Uncertainty
The times they are a-changin’
With Stumped! being a one-person writing operation, it’s not easy for me to keep up with everything going on in the sports world, and so, for the most part, I don’t even try. Instead, I do deep dives into players. It’s a lot of meetings and chasing leads, which leaves me with no time to do hot takes. I think a number of readers prefer it that way. On the rare occasion, I do try to weigh in on the big moments and biggest stories. This is one of those rare occasions.
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’
- Bob Dylan
Andrew Breetzke was more than a little uneasy about the future of cricket when I last had a chat with him. It took me a couple of months and the news of Karim Benzema’s move and the merger of LIV Golf, the PGA and the European Tour for me to understand his uneasiness.
This week, Benzema announced that he is joining Al-Ittihad in the Saudi Pro League in a move worth more than $200 million. It’s a big move. Confirmation of Benzema’s move came on the same day that the $3 billion-worth merger between LIV Golf and the PGA was announced, putting an end to two years of warfare.
Saudi Arabia is coming for everything, cricket included, and they will not be denied.
Saudi Arabia’s spending in sports is not driven by vanity or largesse. “The sport itself might not be of that importance to the Saudis, they care a lot about soccer, but not so much about golf and cricket. This is about politics, projection of power and influence,” says Stefan Szymanski, a professor at University Michigan and co-author of Crickonomics.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched the Kingdom’s masterplan Vision2030, a strategic plan intended to reduce economic dependence on oil. The plan is meant to transform Saudi Arabia both economically and socially. By 2021, the Kingdom had spent at least $1.5bn on chess championships, golf, tennis, horse racing, Formula One, boxing, wrestling…
The Saudis have not just been vocal about their ambitions in cricket. They have acted on them. A Saudi prince, Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan Al Saud has held talks with the cash-strapped Yorkshire Cricket Club about a deal that would see the prince injecting money into the club.
The chairman of their cricket board, Prince Saud bin Mishal al-Saud publicly declared his intention to make Saudi Arabia a global cricketing destination. They have embarked on that path by forging crucial relationships. In 2022, the ICC agreed to a global partnership with Aramco which included involvement in the World Test final and the 2023 ODI World Cup.
They are also forging close relationships with the IPL. According to reports, the Saudis are courting IPL franchise owners and in February 2023, Aramco joined Visit Saudi in IPL sponsorship.
Saudi Arabia’s close ties to the IPL and BCCI make it more than possible that they might have access to Indian players, something no other league has been able to do. If this happens, the Saudi T20 league would automatically become the second biggest T20 league in the world.
That, in itself, is not a problem. The problem is that the Saudi league, like any other T20 league, will carve a chunk off the cricket calendar.
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A new league… A new and highly lucrative league taking two more months from the calendar could be one of the final nails in the coffin of bilateral cricket. With major stars missing due to T20 league commitments, bilateral cricket could find itself in the position A-tours have occupied for years - the next generation competing with the hopes of making it to the squads that play in the annual ICC events.
Unlike the Saudi football league which is attracting ageing footballers - Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and others - the Saudi T20 league will be attracting cricketers in their prime. In the 1970s, the North American Soccer League assembled the greatest collection of stars to ever play outside Europe or South America. They had Pele, Johan Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer, George Best, Bobby Moore and others, despite not having any huge stars of their own. This is what Saudi Arabia will do with their league.
“Given the fact that there are very few professional cricketers in Saudi Arabia, it goes without saying that for the league to be successful they will have to contract players from across the world – hence the challenge for countries looking to manage their bi-lateral cricket calendars,” says Breetzke.
It’s not only bilateral cricket that will be impacted. It is unlikely that the Saudi T20 league’s organisers will go for the December-January window, which is good news for SA20; they are more likely to go for October and November as a preferred window, which is not good news for provincial cricket. October and November fall within the domestic season in South Africa.
“The omens are not good for a country like South Africa that is not a big player financially,” says Szymanski.
With their big money offers, the Saudi league will be more than tempting for local players to choose it over domestic cricket. Cricket careers are short and most players will be thinking of securing their futures. Provinces cannot compete financially. The absence of South Africa’s top players while they fulfill commitments to the Proteas and T20 leagues has negatively affected provincial cricket, the Saudi T20 league could add to those woes and drain more talent beyond the top 20 or so players.
The future of cricket is not uncertain, the sport is not dying. I am just uncertain what the cricket landscape will look like in the near-future. The times they are a-changin’, and South African cricket needs to find a way to keep up with the changes.
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Thanks for reading. Until next time… - CS
