Saudi Arabia's plans to shake-up cricket with revamped T20 league

[Sharkman84]

This is a very worrying development if true.

First it was golf after heavily investing in the controversial LIV tour - and now the Saudi Arabian government has reportedly held talks with Indian Premier League owners in a move which could change cricket forever.

https://mol.im/a/11971783

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[Ljp86]

Cricket is probably close to reaching a tipping point where players will choose to pursue the riches of short form cricket versus playing the most traditional form of the game in test cricket. A small minority of players have done that already but I feel a greater pool of players will start doing this as organisations of this ilk along with the BCCI gain more and more market control of cricket around the world. Buying up franchises in the SA T20 and UAE T20 competitions helps speed up that process and they'll eventually be in a position to offer annual contracts to play in their franchises around the world across various domestic competitions.

Test cricket remains the pinnacle of the sport for the time being but T20 cricket pays the bills and this is fairly evident in the amount of T20 domestic competitions around the world now, the money is too good to ignore and provides a significant portion of revenue for cricketing boards. Test cricket is also becoming less and less prominent, driven by the lack of revenue and interest the format provides. Most people don't have time to attend five six-hour days of cricket with three hours of T20 cricket a much more viable option. Boards are now choosing to playing a standard two test series against other nations as this is mandatory while heavily investing in franchise T20 cricket due to the revenue it generates. It's really only Australia, England and India who are still fully invested in test cricket at the present time, New Zealand's crowds remain relatively healthy but have been on the "two test" train of late.

That article mirrors how soccer is now where clubs are very powerful and sees matches between nations organised around the European winter. I don't follow soccer and personally don't like the sport but this seems to be the path that cricket may potentially start to go down in the next few years.