Last week I wrote about the divergence of three formats, in a post which was the most popular Substack I’ve written by far in terms of number of readers - it’s obviously a hot topic in the cricket world currently which polarises fans.
Definitely agree with you. The expansion of the IPL seems inevitable. It will happen and when it does I believe few T20 competitions will survive. They will either merge with other competitions or cease operations. However, under your vision of a year-long IPL, going around the world like the professional tennis tour, that would be great for building the worldwide audience. Like in tennis, there could be "majors" with higher prize money (India, England, Australia, Caribbean and US) and then smaller competitions with lower prize money between them. I like your idea of having domestic T20 leagues only for players of that country to develop and the ones good enough from those leagues can be "drafted" into the IPL. Your idea would be innovative: a team sports league, moving around the world like tennis players but as teams, with scheduled international breaks for Test Series, T20 World Cup and T20 World Cup qualifiers.
I think that the ‘full transfer market’ idea is the most exciting- football players have been paid so highly due to many factors, one of which is the transfer market and the fact that so many clubs can want 1 player. Cricket players are generally underpaid for their talent and effort(at least that’s what I think), so the transfer market could increase players’ payment and income.
Definitely agree with you. The expansion of the IPL seems inevitable. It will happen and when it does I believe few T20 competitions will survive. They will either merge with other competitions or cease operations. However, under your vision of a year-long IPL, going around the world like the professional tennis tour, that would be great for building the worldwide audience. Like in tennis, there could be "majors" with higher prize money (India, England, Australia, Caribbean and US) and then smaller competitions with lower prize money between them. I like your idea of having domestic T20 leagues only for players of that country to develop and the ones good enough from those leagues can be "drafted" into the IPL. Your idea would be innovative: a team sports league, moving around the world like tennis players but as teams, with scheduled international breaks for Test Series, T20 World Cup and T20 World Cup qualifiers.
I think that the ‘full transfer market’ idea is the most exciting- football players have been paid so highly due to many factors, one of which is the transfer market and the fact that so many clubs can want 1 player. Cricket players are generally underpaid for their talent and effort(at least that’s what I think), so the transfer market could increase players’ payment and income.