English cricket is facing a period of tumult. Photograph: Tony O'Brien/Action Images
The only way to assert control is to spend money. The fledgling county game is funded by subscriptions from those keen to continue playing the longer form of cricket familiar to public schools. In 1867 the MCC create a benevolent fund accessible only to approved county professionals. The established order prevails and English cricket is 'saved' from the fate of sport in America, where urban, franchise-based teams are backed, as with Spalding in baseball, by the commercial sector. It means that, when Test matches begin 10 years later, any professional wishing to play for England has to ensure his county and the MCC are kept onside - and very little changes in the next 130 years.
Now, with the advent of another new short-form competition, Twenty20, and the billion-pound Indian Premier League launching this week, the structure of English cricket is once more under threat. The power of the 18 first-class counties who control the game through the England and Wales Cricket Board - and who collectively superseded MCC - is being questioned and could come under attack from a similar direction: the popularity of short-form cricket, especially in cities.
This time the establishment, the ECB, could be the loser. Whatever happens, those who run cricket are in for a rough ride. There is talk of splits, breakaways, of player revolt, and of soured relations between those who are pushing for radical change and those who are against it.
Andrew Wildblood, the IMG executive who dreamed up the IPL with its commissioner, Lalit Modi, over a cup of tea at last year's Wimbledon, tells Observer Sport: 'Cricket like any "product" has to respond to changes in its consumers' demand and must innovate to protect its future. The authorities need to be at the forefront of this, as has clearly been the case in India. I believe that the ECB should at least consider something like a franchised, private ownership model, or creating new entities playing Twenty20. I think this can be done in a manner that is complementary to the existing structure and creates new value for existing stakeholders.
'English cricket seems confused. How many people can name the format of all the competitions, say which is 40 overs, which is 50, which day a Championship match starts, whether it is three days or four days, who sponsors what? I regard myself as a cricket lover, but I certainly don't know.'
On Friday the first match in the IPL is between the Bangalore Royal Chargers, owned by billionaire brewery tycoon Vijay Mallya, and Kolkata Knight Riders, backed by Bollywood's biggest stars Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla.
Mallya's franchise, the second most expensive of the eight in the IPL, cost $111 million. Kolkata went for 'only' $75m. But with former India captain Sourav Ganguly leading a team featuring Ricky Ponting, Kolkata should give the Chargers (Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis) a run for their money in Bangalore's 55,000-capacity M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
About 50 of the world's top cricketers from outside India will play in the IPL but only one from England, Dimitri Mascarenhas, who signed for Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur for £50,000. This is because the Indian league, which finishes on 1 June, clashes with England's Test series against New Zealand. Over the coming 44 days of the 59-match competition, there will be no Andrew Flintoff or Kevin Pietersen, both of whom might have pocketed as much as the $1.35m that made Australia's Andrew Symonds the most expensive non-Indian (and richest) bought at the remarkable player auction held in Mumbai at the end of February.
Scheduling is one reason offered by the ECB chairman, Giles Clarke, when explaining why no centrally contracted England player can go to India this year or - unless there is a rethink - next. The 2009 IPL begins on 10 April, when England will have just returned from a tour of the Caribbean and will be preparing to host the Twenty20 World Cup and the Ashes. Clarke's apparently dogmatic stance has led to predictions of a seismic rupture within the English game.
Pietersen recently broke ranks to describe the absence of English players from the IPL as 'ridiculous', saying: 'You don't want them [ECB] choosing. It's silly to think that you're losing up to a million [dollars] over six weeks. It's definitely something that the hierarchy needs to fix into our fixtures.'
While players and their agents are concerned at being left behind five years after the ECB invented Twenty20, Wildblood and others are excited by what the future holds. They agree with Pietersen that players should be released for Twenty20, and believe that the IPL model can be replicated here.
Wildblood says: 'If you come up with eight entities that are created to play in a Twenty20 Super League, and if they have the right players, play in the right places, at the right time for spectators and TV viewers, they will create new revenues - and revenues attract investors. Creating new value is the key, not just putting a new competition into the existing cricket pot and moving the money around in a different way.' A Super League, says Wildblood, who has worked in cricket for 20 years, would lead 'to a world in which, say, Sir Richard Branson would want to buy into a London cricket team, in which Sir Mick Jagger might want to have a financial interest'.
Chubby Chandler, the agent who looks after England's most prominent cricketers including Flintoff and Test captain Michael Vaughan, agrees. 'I see the IPL as a massive positive. It could make cricket enormously popular.'
Sean Morris, chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, hints at the unrest among players. 'The English game has to respond quickly to new competitive threats, so the ECB need to get players on board, and then promise them a rewarding journey.' Privately, the PCA have voiced anxiety about the ECB and their perceived lack of a clear strategy in response to the IPL. Clarke is dismissive of such talk and will not be rushed into announcing plans for a new format for Twenty20.
'There is a lot of febrile conversation from men with little or no experience of business or entrepreneurial ability,' says Clarke, a hugely successful, multi-lingual businessman who has strong links with the subcontinent. 'Most quick reactions in business are not properly thought through, and involve a level of risk.'
Among executives of the 18 counties that Clarke represents there is a mix of fear, open-mindedness and excitement. 'I wouldn't rule it out,' says Hampshire chief executive Stuart Robertson when asked about the possibility of an eight-franchise, city-based Twenty20 league similar to the IPL. Robertson, arguably the driving force behind the creation of Twenty20 when he worked as the ECB's marketing manager, believes there is a huge untapped market in the UK. 'We've never been able to encourage the huge British Asian population fully into the county game.' A new format for Twenty20, he thinks, may do this.
One businessman aware of potential synergies is Manoj Badale. Until last year his company, Emerging Media, was involved commercially with Leicestershire. Badale, who is also chairman of the British Asian Trust, holds a unique position as the only English owner of an IPL franchise. With Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert, Badale controls the Royals. Although reluctant to be drawn on the possibility of an urban Twenty20 league in England, the 40-year-old says: 'Surely one of the main determinants should be what is it that consumers wish to watch.'
Clarke's top priority is protecting what English cricket already has. 'We have to be satisfied that anything we do enhances our current activities,' he says. The England team generate most of the ECB's revenue, the bulk of which is then handed on to the counties. 'We have to see if there is economic benefit. There is not a lot of point creating a league that costs £15million a year to run, but only brings in £14m.'
Chandler remains unconvinced. 'Are the ECB saying no [to change] because their jobs might be going?' he asks. 'Kerry Packer didn't go down too well in the 1970s, but you cannot tell me that it wasn't good for cricket. Well, where we are now is Kerry Packer 30 years on. What is important when the IPL begins is the worldwide television audience, rather than the Indian one. If that takes off, then the game will become much bigger.
'In a way it is a perfect scenario because Freddie Flintoff and KP can sit, along with the ECB, to see if the IPL takes off. But if the ECB don't move then that will give people a decision to make about where their playing careers might lead. An eight-franchise urban league here is a no-brainer. City teams will be easier for people to get behind. Getting sponsors would be easy, and kids will love it.'
Gus Mackay, the chief executive of Sussex, says: 'The last thing we want is to have more breakaways.'
This is a reference to the 'rebel' Indian Cricket League, currently playing its second edition, and which is unsanctioned by the International Cricket Council, the world governing body whose power has largely been circumvented by the Board of Cricket Control for India (BCCI), which is behind the IPL. While Mackay says there has been no discussion among the 18 counties regarding Twenty20, some have begun talks that, in the most extreme scenario, could lead to a split.
'The Test-match ground counties have met and discussed the opportunities and threats the IPL poses,' says Tom Sears, chief executive of Derbyshire, who in 2007 had the smallest county turnover of £2.7m. With most of that coming from ECB handouts, their self-generated annual revenues equate, for example, to those raised by a single clothing or DIY store. Four other counties have a similar turnover, and none of the 18 has ever dealt with significant commercial success in the county game.
Friday's announcement that Cardiff and Southampton had been given Test matches means that 10 counties - more than half - could pose a threat of a split from those with smaller, inadequate grounds. One executive at a top club spoke of developments becoming 'toxic'.
Last week the ECB rejected proposals for an early-season Twenty20 competition that would have included the minor counties, universities, Ireland and Scotland; and also said no to an English Premier League that would have comprised the 18 counties and teams from India, Australia and South Africa. Instead, the ECB will travel to India to watch the IPL, and hold talks with their current broadcasters, Sky, and sponsors. They will also consult spectators.
Modi, who sold the TV rights to the IPL over 10 years for around £500m, said: 'If Sky can put money on the table, then...' Modi would support a level of partnership between the IPL and any new competition in England. 'Our players are contracted exclusively to the IPL. But if it [an English league] was not at the same time I see no problem.'
The rights payments would be far less than in India, where cricket is the number-one sport and where there is a huge demand, in a growing economy, for new forms of entertainment. Players' wages would be lower, too, says Clarke, because 'players are not being paid as much in June and July by other countries'. England is the only country to play in those months.
Clarke will not be rushed. 'In 2009 we have the Twenty20 world finals, then the Ashes. We want the focus to be on those events, the Ashes to be the focal point of the season. We would be bloody stupid to introduce a new league when the global appeal of the Twenty20 World Cup and the Ashes will swamp it.'
There is a hint of a relaxing of the ban on England players going to the IPL next year, though. Clarke says: 'Graham Gooch says Twenty20 is good preparation for Test matches; Graeme Smith [South Africa's captain] says that every ball matters, and therefore playing Twenty20 is very good for Test cricketers. We have to take all this into account.'
By 2010, there will be a new television deal, perhaps with the rights to Twenty20 sold separately for the first time. And if the money men have their way, cricket might be going back to the big cities, 164 years after William Clarke's touring triumph.
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