Chris Rattue: Doomsday prophecies should spark ICC to act

Commentator Shane Warne chats with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Photo / Getty Images

Test cricket is about to explode in our faces, we are being told, and yet the most encouraging news for those who love this wonderful game can be found in the very document which is being portrayed as one of the grenades.

Given the headlines, and even the cover sheet - which portrays a lonely cricketer, back turned, heading to nowhere - the Australian Cricketers' Association (ACA) player survey commissioned online last month contains heart warming revelations about what pumps through the veins of the best cricketers.

With average Australian and Pakistan teams flexing their disparate muscles in front of a not-overflowing Melbourne crowd, and predictions of doom and gloom everywhere about a test game in desperate need of new stars and under siege from the cash-rich Indian Twenty20 league that will rob test cricket of more and more top players, the survey made surprisingly encouraging reading.

Having devoured the contents (which also include interesting judgments from the Australian and state players about the most respected batsmen, bowlers and commentators) you could only feel that the major element missing in world cricket is not players with their hearts in the right places, but a strong and charismatic administration capable of dealing with the issues, primarily of scheduling.

The survey provided greater comfort than a quote from the head of the ACA, Paul Marsh, who told the Sunday News: "The risk here is that players, like the rest of us, are only human and they are being presented with this proposition of being paid more money from a different employer for a hell of a lot less work."

Yes, we are only human, which is not a condition in which the default position is always a desire for less work for more pay.

Then again, it is Marsh's job to take up a strong bargaining position, and cricket might actually need the doomsday prophecies to kick the ICC, cricket's benign international administration, into action. And it would be unfair to boil Marsh's far more comprehensive views and comments into this one, soul-destroying utterance.

The survey is available online and is a terrific document, a must-read for any cricket lover, and also a tribute to the Aussie players' association, not only for the revelations, but for the obvious affection that the leading cricketers have for traditional cricket (the response rate is only explained as a "majority" of players).

In the present environment of negativity, any such sentiments are a God send, as were the decisions of the English players James Anderson and Stuart Broad to forgo Indian icing on their financial cake in favour of preparing properly for the next Ashes.

The pride with which the seamers Anderson and Broad expressed in playing for England, the desire they have to win an Ashes series in Australia, sent the less-work-for-more-pay sentiment spinning into the trash can.

The Twenty20 overlords may not be impressed by the rebuff, yet Anderson and Broad are suggesting India does not have complete power, that the IPL needs players of international repute.

The Australian players are similarly primed for real cricket.

Taking the time to read through the survey results, an easy task as they are nicely presented, was a lesson in not judging a book entirely by its coverage.

A key question, rightly seized upon in media reports, asked: "Can you envisage an Australian cricketer, in the short to medium term, turning down a central contract to pursue a freelance career, much like [Englishman] Andrew Flintoff?"

The overall response was 67 per cent of players saying yes, although this was lower among international cricketers compared to state players. About 20 per cent said they would consider rejecting a central contract.

Considering the doomsday climate, 20 per cent is not an horrific figure.

What does emerge is a growing dislike for the amount of one-day games, and a belief this is the format which needs to be cut back, and players would consider early retirement to pursue the Twenty20 riches.

Apart from that, there is a clear love of both playing and watching the traditional form of cricket (along with Twenty20), and playing for Australia, which emerges.

The "prestige of representing Australia" was the number one factor for all the players in deciding between a central contract or pursuing a freelance career. And 98 per cent said they have never considered rejecting a central contract to go freelance, the players rate the next Ashes showdown as the most important upcoming series, and believe the game can support three formats.

What is more, the Aussie cricketers are not happy with being rested from any international matches. Rather than regarding Twenty20 as the major threat to test cricket, they pointed an accusing finger at flat pitches and more particularly uneven contests.

Of course there is a major difference between Australian cricketers' pay compared with that for the Black Caps. The average international wage across the ditch is more than A$1 million a year, whereas our lot apparently don't hit $200,000. There are a lot more dollar reasons to feel happy with your lot as an Aussie cricketer, and a lot more reasons for a Kiwi cricketer to skip off to India.

Where, you have to ask, is the ICC leadership in what are potentially tumultuous days for the sport.

At least one renowned observer felt obliged to put an overly strong knock on the Australia-Pakistan series already, no doubt believing that a failure to point out the dangers facing cricket would be letting it down.

Test cricket is struggling to retain lustre. Yet is it really so hard to sort this mess out, and a mess this is when the prospect of a series against Australia is not enough to entice our two leading new ball bowlers to carry on into the New Year.

The giant cat among cricket's pigeons, the IPL, only lasts for a month and a half. Surely an international calendar can be arranged that leaves space for the new and extraordinarily lucrative form of the game and gives players sufficient rest. Surely the test programme can be redrawn, to accentuate the glamour clashes and minimise the dross. The harsh facts might include a rough deal for less glamorous nations, including our own, but the greater price to pay - the obliteration of the test game - is inconceivable.

The ICC can hardly moan about a tightly scheduled IPL either, when it allowed one-day cricket to run amok to the point of becoming not only a bore, but a breeding ground for match fixing. The Indians are reinvigorating cricket in many ways, in a way that will attract the modern generation.

In dealing with the new cricket order, and India's riches and power, the ICC is virtually mute and impotent as the dire warnings spill out.

History, in all spheres, is shaped by personalities, and the ICC lacks strong leadership. As the ACA's Marsh intimated, this simmering crisis has almost reached a point where cricket needs the problem to boil over - in the form of top stars opting out of test cricket - to force the ICC to take this matter more seriously, or at least show publicly that it is up with the play and capable of dealing with India's new status. Cricket needs a high summit and the ICC needs to unearth powerful figures to try to shape the game, rather than letting the potential exist for the game to shape itself into a Twenty20 dominated chaos.

Don't hold your breath though, not with an organisation which managed to price the locals out of the Caribbean World Cup. The ICC may argue otherwise, yet these largely faceless men still come across as old school types, stuck on a mysterious planet that is not up with commercial realities, prisoners to the political manoeuvring of cricket's new power brokers, incapable of reacting to a changing world in any dynamic and proactive way.

Cricket has to deal with encroaching rugby seasons in New Zealand, for sure, but here we are, in the height of summer, during the IPL hiatus, with no international cricket to savour in our country. What kind of scheduling do you call that?

When cricket is finally put in the recovery position, a breath of fresh air will be needed to fill the game's lungs, starting at what can only loosely be described as the top.

* * *

Good old Warnie. Shane Warne, the stupendous Aussie leg spinner, may be retired from international cricket, but he certainly isn't forgotten.

Warne has been impossible to miss in the television coverage from Melbourne. The man is loved, revered, in Australia, especially in his home state of Victoria. Warne, in an interview with Mark Nicholas, talked about his meteoric rise to the test team, having to overcome the initial hurdles where his bowling did not bring much success, and the vital support he received from Australian team mates in those early days.

He encouraged others to follow their dreams, wherever they may be now. You had to wonder had Warne emerged in a Twenty20 dominated world, whether his hard-won skills would have been allowed to flourish. If the shortest form of the game takes an overbearing hold, the careers of such bowling artists may be flogged to death before they even start.

Young cricketers, realising that there ain't no gold in such hills, will revert to generic bowling styles that can survive the Twenty20 onslaughts. Warne is such an effervescent character. The ACA player survey found that he is also the most popular commentator among Australia's leading players.

Warne, still a commentary rookie, was rated number one by half of Australia's international players who responded.Veterans Bill Lawry and Richie Benaud were next best, way back, with 14 per cent each. How easy to forget that Warne once scandalised via sexual "transgressions" as Tiger Woods would describe them. As Warne was interviewed during the Melbourne test, a wag passed my desk and reckoned: "Tiger Woods' biggest mistake was not being an Australian."