Cricket Capital

Cricket Capital

The Business of Cricket and Sports

  1. 2h ago ·  Video

    The Spirit of Cricket is Bigger Than Winning

    The MCC places the spirit of cricket right at the front of its laws, before any rule about how the game is played. The laws tell you what you can and cannot do. The spirit tells you how to behave while doing it. At its core, that means mutual respect: for your captain, your teammates, your opponents, and the umpires. It holds whether you're a Test cricketer or a ten-year-old playing a Sunday village game for the first time. The real test of character is not how you carry yourself when you're on top, but how you behave when a decision goes against you, when a catch is dropped, or when the match starts slipping away. The clearest example I've ever seen of the spirit of cricket in action came in the 1987 Cricket World Cup. Courtney Walsh was bowling for West Indies, Pakistan needed two runs to win with nine wickets down, and Abdul Qadir was backing up too far at the non-striker's end. Walsh could have run him out instantly and handed West Indies the match and almost certainly a semi-final place. He didn't. He stopped, told Qadir to get back into his crease, and Pakistan scored the runs. West Indies were eliminated. That act of sportsmanship cost Walsh everything on paper, and it made him a legend. It's unlikely anything like it would happen today, when the conversation around cricket has shifted almost entirely to money, winning, and power. Administrators carry the heaviest responsibility for upholding the spirit of the game, because their decisions shape cricket at scale. The obligation is not to make popular or political decisions, but to make the right ones, and to intervene when something is clearly wrong. Cricket has the power to bring together people from different nationalities, cultures, and backgrounds. When it's played within its spirit, it shows what that genuinely looks like. Published on Subwave https://subwave.app/@cri9259/post/the-spirit-of-cricket-is-bigger-than-winning

    The Spirit of Cricket is Bigger Than Winning
  2. 2d ago ·  Video

    Cricket Italy - T10 League

    Italy is launching its first city-based franchise T10 league, Italia T10 Cricket, with six teams set to play in Rome later this year. The Italian Cricket Federation has officially endorsed the venture, and matches will be streamed internationally. That combination of private commercial initiative and federation backing gives the league a real foundation to build from. A functioning domestic competition does something that development programs and press releases cannot. When there is a league, there is a calendar. When there is a calendar, there is a reason to train, scout, sign sponsors, and schedule broadcast slots. The T10 format is a deliberate choice for a market where cricket is still finding its footing: fast, accessible, and easy to package for audiences who are new to the game. International streaming extends the reach further, pulling in diaspora communities and global fans beyond Italy's borders. The federation's endorsement is necessary but not sufficient. Because this is a private venture, commercial pressures need to be kept in check, and the federation has both the responsibility and the leverage to monitor how the league is run through the full season, not just at launch. If Italia T10 Cricket is managed well, it becomes a template for non-traditional cricket markets. If it is mismanaged, it sets back the sport's credibility in the country. The blueprint exists, and execution is what determines which way this goes. Published on Subwave https://subwave.app/@cri9259/post/cricket-italy---t10-league

    Cricket Italy - T10 League
  3. 3d ago ·  Video

    Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe Belong in the WTC

    Afghanistan, Ireland, and Zimbabwe are full ICC members with test status, yet none of them have been included in the World Test Championship since it began. Reports now suggest that plans to expand the WTC from nine to twelve teams are stalling, with the financial cost of staging test cricket cited as the reason. That excuse doesn't hold up. The ICC already operates a test cricket fund for exactly this kind of situation, and the practical solutions are well within reach: more one-off and four-day tests, centrally funded TV production, and greater financial backing from the stronger boards. The competitive balance argument doesn't hold up either. Teams don't become competitive by playing less test cricket. They become competitive by playing more. Excluding Afghanistan, Ireland, and Zimbabwe from the WTC to protect the competition's integrity is a logic that guarantees those teams never develop the competitiveness needed to belong. Sitting on the sidelines doesn't build the institutional knowledge that only comes from competing at the highest level. The deeper issue is what the ICC understands its own job to be. When every structural decision gets filtered through commercial returns and broadcaster interests, the ICC functions as an event management company, not a governing body. A governing body asks what is right for the game and finds the resources to do it. Afghanistan, Ireland, and Zimbabwe don't need favors. They need the equal opportunity their full-member status was supposed to guarantee, and the ICC should correct that mistake in the next cycle. Published on Subwave https://subwave.app/@cri9259/post/afghanistan-ireland-and-zimbabwe-belong-in-the-wtc

    Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe Belong in the WTC
  4. Aug 7 ·  Video

    Sports Administrators Serve the Members, Not Themselves

    No one owns a sport. Recent developments at FIFA have forced that principle back into the conversation, and it applies just as cleanly to the ICC, the IOC, World Rugby, and every other international governing body worth examining. Administrators are paid employees who hold delegated authority, granted by the members who elect them. That authority can be taken away, and it is easy, when sitting at the top of a powerful institution, to forget that distinction entirely. When administrators become disconnected from their membership and make important decisions without proper consultation, transparency, or accountability, frustration builds quietly at first, then loudly. The groveling that follows is not a failure of the system; it is the system working exactly as it should. Leadership is a privilege, not an entitlement, and the moment an administrator loses sight of who they work for, they have started down the path that ends in a forced reckoning. The FIFA lesson is straightforward: never underestimate the membership. Administrators come and go. The members are the permanent owners of the organization, and they are the ones who hold the final word. Sports governing bodies keep having to relearn this the hard way, and the pattern repeats whenever leadership starts treating a position of trust as a permanent seat of power. Published on Subwave https://subwave.app/@cri9259/post/sports-administrators-serve-the-members-not-themselves

    Sports Administrators Serve the Members, Not Themselves
  5. Jul 30 ·  Video

    The ICC's 2027 World Cup Is Really a 12-Team Event

    The ICC bills the 2027 Men's ODI World Cup as a 14-team tournament. Follow the actual structure and you arrive at 12. Two associate nations that previously earned six group-stage matches each now play a two-match pre-tournament round-robin, and whichever two lose go home before the main event begins. That gap between the headline number and the reality is worth understanding before debating whether the format is good or bad. The ICC media release justifying the new format lists its objectives roughly a dozen times over, cycling through phrases like "enhancing consequence," "creating meaningful contests," "strengthening competitive narrative," and "increasing consequences." All of that language describes the same goal, restated in slightly different words each time. The new centrepiece of the tournament is a phase called the Super 7, which replaces the old Super 6 and is meant to raise stakes in the knockout rounds, but whether it delivers on that depends entirely on who qualifies to reach it. What the format change actually does is filter the field before the World Cup proper begins, and the cost falls almost entirely on associate nations. Under the previous structure, Netherlands and Scotland were guaranteed places in a 14-team group stage. Under the new one, they qualify into a three-team pre-tournament round-robin with only one spot available. The ICC's own board includes three associate member representatives, and how they voted on this recommendation has not been made public. Published on Subwave https://subwave.app/@cri9259/post/the-iccs-2027-world-cup-is-really-a-12-team-event

    The ICC's 2027 World Cup Is Really a 12-Team Event
  6. Jul 24 ·  Video

    Lords Cricket Ground - the Home of Cricket

    Lord's Cricket Ground is not the home of cricket because someone declared it so. It earns that title quietly, through the weight you feel the moment you pass through the Grace Gates and the noise of London fades. I've stood in grounds across the cricketing world, from the Wankhede in Mumbai to the Bangabandhu Stadium in Dhaka to the modern oasis in Dubai, and every one of them has its own character. But walking into Lord's is different. You enter history and memory, and the great names of the game, Grace, Bradman, Sobers, Tendulkar, feel like companions walking in beside you. The MCC members are part of what makes Lord's what it is. The jackets, the ties, the hats are worn not for fashion but for devotion. These are people who appreciate a forward defensive as much as a cover drive, who understand silence as deeply as they understand applause. Living in St. John's Wood and being just a five-minute walk from Lord's was one of the genuine privileges of my life. Simply passing it on an ordinary afternoon felt like brushing shoulders with cricketing royalty. What England preserves at Lord's, no other country can replicate. Everywhere else, a great match is performed and then it passes. At Lord's, it is folded into the walls and the stands and the long memory of the place itself. Cricket is not just being played there. It is being preserved. Published on Subwave https://subwave.app/@cri9259/post/lords-cricket-ground---the-home-of-cricket-

    Lords Cricket Ground - the Home of Cricket

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The Business of Cricket and Sports