's game the prime proof of such. As more and more money flowed into sport, and sportsmen and women became celebrities in their own right, the pressure to win for your team and country or to earn the big bucks through prize money and endorsements has seen standards of sportsmanship and fair play dropping across all disciplines. And Cricket in particular has had more than its fair shares of controversies and bad PR over the last decade. As the International Cricket Board (ICC) has embraced television revenues and celebrity culture, led by the dangerously powerful BCCI (Board of Cricket Control India), player power and an abundance of global short form competitions are threatening the future of the gentleman's' game.

Players will follow the money and in the case of Cricket that money is in Twenty20.

Every test playing nation now has a Twenty20 domestic league enticing players from around the world to sign short term deals for big money. In the case of the IPL (Indian Premier League), the biggest of these events, an international quality player can expect to earn $800000 for six weeks work, which is more than twice the basic yearly salary for representing a top test nation.

The bigger issue though, is the continuous controversies within the game and the disintegration of the principles on which the sport was built.

•          The Green Shirts of Pakistan have been ripped apart by accusations of ball tampering, convictions in match fixing, forfeited test matches and in fighting between players and selectors.
•          The England Cricket Board, have never been far from controversy, including accepting millions of pounds from Texan Allen Stanford for their part in the ill fated Stanford Super Series, Stanford has since been found guilty of operating a £4.4 billion pound Ponzi Scheme in the US.
•       The Sri Lankan national side recently ended a pay dispute, centering, according the Sri Lanka Cricket Board on the players demands for a pay rise, the players claiming that they were in fact asked to reduce their salaries, eventually agreed to remain on wages of $32000 a month, with the Sri Lankan sports minister eager to point out that their salary was still roughly 400 times that of a college graduate entering government employment in Jakarta.

And In the rock and roll atmosphere of the IPL, which had its own spot fixing scandal in 2012, there have been more confrontations and suspensions than ever before in a sport that prides itself on adhering to the “spirit of the game”.

Yesterday Australia suspended 4 of their players for one game, following failure to produce a report on improvements the team could make following disastrous defeats in the opening two tests in India. While ex-players leapt to criticise the coaching staff for what they saw as a blatant over reaction. It was left to one of the four involved to showcase the difficult position international sides find themselves in.

The teams Vice-Captain Shane Watson on his way back to Australia for the birth of his first child, released a statement where he questioned the punishment enforced and mentioned plans to consider his future in the game. The money available in domestic competitions all over the world making it very easy to take a stand against the Australian Cricket Board. The moral of the story, be careful angering your work force when they can make alot more money elsewhere.

The ICC no doubt believes the sport to be heading in the right direction, but past players see no connection between what cricket will look like in 20 years and the sport they grew up playing. An institution that once set the high bar for sporting decency now looks sheepishly up not just at the bar but at most other sporting associations.

And while we can’t be exactly sure what it will all lead to, one thing is for sure, it’s just not cricket.