David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd and the IPL make a strange marriage, though one that will give continued reassurance to some that opposites can indeed attract. On the occasion of his first IPL commentary stint, Lloyd gave an interview predictably supportive of the glamorous enterprise.
Although it’s been the source of more than one controversy, the IPL is remarkably successful at converting (absorbing, contaminating – your choice of metaphor will speak volumes) those who are exposed to it. Lloyd is only the most recent in a long line of new acolytes, and has stated clearly that he now feels the ECB must find room in its crowded schedule to allow players time to participate in the IPL:
Our biggest problem is that we are busy playing elsewhere while the IPL is on. The tournament is in full flow here and the England team is in the West Indies. The CLT20 coincides with the last phase of our domestic championship back home. So, even if the English teams make it to the CLT20, they come here without some of their key players. We have to find a solution to this situation. Sit all the concerned parties in one room and work out a system that is beneficial to everybody involved. If we can have a five-week window for the IPL, that would help. (from: http://www.iplt20.com/news/2015/features/6326/ecb-must-reach-a-compromise-on-ipl-lloyd)
This is not the first time such a statement has been made. In Kevin Pietersen’s latest autobiography, it should surprise no one to learn, the IPL looms rather large. In fact, it makes for one of the more interesting strands in the long saga of Pietersen’s entanglements with the ECB, giving a face and a strident voice to a more global view of the game, to the changing needs of the players who live in it, and to the attendant commitments of national cricket board, clubs, counties, and other regulating bodies of the game.
KP’s complaint, like Bumble’s, has been that the ECB has failed, indeed refused, to ‘take care of his schedule’, that is, to make compromises between his IPL schedule and his England commitments. The result of the fallout is now well-known, and if KP is to be believed, implicated both management and players. But what matters more seems to be not KP himself, nor the ECB, nor the other players, but rather the more consistent and systemic argument about the future of English cricket.
Here, the lines can be simplified as follows. One side feels that English cricket will survive only by becoming more aggressive, more receptive and porous to the shorter formats, and less beholden to Test and county. The other feels that Test is king, that white-ball cricket is lucrative (in the worst sense) fun-in-the-sun deleterious to good cricketing habits, and that England must focus its resources on the format wherein it does well.
An ECB compromise with the IPL would seem to allow the best of both worlds: a good long stretch of Test and county games, preceded by the most appetite inducing of amuse-bouches. Great for the audience and for the players – up to a point.
No one is questioning the visceral appeal of T20 in terms of action or salaries, but the short format also leads to changes in technique, and there are few batsmen or bowlers who can easily make the transition from one to the other. For English players in particular, the speed and scale of transition from IPL to Test or county would be especially challenging. Lloyd is shrewd enough to note various county players who seem to have the necessary qualities to excel in the IPL without fixating on the current Test squad, few of whom are ideally suited to the short format.
Necessity means that the ECB has named a squad for the upcoming ODI against Ireland that has minimal overlap with the side touring the West Indies. How successful they will be remains to be seen, but the list already looks more exciting than the woebegone World Cup side, and they won’t be weighed down by three Tests on flat pitches.
And if they are successful, why not make it a more regular occurrence, and separate the Test side more starkly from its one-day or T20 counterparts? It will allow the Test side to focus on its unique skill set, a deeper talent pool will play at a national level, and it will also mean a greater flexibility with schedules, since the same 15 players will not always be juggling the demands of various leagues and teams.
Allowing the short-format England players to have a fuller IPL schedule, in consequence, would be more directly tied to the national side’s results: England’s talent pool will acquire global experience, allow players to compete against the best in challenging conditions, and open the way to a more exciting short format at home.
If David Lloyd and the IPL can dance a charming pas-de-deux, perhaps a similar partnering of diverse characteristics can work for English cricket’s dexterity too.
