Hello and welcome to Stumped,
your intercontinental hit of news, features and debate
from the quirky world of cricket.
I'm Alison Mitchell in London, where I was at the launch last night
of a podcast that centres on a charity called Future Hope.
It is about getting kids off the streets in Kolkata and it's giving them
a chance in life. If you get a chance to listen to another podcast when
you finish listening to Stumped of course. Have a look for Hope Within
The Mango Trees because it really is a compelling listen.
But yeah, it was a very moving evening.
Well, I think the ratings were through the roof last week after we had Marais Erasmus on.
So let's hope that this podcast, in its various forms, is doing the business
that cricket fans want. This is Jim Maxwell here in Sydney and Armageddon
is about to hit in the next 24 hours and we reckon we are going to
get 5 inches of rain tomorrow. If you've got your wellies, you want
to get them ready to go if you're in Sydney.
Or they're doing a bit of cloud seeding here, but no sign of rain in Dubai,
but still decent weather. What's going on in the IPL, by the way?
277 by the Hyderabad team and then KKR score 270 and change, gosh.
It's just not the same game anymore. I'm Charu Sharma in Dubai for
Akashvani this week once again. The game keeps evolving doesn't it?
It never stays still and good to see you both and good to have everyone along.
On this week's show we are going to be asking how is the appetite for cricket
growing in America ahead of the men's T20 World Cup?
But first on Stumped, we will find out what life is really like as a franchise cricketer.
Well, we've got an expert on this and someone who's played in well, at least
10 different leagues around the world, at my last count.
All-rounder David Wiese represents Namibia now, after switching
his allegiance from South Africa. But he has recently launched
his own podcast series, which explores all the different T20 leagues
he's played in, and rather lifting the lid. So I've had a chat with him to just
find out well how the leagues compare, whether the market is saturated?
But I began by asking him just what his life has
been like over the last year travelling around the world?
You know, just a small, to paint a small picture, I left my house on the 4th of
January last year and I got home again on the 26th of August and it was just
go, go, go the whole time. From one tournament to the other.
I had four days off in between the one tournament before the PSL started.
But besides for that, it was just full on the whole time, just jumping from
one tournament to the other, which was which was quite interesting.
But I enjoyed every moment of it. For people that might not be so familiar
with your career, I mean, this is extending your career in a sense, isn't it?
From being an international cricketer, being able to keep playing
cricket to the age that you're at now.
Just sort of tell us how that transition happened?
Yeah, definitely, I think, yeah, you see guys playing to a lot older age
now because T20 cricket has allowed you to to, you know, almost
have an easier schedule in that sense to plan things a little bit better if you choose to.
I mean, the schedule is quite busy. But if you chose to.
Yes I was gonna say it is a lot easier than internationals. Yeah if you know
you can choose to take a couple of tournaments off if you really want to.
But yeah for me, every single decision or every single transition in my
career has kind of just been forced upon me in the sense, you know.
I played for South Africa then, the only decision that I actually made for myself
was to sign Kolpack to play for Sussex, you know, effectively ending my
international career. But then, you know, Brexit came along and that
wasn't the decision that I made. But you know, the consequences
of that was that I was no longer eligible to play in the UK as a local player.
And it was a Kolpack player so, I had to you know, choose a different
career path and then that is in when you know the Namibia career path came in.
And with that came, you know, the decision to just focus purely on T20
cricket also and start playing in all these franchise tournaments.
So you know a lot of a lot of the things that have happened to me for like
my career has kind of been out of my control, that I've just had to kind of
roll with the punches and just make the best out of that situation.
But how secure do you feel living this franchise lifestyle around the
world as opposed to either having an international contract or, as you said,
a steady contract with one domestic team?
No, I think yeah, you've always got those insecurities.
You know, I remember when I was playing for Sussex, you know,
I had a full 12 month contract. You know, that was nice because
you have that security that you know, if you if you don't get picked up in
the leagues and you still at least have your home-based contract,
which is your County contract.
But now for me, you know, every tournament is an audition for the next tournament.
You are only one or two bad tournaments away from never getting
picked up again and being perceived as you know, being out of form
or out of touch or too old in my in my case to, you know, to be playing.
So you know it is difficult when you think about you know.
Your margin for error is so small because you can't afford to do badly.
But I also you know, I've planted myself over the last couple of years to go
back to the same teams the whole times.
For me, if you get chosen multiple times for the same team and if they retain you,
you know that kind of means to me that they see value in you and not
just specifically on the field, but maybe what you do off the field.
So you know, that is a nice feeling. You know, I've spent six years with Sussex.
I spent a good 10 to 12 years with the Titans. You know, I've done
six years with the same Pakistan Super League team in the Lahore Qalanders.
I've done three years in the same T10 team, same as the CPL.
So you know for me, it sounds a bit bad playing, you know, for all of
these different teams and all of the different tournaments.
But there's still a little bit of stability in the in the sense that I've been
with the same teams for the last couple of years. So there's there's a little
bit more security in that aspect. I do want to get some stories from you
cause I'm sure you've got some some good ones from all the different
leagues and teams that you've played in. But let's talk to you a little bit
about the contracts for a moment and how that works?
Because so often you see your teams come through a league, whether it's
the IPL or maybe less so the IPL. But certainly so we cover The Hundred here,
the Big Bash in Australia, the PSL whatever it might be.
And the team gets to the finals, and then you find that they lose some
of their top players because another league is starting in another part of the world.
And it's interesting that the Big Bash has just come out and they're looking
to introduce multi-year contracts for an overseas player where the salary
will be higher overall, but they must commit to the entirety of the tournament.
Yes. How do you see that sort of thing playing?
Look, I think that's the way things should go in the future.
Me personally, I'm not a fan of guys getting knocked out of one
tournament and then jumping straight into an ongoing tournament and
picking it up over there. We saw you know earlier on this year in the SA20,
it's almost like you get knocked out of the one tournament early.
It's better for you because, then you can go play in another tournament
and financially you can pick up a bit more money.
You know, out of that tournament. It's never gonna be a perfect landscape,
but I feel there's got to be a stage where there's a bit more incentive actually
making playoffs and staying in a tournament than you know.
Because at this stage you don't get paid anything extra on top of your
contract if you make the play offs or final. Your contract just gets
divided amongst the amount of games that you play and it is pro-rata per game.
So if you play only ten group stages, you get paid your amount,
and if you play 12 games, you still get paid the same amount, so you're
almost getting paid less per game if you make it into the playoffs.
Are you okay with players who have to go away because they have got
an international call up which might mean they missed finals.
Yeah, I've got no issue with that. Like I've always said that your
international commitment takes precedent to any league out there.
That's the way I always see it that you know, international cricket
should always be number one. And then you know, your franchise
stuff is always just a reward for what you've done in the international world.
So there are times when we do sign these contracts, you have to
give your availability and if there's any international cricket, you just
place that on there. Look, I'm not available for these dates and then it's
up to the franchise to decide if they're willing to have you for that specific time
or if they want somebody that's going to be, you know, fully available.
I've got no issue when somebody needs to leave for international
duties or if somebody is injured and they need to get a replacement.
You know that that's part of the game that happens.
It's just sometimes when it gets to a stage where you are almost
taking advantage of a situation that one team gets knocked out early.
So you can get the best players from that team just to boost up your
squad to make your team better that that, is where you know the discrepancy comes in a little bit.
And what about Major League Cricket in the States, given that the T20
World Cup is going to be staged out there, you will be there with Namibia as well.
What is the appetite from your experience for cricket in the States?
Yes so that was one that was actually really enjoyable for me.
You know, you go there with some new tournaments, so you have got
zero expectations of what it's going to be like.
And you know, we got there and everything was really professionally run.
The facilities, which, you know, essentially it was a minor League
Baseball stadium that they converted into a cricket stadium.
So you didn't really know what to expect, but the facilities were world class.
It was a really good tournament, was led well, you know.
And being in the US, cricket not being that recognisable, so you could actually go out.
We had a good time off the field also going to baseball games
and rodeos and you know just taking in all that that America and Texas,
where we were, had to offer. But you know the appetite for the game is there.
I think it's the fastest growing sport in College, in the US.
While we were there, every single game was sold out.
Now it was only a 7500 seater stadium that they had, but it was all all sold out.
The only thing where I feel like there's gonna be a little bit more hard
work done, is trying to promote the game and get the game sold to the
more local USA citizens. Let's let's call them that.
A lot of the people who came to watch the games were expats that were there.
And if you look at the number of leagues that are going on in the world
at the moment and just the number that you have played in. Is there a point
where this is going to reach saturation?
Are we almost there yet with the amount that it's overlapping or
do you think T20 and franchise and continued expansion will be the future?
Yeah, I think that is, you know, I personally feel like it's getting a bit saturated
now and at some stage the bubbles gonna burst. It can't be that sustainable.
And at the end of the day only the top 4 to 5 tournaments are going to survive.
But again, yeah, it's all dependent on the tournament, the team owners
and what they are looking for in the tournament.
I mean, if you are a team owner in say the Big Bash, the SA20, the ILT20
and the Bangladesh Premier League was all clashing at the same time.
But if you're happy that there are enough world class players and world
class overseas players that's making your tournament a success, then it's okay.
If you feel that there's enough players there that even though you're not
maybe getting the top 2% of the overseas players that are available,
but you're getting the top 10% of the players just purely because
there's so many quality players. You know, then it's going to stay successful.
But if it gets to the stage where tournaments are going to have to
start getting watered down a little bit and the quality drops.
Because ultimately it's a product that you're selling and you want
the best quality product. And when the quality of the product may be,
you know diminishes because of the availability of certain players,
then you're going to start having to look at scheduling problems
and and how you're going to get a schedule where you can have most
of the best players in the world available for all the different tournaments.
Well, we've heard then about playing cricket in the USA and the experience
of Major League Cricket. David Wiese feeling that the appetite is there
for cricket in the US and he has elaborated in his own podcast that practice facilities,
you know, are a little bit limited over there for example.
The men's T20 World Cup heads there at the start of June.
Now Cricket USA Jim and Charu has had its problems of late over a long period of time.
It was suspended going back several years from the ICC.
You felt it had its house in order. Recently the board has fired its Chief Executive Officer.
There are reports that well, a number of sponsors have recently left.
There is a danger, isn't there, that unless the house is in order Jim, that despite this
T20 World Cup playing there, you know there will be no legacy no matter
how many tickets are sold for India V Pakistan, unless the structure
and the running of the game is right?
Well, I'm sure that's true, and it's probably something that's held
the game back, at least in this recent era, because of the Asian diaspora
that we have growing so strongly in the United States.
So the cricket influence is more powerful than it was and perhaps
there will be some knock-on effect from this to increase the profile of the game.
And as you say, the T20 World Cup is going to add some impetus
there and perhaps the Olympic Games or that's that's perhaps more a
commercial thing trying to get the Asian TV market on board so that
the IOC can make some more money.
But yeah, longer term things are looking OK, but the organisation,
the administration is a perennial issue.
Charu what's your take? Alison how much time do you have on
the custodianship of the game? There's still a lot of confusion
in the US because there are different camps and I kind of, you know
a bit of all of this because several people in the US have been in touch
with me over time. The last maybe two or three, four years particularly
because everybody wants to sort of be a part of what they consider is
going to be a major growth of cricket in the US.
But they're also very confused because there's very little support,
there's very little money, there's no commercial support at all.
Now the brands come in there even for junior cricket.
You can't collect a few dollars to get a league going or a match going.
So you know, there are, there's a lot of conflicting situations in the US where the world
and I can understand why, because America is this, well, El Dorado, right?
I mean everybody thinks that it's just flush with money for everything.
For cricket, for the moment, untrue. So it seems, because where is it coming from?
Some of the South Asian tycoons, and that gives you a very warped impression, doesn't it?
Very skewed thing that some of them are bankrolling a bit of this.
A major move was made, I am jumping a bit, but it was made by MLC,
which is again very Indian oriented. There's an Indian publication
group that's got major ownership of MLC that got a few South Asian tycoon
should we say, in the US who are part of teams including, of course,
IPL owners as well. So it's like a little ivory tower going in there.
They have their own thing and coming back and Wiese also
admitted that it is largely the South Asian or diasporic population
that comes in to watch. So you know it's a very isolated thing.
There are some exciting things that are going on around cricket
in the US on a sort of popular media front. I don't know whether you ever seen
Jomboy Media on social media who takes sports, largely American
sports and presents it to the public in a very different way.
But they have been taking cricket and doing cricket explainers for the
American audience and you know, you can sort of see something
like that actually taking off. Because if that's, you know, on YouTube,
on TikTok on X across social media, that's targeting a very specific
American sports audience and sort of bringing them into a cricket fold.
I digress a little bit, but Jim, I was interested because you flagged
an article where Liam Plunkett, the former England cricketer who we've
had on this pod, who now lives out in Philadelphia and plays in the
Major League Cricket as well. And he's claimed that more kids
in Houston play cricket than baseball, which is quite something.
I don't know what his facts and figures are behind that.
But what else did he have to say in that article?
Well, it seems as though there's a hub of sorts in that part of the world,
and we've already seen, those of us who have been poking around
and looking at the development of facilities and cricket grounds.
There are a few brand new grounds in Texas, in Houston.
So I'm sure there's a fair bit of expat influence in getting it to where it's got.
But to continue to sort of proselytise the game without it being played
in schools and colleges, the way it needs to be.
Although there's some action in the colleges as I understand it,
it's got to be a combination of people getting a structure together,
where they've got a ground to play on, they've got a club system of some sort.
So that they can get these people involved in what is, as we know,
a very expensive game. It's not like soccer, football.
And as well to make sure that the game is introduced to women.
Because they're one of the most important parts of the growth of
the game as we move forward.
Well, that's all we've got time for on this week's Stumped.
My thanks to Charu Sharma and Jim Maxwell
and all of you for listening. Speak to you soon. Bye bye.