A bouncer at cricket's soul

Captain Haddock would have found the words: billions of blistering barnacles. With a few exclamation points added. The idea that there is among the upper orders of English cricket a brief, low-volume chatter about reducing the number of international fixtures every season and discussing the idea of four-day Tests should bring out our inner Haddock.

The first response to any alarm will no doubt be as follows: This is still a "strategy conversation summary", something being mulled over as a possible possibility, a notional notion. To be found only in draft-document terms, the level of support unquantified. And, to quote Giles Clarke, "We get through a lot of those." And which will take a long time coming to fruition.

Yet from the distant outside, the idea that England will be thinking about not merely changing the structure of its annual season but fundamentally altering the oldest and highest level of the game itself is staggering and revealing.

More so that it comes from England - inventors, traditionalists and intended guardians of cricket, and one of two countries where Test matches can be still played to full houses. Of course, there will be enough sniggering comments about England not being able to survive more than four days of Test cricket - though on their last two tours of England, India could barely do so either. England is where the phrase "primacy of Test cricket" was perhaps invented and from where arises a certain loathing of the IPL.

Never mind that these latest submisisons, to be discussed in depth in October, are driven by the prime commercial imperative of creating space and time for a new franchise-focused T20 league in England, which could, in fact, change the already tenuous balance of the world game itself.

In countries where Test cricket struggles to stay alive, who would say no to fewer Tests in their home seasons and games lasting no more than four days? Who could say no to replacing them with sustainable and profit-driven domestic T20 leagues? In the club versus country debate, if the club makes more money, then where's the debate? The club v country debate in football does not work in cricket because across club and country in football, the skill levels required stay the same; in cricket's three formats, they do not.

And in a globalised world the most powerful and richest boards are going local anyway. There is little denying that the success of the IPL and the BBL has left the English governors itching to have a similar profitable offering in their calendar.

This is roughly how the ECB's argument could go: "International cricket, that is okay… But it should not be our core thing because at the moment all our earning is through international cricket only. No earnings through our local competition. That's why we are losing a lot of money… so I think the XXXX (domestic T20 competition) is the first step on this issue. Like in baseball, America is not worried whether other countries are playing or not." (In truth, this is Niranjan Shah, an old BCCI hand, as quoted in James Astill's The Great Tamasha.)

The hosannas that are now sung to the saviour properties of domestic T20 leagues should have a rider added: these leagues that are seen as the game's golden geese have also left the game more open to manipulation, and made cricket the No. 2 sport in the world on an unseemly list of "corruptible" sports, after football.

And what of the 40-over World Cup? At the international level, that should be a shoo-in. The ECB's discussion document has the words requiring its reps to "influence ICC" into changing the World Cup to a 40-over format. It won't require much effort as the other two biggies - India and Australia - are on the ECB's side anyway. Besides, Clarke - now the ECB's new "president" - heads the ICC's finance and commercial affairs committee, which controls the purse strings and "revenue distribution". A useful position from which to be arguing anything.

Yes, these discussions will have to get past county chairmen, the MCC and the ICC. Yes, we understand that the business side of the argument is a powerful one. In the past, English cricket has given rise to radical ideas, and what has usually happened is that the world runs away with those radical ideas - like limited-overs and T20. The accountants will state with certainty that this may be the germ of another brilliant one.

As much as this looks like a cogent business proposition, it rests on a slippery slope. The success and profitability of domestic T20 could press down and slowly cut the oxygen supply for all long formats of the game, certainly in smaller nations; to start with, at the level where it will be least visible - the domestic game. Besides, never mind the smaller nations, the domino effect of England going a bit cut-price on its Test cricket would be dizzying at the top: the BCCI would leap at the idea with open arms and Cricket Australia will ask its spin doctors to start by working the phones.

What makes cricket unique in the history of world sport is the sustained nation-versus-nation contest it has offered. It has many flaws but remains the toughest form of the game, has made it grow, kept it humming for decades, interconnected widely divergent cultures and given cricket a unique diversity of skills and character. Its relevance is worth preserving and fighting.

A few months ago, the writer Gideon Haigh made a prescient observation: from merely being a part of cricket, commerce had taken over the game. So, no matter the "primacy" of Test cricket and the spirit of cricket and other such blatherings, cricket will only protect what it wants to protect.

The drive towards the bottom line can often be overtaken by the drive towards the lowest common denominator. This may be a mere discussion today, but if it turns up again on your television screens, espoused by a smooth suit with many Test matches to his name, don't say you weren't warned.