ICC Cricket World
Cup 2023: Can the sport finally go global
As cricket’s marquee event kicks off in India, its ambitions to spread beyond the Commonwealth are on test.
Packed stadiums.
Raucous crowds. Hooting vuvuzelas. The stage is set for cricket’s biggest
carnival, which kicks off in India on October 5 with 10
nations competing for the World Cup over six weeks.
On the surface, the
numbers suggest a global event: With over one billion fans,
cricket is among the world’s most popular sports. But almost five centuries
after the earliest recorded reference to cricket in southeast England, the
sport’s market largely remains limited to a handful of countries, led by India.
History
The sport spread
with the British Empire, with the first international matches played in the
second half of the 19th century. Yet, even as cricket has evolved over the
years with changes
in rules and the introduction of new formats and competitions, it has
struggled to expand its reach beyond Commonwealth countries.
India, Australia
and England dominate as cricketing powerhouses on the field while also holding
significant positions of power off the field in the governance structures of
the sport. Apart from the ‘Big Three’, other major cricketing nations include
Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Bangladesh and Caribbean
countries that play together as the West Indies.
And that’s about
it.
FIFA and ICC
anaylises
Football’s
governing body FIFA boasts more than 200 member nations. The International
Cricket Council (ICC), by contrast, has only 12 full members, with dozens of
other nations as associate members.
The 50-over
World Cup, for long cricket’s marquee event, has swung between
accommodating more teams – a record 16 participated in the 2007 edition – and
limiting participation to a select band of top-performing nations, as will be
the case this time around.
The next edition,
in 2027, will see 14 teams battle it out, but that’s still a much smaller
number than the 32 nations that have competed in the football World Cup since
1998. In fact, 48 will feature in the next football World Cup in 2026.
So, can the World
Cup fire up interest in cricket beyond countries that already love the
sport shorter formats, like
20-overs-a-side competitions – known as Twenty20 (T20) cricket – the vehicles
that can propel support around the world? Does cricket even have a global
future?
The short answer: Cricket does have scope to grow, but
it is unlikely to become a global phenomenon anytime soon. And more than the
50-over World Cup, it is the three-hour spectacle of T20 cricket that is the
way forward, say experts, especially with the emergence of franchise leagues in
new markets such as the United States. Women’s cricket can also help improve
the sport’s global footprint, while a possible return to the Olympic Games
might serve as a boost.
Captains of the 10
countries participating in the Cricket World Cup 2023 field questions ahead of
the start of the competition, at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, India, on
October 4, 2023.
Cricket vs football
expenditure
But cricket itself
faces difficult questions as the event kicks off
Unlike football,
playing cricket involves high expenditure – be it buying the necessary gear,
setting up stadiums or maintaining pitches.
“Cricket has a
relatively high barrier to entry compared to most sports, simply due to the
level of equipment required to play even a recreational game,” said Matt
Roller, assistant editor at the ESPNCricinfo website. “In my view, that is the
principal reason that football has long been a global sport: All you need is a
ball and any small space.”
But there are other
reasons, too, behind cricket’s failure – by and large – to expand beyond its
traditional markets, believe some experts.
One key factor
The sport’s roots.
Jamie Alter, a
cricket analyst and journalist, said that cricket’s foundations in colonialism
mean the very fabric of the sport is tied to Commonwealth countries. “The game
is too intrinsic to the cultures of most of these countries, and despite the
efforts of the ICC to expand cricket across the globe, it remains a rather
limited sport since it relies on too few countries to properly thrive and
expand,” Alter said.
Traditionally
cricket-loving nations like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh alone constitute a
market of nearly two billion people.
“Even more insular
is the strength of cricket from a commercial perspective,” he added, referring
to the economic clout of India and developed cricket-playing countries like
England and Australia. That insularity can blunt any sense of urgency to expand
the sport’s reach among administrators.
Still, it isn’t as
though the pool of nations that play cricket has remained entirely stagnant.
Though there are
records of the British playing cricket in Afghanistan in the 19th century, the
sport really took off in the war-torn nation among refugees who played in camps
in Pakistan in the past two decades.
Then, in its
first-ever 50-over World Cup in 2015, the Afghan side beat Scotland. In 2019,
the country received test status – the pinnacle of the sport – and soon
defeated two other test nations: Bangladesh and fellow greenhorn, Ireland.
Afghan players are now regulars in T20 franchise leagues across the world.
But there is little
to suggest that the sport’s bosses have plans in place to replicate
Afghanistan’s success. In fact, some experts believe that administrators are
wary of upstart teams upsetting major nations with big markets, especially in
events like the World Cup.
‘Growing very
slowly’
Cricket World Cups
have often attracted criticism over their small pool of participating teams.
The World Cups are poorly designed – too long and with too few teams – said Tim
Wigmore, deputy cricket correspondent for The Daily Telegraph newspaper. The 10-team
World Cup in India will have 48 matches spanning 46 days. The 2022 football
World Cup in Qatar had 32 teams and yet ran for less than a month.
“Cricket has been
incredibly conservative in the number of teams it has allowed in World Cups,”
Wigmore, co-author of the book Crickonomics, said.
And the reasons are
not entirely innocent, according to him.
In 2007, the
50-overs World Cup had 16 teams. But Ireland defeated Pakistan and Bangladesh
beat India, pushing the South Asian nations out of the competition at the group
stage. Wigmore believes the number of participating nations was “perversely”
reduced in subsequent tournaments “to ensure that sides from bigger markets had
more games”.
Like the men’s
game, the women’s World Cups also feature very few teams. The first edition of
the Women’s World Cup featured seven teams in 1973, and the participation
fluctuated over the years, reaching the highest count of 11 in 1997. The latest
Women’s World Cup in 2022 featured eight teams and the next edition in 2025 will
also have the same count.
“So allowing more
teams is long overdue – though this year’s ODI World Cup still only has 10
teams and the number in the women’s World Cups is only growing very slowly,”
Wigmore said. ODIs – One Day Internationals – are 50-over-a-side matches
between international teams.
Georgie Heath, a
cricket commentator and presenter, said that the World Cups also need to be
marketed in the right way to attract new fans.
Ticketing system of
world cup
“So much
advertising seems to be targeted at those who are already cricket fans and are
going to watch or attend games anyway. There needs to be more focus on how they
are going to bring in new audiences, players and fans and what the sport offers
them,” Heath said.
“Often only being
on pay-to-view television is a barrier to expansion, too, and this is something
that needs to be addressed as well as some of the extortionate prices often
charged for tickets.”
A chaotic
ticketing system at the World Cup that’s about to begin has frustrated
fans. Ticket prices range from 499 rupees ($6) to 40,000 rupees ($481) on
BookMyShow, the official ticketing platform. Rates in the resale market are
exorbitant, with the most expensive ticket for the highly-anticipated India vs
Pakistan match selling for 25 million rupees ($300,545) on Viagogo, a
multinational ticket exchange and ticket resale brand.
Meanwhile,
questions over the very survival of the ODI format are mounting.
Australia celebrate
after winning the women’s T20 World Cup in Cape Town, South Africa, on February
26, 2023. The shorter format has emerged as the sport’s most popular – and many
analysts believe it is the vehicle that could take cricket global.
The future: 20 or
50 overs?
In July, the
Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) – the custodians of the game’s laws – recommended
limiting the number of ODI internationals following the 2027 World Cup. The
suggestion comes at a time when the 50-over format is losing its relevance:
Longer, five-day test matches remain the priority for traditional fans, while
casual viewers have embraced a quicker and glitzier 20-over-a-side format that
has spawned multiple franchise leagues.
Cricketers
themselves are less convinced that it is time to bid farewell to ODIs.
A report in
2022 by the Federation of International Cricketers’ Association, the global
body that represents players, said that 54 percent of cricketers still consider
the ODI World Cup as the top trophy to compete for, though the number had
reduced significantly from 86 percent in their 2018-19 survey.
My view
“My view is that
one-day cricket will be played less and less at the international level, but
that the World Cup will remain a pinnacle event that players aspire to be part
of,” Roller said. “The general issue for 50-over cricket is that bilateral
international cricket is increasingly being squeezed by franchise leagues – and
private investors clearly have limited interest in the idea of 50-over leagues,
seeing the speed of games as a key component of short-form cricket’s appeal.”
T20 world cup
To Roller, the T20
World Cup – held every two years – is a “much clearer vehicle for growth”. With
next year’s T20 World Cup set to feature 20 teams, its biggest pool of
participants so far, Wigmore, the cricket writer and author, expects the
tournament to be a big catalyst for cricket’s growth.
But it won’t be
easy. Lower-ranked teams are likely to struggle to remain competitive as they
receive a very limited share of central broadcast revenue from the T20 World
Cup, Roller pointed out, limiting the resources that they can funnel back into
popularising the sport.
“Staging the
tournament every two years also risks killing the golden goose: the scarcity of
World Cups in other sports helps add to their prestige,” he added.
Other analysts believe
the future lies in T20 cricket – not so much in international matches, but in
franchise leagues.
‘Building a successful business’
In 2018, ex-ICC CEO
David Richardson said that it was “quite clear” that T20 cricket would be the
format by which the governing body could “globalise and grow the game
worldwide”.
Fast forward to
2023, and the T20 format seems to be flourishing. There are domestic and
franchise leagues taking place in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Oceania and some
parts of Europe.
The Indian Premier
League (IPL), which has an estimated brand value of $8.4bn, has built its
status as the world’s top T20 competition since its inception in 2008.
Lucrative leagues have also started in Australia, the United Arab Emirates,
South Africa, England and Wales, Pakistan, the Caribbean and most recently in
the United States.
“T20 cricket has
spread the sport, but for cricket to be a sustainable and global game, it’s
going to be these leagues that are starting up everywhere, like in the US or
UAE,” said Bharat Sundaresan, cricket writer for the Cricbuzz website.
“Eventually, we’ll reach a point where if there is a window, new leagues could
come up in other nations.
“And that’s
personally how I see cricket growing even more in a global sense,” Sundaresan
said.
In July, cricket
broke into the world’s wealthiest market, the US, with the launch
of Major League Cricket, with six teams competing in the T20 format. The
MLC assembled an impressive group of investors, with four of its six franchises
owned by business entities that also own teams in the IPL.
The US – along with
the West Indies – is also scheduled to host the T20 World Cup next year,
offering an opportunity for the sport and format to grow there.
“All these IPL
franchise owners, whether they have the best interest of the sport in mind or
not, the one thing they do know to do is to run a successful business,”
Sundaresan said.
“Their business is
so dependent on their brand being showcased for a longer period during the year
rather than just for two months, which is why they’re buying out all the teams
around the world. It’s just going to lead to there being more leagues,” he
added.
Sundaresan also
tipped women’s cricket as playing a key role in enhancing the sport’s global
image.
Woman premier League
The first
full-fledged five-team Women’s Premier League (WPL) earlier this year saw
several female cricketers witnessing the biggest payday of their careers at the
auction.
Meanwhile, the
FairBreak Invitational T20 held its second edition in Hong Kong this year, featuring
some of the world’s best female cricketers who took part in the six-team
tournament.
“I think women’s
cricket will popularise cricket as a sport more globally than what men’s
cricket has been able to do in the last 150 years,” Sundaresan said.
He cited the
stunning emergence of Thailand – a country with no known history in the sport –
as a petri dish of talent in the women’s game. They qualified for their first
global event in 2020 when they competed at the Women’s T20 World Cup and the
team has been ranked as high as 10th internationally.
Thai players have
also grabbed attention in franchise leagues. In 2020, opening batter Natthakan
Chantham played for the Trailblazers in the Women’s T20 Challenge competition
in India, becoming the first Thai cricketer to play in a professional T20
franchise league. All-rounders Nattaya Boochatham and Sornnarin Tippoch, as
well as batter Naruemol Chaiwai, featured in the FairBreak Invitational T20
this year.
“Suddenly, it’s a
free-for-all, right?” Sundaresan said. “Like, you can be part of a national
team in a country which doesn’t have a great standard of cricket, but you have
a tournament to go to and play.”
An LA2028 sign is
seen in front of a blazing Olympic cauldron at the Los Angeles Memorial
Coliseum on Wednesday, September 13, 2017. Cricket authorities want the sport
included in the 2028 Games, but sceptics say it won’t h
An Olympic medal
next?
The T20 format is
also firing bigger ambitions for cricket. The sport’s authorities have bid for
cricket to be included in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028, having last
featured at the 1900 Games in Paris.
The proposal: A
five-team T20 competition, for both men and women.
But will cricket as
an Olympic sport help expand its global reach? Not everyone is sure.
“I’d love to see
cricket played at the Olympics for the second time especially as this will then
include women playing cricket, too,” Heath, the commentator and presenter,
said.
“My reservations
here lie in considering how many countries will be included, what the
qualification routes are, who plays, and the danger that it just becomes
another tournament of the same countries playing out as we always see.”
Other experts agree
that while Olympic involvement could give cricket more global visibility, it is
unlikely to transform its footprint overnight.
“A small T20
tournament might not be transformative in itself and would likely be played by
only a few teams in the first instance,” Roller said.
An Olympic stamp in
itself wouldn’t mean that cricket has gone global, Roller said. “There are a
number of relatively niche sports at the Olympics already, which are much
smaller than cricket in terms of participation numbers or audience.”
Indeed, some
analysts wonder whether cricket even needs to aspire for a presence in every
part of the world.
“I love cricket and
always will, but I don’t see how it going to the Olympics is going to really
promote the sport,” Alter said.
“Does cricket need
to be a global sport? It’s successful for over 150 years in its own world.”
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