CRICKET 2.0

Photos: BackpagePix By: Stuart Hess

South African cricket is entering uncharted territory due to the ever expanding Indian Premier League.

FOR all the understandable gnashing of teeth over the Proteas who chose to head off to the Indian Premier League (IPL) instead of playing the two Tests against Bangladesh, the presence of SA U-19 star Dewald Brevis in India should be equally – if not more – concerning for South African cricket.

Brevis turned 19 in the last week of April. Prior to the IPL his senior professional career consisted of nine T20 matches. The Mumbai Indians paid no regard to that.

Instead they paid Brevis R6.1 million. It suggests a new way of thinking for an IPL team when it comes to contracting foreign players.

It’s about development, following a method used by the big football clubs, in signing a player, helping him grow within a certain structure and then refining his potential. Players no longer need to have played international cricket to attract interest, as is the case for the majority of foreign stars in the IPL. A good junior is a risk worth taking.

Dewald Brevis of Mumbai Indians

Brevis still hasn’t played a first-class match or a List A game. His pathway to the Proteas is clearly going to be very different. But that will also depend on what the future may look like for the Proteas because Test cricket is increasingly being marginalised when it comes to those teams not part of “The Big Three”.

Much of it has to do with the IPL which is increasingly taking bigger chunks out of the calendar. This year saw the league’s expansion from eight to 10 teams and it is only likely to get even bigger.

Star Sports’ broadcast deal for the IPL is worth a reported $2.5 billion, but that is expected to double next year when a new deal is set to be announced. That has further, worrying implications for international cricket.

The entire landscape of the sport, which has already changed so radically in the last 10 years, will undergo even more change in the next decade.

Dewald Brevis re-wrote the record books at the recent ICC Under-19 World Cup in the West Indies.

And Brevis’ career will be an interesting study, in terms of what will be important for players in the future. Previously it was about playing 100 Tests and two to three World Cups. Now, with an expanding IPL, those priorities will look a lot different.

Cricket SA, desperate to find some stability after a protracted period of administrative chaos, will find itself at the whims of power players much bigger than it can handle.

The next Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the players’ association has to definitively provide clarity about players’ availability for the national side if it clashes with the IPL. Brevis’ potential Proteas future may hinge entirely upon it.

Brevis has only played a handful of T20 games and no first-class or List A matches for the Titans as yet.