Neil Manthorp: When unbridled capitalism shatters aspirations and hopes

The MCC sponsored a dignitary cricket gathering at Lord's last weekend, which was a fantastic concept in theory. In the renowned Long Room, about a hundred of the most powerful men in the game (and a pathetically small number of women) convened to talk about the future.

In his opening remarks to the gathered delegates, ICC President Greg Barclay candidly acknowledged that the global game's administrative body was "not fit for purpose" and that, for it to function effectively, it needed to be either more powerful or more independent. If it served only as a private members club secretariat, nothing could or would improve.

He wasn't really the most powerful man in cricket. Jay Shah, the secretary of the BCCI, apologized. Posing with the T20 World Cup trophy for pictures had already taken up much of his schedule.

The ICC was as strong and "independent" as it needed to be, and that would not alter, but the forthright Ravi Shastri was the ideal understudy and cleared the air over India's stance. There were no voices of disagreement. This was not the time to push boundaries rather, it was to savor the wine and canapés.

Irony was abundant in the room as well, though not everyone noticed it. One of the main topics of discussion, according to Cricket Australia's chair Mike Baird, was "the need to remove meaningless content from the schedule, content which is not attracting interest in terms of attendance at stadiums, viewership, without any sort of context for qualification (for world cups)". Baird made this statement to the Melbourne Age newspaper.

Tough choices

"It begins with examining the stuff we have and making some difficult judgments. We will most likely need to reduce the number of such matches if we are unable to reach a point where the material provides background information and/or danger. Each and every nation must consider and make a choice on it, according to Baird.

Two things to note here: first, the Australian men's team will tour England in September to play three Twenty20 Internationals and five, yes five, One-Day Internationals. Nothing at all will be at risk other than the endeavor to turn a profit. Nothing. Given that it also involves a trip to Scotland for three further Twenty20 Internationals, several Australian players have already publicly referred to it as a "golf tour."

The second argument is that, meaningless or not, a lot of the smaller nations, like Scotland, are begging for "substance." It did not feel well to hear one of the big three gorges themselves on meaningless cricket matches calling for fewer fixtures.

They all competed in the World Cup Super League for three years before the most recent 50-over World Cup in India, where they were assured of four series four at home and four away that served as "live" qualifying for the main event. That was canned, though. The ICC did that; why did it? Yes, it does not fit.

Within four years, there was a rumored proposal to cut the number of nations who play Test cricket to six. When questioned about his thoughts on Sri Lanka's exclusion, the typically fervent and sympathetic Kumar Sangakkara said, "Not great, but there isn't much I can do about it."

The identical issue about New Zealand being left out or leaving itself was posed to Brendon McCullum. McCullum remarked, perhaps earnestly, "Maybe it would be different if there was a regular £100,000 match fee."

Not many journalists received invitations from the MCC. Gideon Haigh, an accomplished Australian writer, historian, and author, was one of the "selected." One of his main conclusions is as follows: "There was a lot of talk about expansion, leverage, expanding leverage, and, above all, responding to commercial forces, which were seen as immense, unchangeable, and unrelenting, and hardly the material of human action at all."

He claimed the discussion was almost entirely focused on money and how to produce more of it, rather than how to divide the enormous sums of money the game now brings in more fairly among its key players.

There at Lord's was Sundar Raman, who started off as Lalit Modi's right-hand man in the IPL and went on to become a multibillionaire businessman who now has a 12.5% stake in the SA20. Naturally, he was: "Raman lamented that cricket did not provide more options for the audience to spend money on amusement and evangelized about the technology enrichment of the experience." 

An interesting reversal of this is that, in reality, all supporters want is to spend more money, and cricket's role is to support them by lavishing them with charity, according to Haigh.

a room full of largely incredibly rich and wealthy males. It seems that any modest origins they may have had are long since forgotten. I didn't want to use this opportunity to talk about a 13-year-old fast bowler from Qonce (previously King Williams Town) who wanted to be like Makhaya Ntini. Different universe, different planet.