Member Insights: Cricket’s Makeshift Fantasy Solution During Covid-19, A Look To The Future?
May 26, 2020
Cricket journalist Rick Eyre takes a lot at how the sport has been affected by Covid-19, some of the immediate difficulties it will face with multiple upcoming international events in the schedule and how an innovation has given some Indian fans their cricket fix during the crisis.
Friday the Thirteenth was the day in March when international cricket ground to a halt: Australia defeated New Zealand at a closed Sydney Cricket Ground before the remaining two matches of their series were called off. Just as with other sports and life generally, the need to address the world’s biggest public health crisis in 101 years has brought cricket to a standstill… almost, but more about that later.
With no international cricket since mid-March, most tournaments have gone into the queue to be played at some later date. Four series in the World Test Championship have been postponed, leaving a lot of catch-up if a final at Lord’s is to take place on time in June 2021. The Men’s T20 World Cup, which would bring sixteen teams to Australia from October 18 until November 15, is in serious doubt with the ICC Board expected to make a decision on May 28.
Even next February’s Women’s World Cup in New Zealand is up in the air if international travel and social distancing restrictions cannot be lifted in time. The identity of five of the ten competing teams is not even known yet as the qualifier tournament set for Sri Lanka this July has gone on hold.
Supporters of the IPL are pushing for the T20 World Cup to be pushed aside so that the IPL, which generates more revenue from media rights and sponsorship, can move into its October-November slot.
The first half, at least, of the 2020 English cricket season has been wiped out, and the launch of the ECB’s innovative but controversial short-form tournament The Hundred has been deferred until 2021.
The Indian Premier League was unable to play its customary March-May season and is short of alternative dates. Supporters of the IPL are pushing for the T20 World Cup to be pushed aside so that the IPL, which generates more revenue from media rights and sponsorship, can move into its October-November slot. But whether the IPL can proceed even at that time will depend on India’s national situation in gaining control over the pandemic.
As the massive economic and social impact of the lack of cricket unfolds, one innovative trend has emerged. T10 (ten-overs per side) cricket tournaments have been played this month in Taiwan, Vanuatu and St Vincent, countries in which the pandemic is either controlled or has not arrived at all. Backed by Indian fantasy leagues and tech companies, teams have been organised from scratch from local players, assembled in drafts modelled after the IPL, matched live-streamed at times friendly to Indian audiences.
Vanuatu’s tournament the Blast has Curacao-incorporated BetBarter as its naming rights sponsor, the local authorities scrapping a domestic forty-over competition in place of the shorter T10 format with more fixtures for the punters to bet on.
For the time being at least, the bespoke made-for-fantasy cricket league may be enough to keep cashed-up fans happy and provide some income for developing cricket nations. In the longer run, it’s a development the ICC needs to watch.