Is world cricket on the brink of a fracture?
From the start, the game has found a way around the politics of the day. But it might not be able to for much longer.
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The ICC runs - at least in theory - world cricket. ICC stands for International Cricket Council.
But it didn’t always. Before that, it was the Imperial Cricket Conference. That was a political decision by people in South Africa who wanted to join the two major nations. They knew that by appealing to England’s love of its own empire, they could form and join a club. But it also meant that you had to be part of England’s Commonwealth to play Test cricket.
That one decision has haunted cricket ever since. America and Ireland still had strong teams at this point, and Argentina would have one next. None were offered Test status, at least in part, because they were not in the Commonwealth. So cricket could have had 9 Test nations before World War II, making it a global sport before that was even an idea.
Instead, a silly decision trapped cricket in a limited growth plan. Politics doesn’t interfere in cricket; it opens the batting.
It has limited our sport from the start, and now we are about to have a World Cup without one team, or possibly even two, because of politics.
Cricket built nations, but those same countries’ politics have often tried to divide the sport.
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Politics is a weird beast; everyone wants it out of sport, yet it is like separating water from wetness. Politics can’t be kept out of anything because that is not how it works. By its very nature, it attaches itself to everything.
When Jonny Bairstow left his crease early at Lord’s in the 2023 Ashes, both prime ministers spoke about the stumping. Rishi Sunak is a cricket spreadbetter going way back, and Anthony Albanese has been on the Grade Cricketer. However, they weren’t talking about the stumping because of their love of the sport, but because it was a cheap way to win over public sentiment.
