Rugby union and cricket are, in many ways, siblings. Both sports are products of the English elite school systems in the nineteenth century. Both have expanded throughout the world, but their reach has mostly been restricted to regions that were once part of the British Empire. Meanwhile in England, both sports continue to be overwhelmingly restricted to the same elites that had birthed and nurtured the sport: 61% of players in the Aviva Premiership circa 2014 had paid for some or all of their education. This in a country where 93% of children go through the state school system. Meanwhile research conducted by All Out Cricket magazine in 2013 showed that only 50% of county cricketers came through the state school system. Again, a reminder, 93% of children go through the state school system. On the surface, particularly in their birthing place, the two sports are rather similar. The image of both the sports in England at least remains associated to poshness.
But one aspect that separates the two sports is their viewpoint towards expansion – which wasn’t always the case. By the late 90s both sports were restricted to a few countries: cricket to the nine Test playing nations at the time (each of whom had once been under the British yoke) and rugby to eight countries – the five nations that competed in the, erm, Five Nations tournament in the Northern Hemisphere, and the three nations that competed in the (obviously named) Tri Nations in the Southern Hemisphere. Of these eight rugby playing nations only one (France) hadn’t been part of the British Empire. Each of the nine Test playing nations* had been part of the empire.
**For the purposes of this article I have referred to West Indies as a nation, when it quite obviously isn’t. But writing eight nations plus a conglomeration of nations playing under one flag gets tiresome after a while.**
In the summer of 1999 England hosted (partly in one case) the world cups for both the sports. The rugby tournament had 16 teams, the cricket one had 12. Seven of the eight quarter finalists in the rugby tournament belonged to the elite eight that competed in the Tri-Nations or Five Nations. Each of the six that reached the Super Six stage of the cricket tournament were Test playing nations.
In 2000 Bangladesh was added to the Test playing nations list, while Italy was added to the Five Nations – then obviously renamed as Six Nations (someone really needs to teach rugby administrators how to name tournaments). But the paths since then have diverged. Cricket has looked within itself – no new Test playing nation had been added until last year. The focus of cricket administrators has been to saturate their existing markets, India in particular. Expanding the sport has almost been done unwillingly – almost as if it’s a chore that the administrators have put upon themselves unwillingly: it’s something the ICC needs to do, but no board wants to have its own share of the pool to be reserved for that. Even the newcomers aren’t completely welcomed. Bangladesh’s inclusion was once seen as dangerous by those who had forever been in power and the fears of the “Asian Bloc” bounded. Over the next decade the baggage in that Asian bloc was shed and those that had forever been in power allied with India to create the Big Three. It culminated in a plan that means that each of the seven men’s ICC tournaments from 2015 to 2023 will take place in one of these three countries.
Meanwhile in rugby, Argentina was added to the Tri Nations – then renamed as The Rugby Championship – in 2012. (Creativity, thy name is rugby administrators). While cricket’s tournaments were hoarded up the 2019 Rugby World Cup will be hosted by Japan – not a name you associate with rugby. This tournament will have 20 teams – as has been the case in every tournament this century; meanwhile the 2019 Cricket World Cup will have the fewest participants since 1992.
Rugby’s equivalent of T20 – Rugby Sevens – was added to the 2016 Olympics after a previously failed bid. Thus rugby’s two biggest matches in the second half of this decade have/will be hosted by Rio de Janeiro and Yokohama. In the meantime, cricket administrators refuse to even consider the game for the Olympics, because why would we ever want the game to grow?
Yet perhaps they don’t need to look far. I have been one of the most fervent critics of the PCB and their policies in recent years, but one thing you can’t fault the current or previous administrations has been their attitude towards associate nations. Pakistan cricket, for all its faults, has been a welcoming exception to the remnants of the Empire. So, it’s appropriate that as Ireland become a Test nation this week, they do so by hosting Pakistan. It is just the latest in a decades long history of Pakistan’s support for those outside the mainstream. More on that in Part 2.
The views expressed in the article are the writer’s own. They do not necessarily represent the views of Islamabad United.