As the 11th Cricket World Cup gets under way, "the sport is at a crossroads," according to Ed Smith of the FINANCIAL TIMES. Test cricket, as a box office draw, "may cease to exist within a generation." As a global product, the whole game "is experiencing massive upheaval -- thanks largely to the success of the Indian Premier League" and the shorter, snappier Twenty20 format of matches. Unlike football and the U.S. sports, cricket "has clung to the idea that international competition is the sport’s gold standard." In theory, players and fans "should feel their deepest loyalties to their flag and anthem, not the floating allure of franchises that are dotted around the world." The sports that are currently flourishing in the highly globalized sports marketplace "are not placing too much faith in the international model." Football can get away with FIFA’s "abysmal global governance" because the game is "so vibrant at the level of local clubs." Yes, there is a football World Cup, "but the sport doesn’t rely on national rivalries, which are -- across all sports -- being supplanted by fans’ allegiances to individual global icons." Comparisons with other sports "offer a useful prism for viewing the existential crisis brought to cricket by the IPL and copycat T20 tournaments such as Australia’s Big Bash." These newer formats "have promised to reposition cricket as a younger, more populist sport." In some respects, "they have been a success, even though the IPL inevitably alienated purists who distrusted the transfer of power from the national cloth cap to the polyester franchise jersey" (FT, 2/6).
