 So guys, Freddie's left us because he had some work to do, but right now we're going to be talking about the dark side of the IPL or the 2020 game in particular. And since we're talking dark side, we got a dark personality and Sidhanthani joining us on the show for his, you know, expert analysis on this. But let's talk to you, Tim, first and foremost, while there is the good of what's happening in the field and the economy is booming. The figure of the economy of the 2020 game, there is a dark side to it as well, fixing, doping and so on. Yeah, absolutely. And in some ways, just the popularity of T20 has created all these problems. I mean, most simple, we have so many matches played. So every year now we have over 700 games of T20 played around the world. And almost all these games, they're all televised or live streamed and you can bet on them. And basically, if you can bet on them, there's a possibility of corruption. And although we've seen some corruption in the IPL, the biggest worry anti-corruption bodies have is lower leagues and lower levels of international cricket, where the players might not be paid a lot and you still have huge amounts of money bet. So we, for example, we think that the Afghan Premier League, there might be 600 million US dollars bet on every match, which is an incredible amount. And that's around the world. And the vast majority of that money is with illegal bookmakers and it's very, very hard to trace. But we know from what's bet on a legal book, through legal means, it's like to be in a region of 500, 600 million US dollars. And the point is, therefore, players in that league who are paid the least, they could be very vulnerable because they might think, I might only play a few matches of this league ever. I might be out of a job in literally a few weeks' time. And it might be like, well, I probably would have failed anyway. I probably would have got under 10 runs anyway. So if someone offers you money to guarantee to get under 10 runs, you can see why that's very tempting. And we see the level of anti-corruption education around the world, it's a bit haphazard. It's not as good as it should be. So there's a need to do a lot more to save the integrity of the game. Otherwise, there's already almost every league has had problems. We've had problems in the IPL, the T20 blast, in the Pakistan Super League as well, in the Bangladesh Premier League. And that's just what we know. So there is a fear that the tip of the iceberg and more needs to be done to control things. Otherwise, we could have a situation almost like in the 1990s again. And Tim, these leagues are going to keep popping up, right? Because if one thing administrators have learnt, these small leagues come in quickly, play a few games and get out. And that's what works economically from an administrator or an organiser's point of view. Well, no, no, this interesting thing is that actually a lot of leagues, we looked really deep and a lot of leagues are not making money. It took the IPL five, six, seven, eight years for teams to be sure of making money. And in fact, there's only really the bump and new deal which begun at the end of 17 that meant all teams were safely in profit. So a lot of these leagues, they actually, what they do, they tend to overestimate the number of Indian viewers they'll get. So we saw, for example, this Global T20 League in South Africa, that was predicated partly on having loads of Indian viewers. So they had three Indian owners and they thought Indian cricket fans would watch because of Indian owners and they realized that was not going to happen. So the league went fast before it even started. So actually we see it's a bit of a kind of a wild west of leagues is what people say. So you have in this mad scramble to create leagues, you know, teams are spending, leagues are spending more than they can afford. And then these leads get into big trouble. And of course that fees interfacing as well, because if you're a player and you kind of, you sense something is not, is not quite, is not all right. So we saw, you know, in the Canada League last year, there was, you know, players got on the team bus and they refused to get off because they hadn't been paid. This was, you know, over halfway through the tournament. And so if you're in a league like that, where you're wide, where you're wide, you might not get paid from the league. Clearly, then you might be more vulnerable to mattress because all the evidence on on mattressing, well, says a couple of things. It says when you play, when you play a match, whichever large TV audience, lots of money that's better around the world and you're not paid very well, you'll be very vulnerable to fixing. And it also says if you're playing in a match when some of your teammates are played a lot and you're paid very little, you'll be probably jealous and more inclined to fix. And that's true. A lot of leagues, you often get players, you know, who are on if you're on 2000 for the league and some who are on very, very little indeed. So you have, you know, you might, your team might not be earning 50 times as much money as you for the same amount of work. Like you wouldn't be human if you weren't jealous and a bit resentful in that situation. But then Tim, would I be jumping the gun and saying, so I'll flip the question with a lot of these small. Yeah, just to add one quick point on this, we're talking specifically about players, of course, but they are also sort of referees involved or umpires involved in the case of cricket, who are inevitably even paid far less than what the lowest earning player is playing is earning through the league. And therefore they, and they get far fewer games, et cetera, et cetera, and which also makes them susceptible and targets to influencing outcomes. I mean, especially in a game like cricket where the umpire has a literally ball-by-ball role to play in. Technology comes in and all of that, of course, but yeah. Yeah, umpires officials could be vulnerable. We've seen a big umpire fixing scandal in the NBA basketball league and there's definitely a possibility of that in T20 leagues as well. So another reason to be vigilant, I mean, with DRS, so that makes it maybe a little bit harder, but there's still vulnerabilities there, potentially. Let me flip that question for you. All these obscure leagues that are popping up all over the world and they keep coming every two, three years. And I'm not just saying about a country doing league. I'm saying about local leagues, domestic leagues, they're happening. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Would I be right in saying a lot of these leagues, like you mentioned, they're not making money. So then, are they solely being set up from the purpose of a fixing angle? Or am I jumping with that? I need to be careful about what we say here, but what we do know there was that league in the UAE, the Ajman All-Stars, and basically that was set up explicitly to fix. Is this the one where people are losing their wickets just for the pitchers? Yeah, yeah, you might have seen them. Yeah, I mean, some of those stumpings. I mean, it's worse than me playing cricket. It's quite extraordinary, that ineptitude. But that's an extreme example. But I think there is that worry that, again, the vetting of the owners is not always as good as it should be. And that will eventually create a situation where owners buy a team and they realize they're losing loads of money. Well, they might think the only way to get their money back is to ensure their team loses and bet against their team. I mean, yeah, obviously, we need to be careful about our words here. But yeah, there are big vulnerabilities there, potentially. So if I were to compare, say, an Ajman league over here with their practices as far as anti-corruption and doping is concerned, and then you have IPL, how far ahead is the IPL in terms of keeping those practices afloat? Yeah, it's a different league altogether. But could there be more done? Yes, there could. And there's also the IPL still has a big issue. What does it do the 10 months here when there's not the IPL on? How much is it safeguarding players then? Because, again, if you're a fringe local Indian player in the IPL and you're in the 30s and you're not a brilliant player, and you might think every season could be your last, well, there's every chance that a few months before the IPL you get approached. And then you can make an agreement or something, which is contingent upon you playing, and then you don't have any contact with them during the IPL when you'll be more and more closely. And then afterwards, you know, you might get your payment or whatever. So yeah, I think even the IPL... Are you focusing on doping right now? Is that what you're pointing to? No, that's what I'm talking about in match fixing. Yeah, you could be approached by corrupts. But actually, yeah, it simply applies to doping. You could dope outside the leagues. I think there's a real... The cricket's anti-doping code is nowhere near as good as it should be. So the ICC's whereabouts testing, it only applies to the top eight ODI nations at the moment, which even then was seen as Afghanistan and the World Cup. They were not part of that. They obviously have their own national anti-doping programs, and there's anti-doping testing in leagues as well. But, you know, I did the numbers for our book, and, you know, most leagues they do a few dozen anti-doping tests in the entire league season, which means most players don't even get it once. I mean, there is a big vulnerability, and we saw what happened with baseball sort of 15 years ago where it was absolutely rife, and there's a concern that, you know, cricket is not doing enough to safeguard itself against doping this time as well. It's simply because in the history of cricket, doping actually generally hasn't been that much of an advantage until T20, but with T20, clearly, if you can hit the ball five, ten meters from the same sharp, you know, that could put another zero on your paycheck from the IPI auction. Tim, in one of the chapters of your book, cricket 2.0, you guys have done a comparison as far as anti-doping tests and all are concerned, and you've done the comparison in Major League Baseball, and I think the IPL was the number one. You've done the comparison between Major League Baseball and all cricket around the world, according to the ICC. So you've taken international cricket as well? All cricket, yeah, and low test. So what we find, there was 27,000 tests in Major League Baseball combined, and in cricket around the world, only 1,400. So there's 19 times more tests in baseball in one country than in cricket throughout the world, and obviously, more people play cricket than baseball, a lot more people play cricket than baseball. That's a huge vulnerability there, potentially, because, you know, the value of steroids, potentially, for a T20 player is massive, because it means you can clear the ropes more, and you'll get more contracts in leagues around the world, and you'll be earning a lot more, having much, much better career. So there's a massive potential incentive to dope if the testing is not good enough. From an administrator's point of view, is it burning a hole in your pocket to get these tests done, or is that the reason why they're not happening at a regular pace in cricket? So there is obviously some testing done, but I think, yeah, I think finances are always a barrier to doing more testing, and especially what we find is the testing itself is not everything. So what you really need to catch dope is you need intelligence, basically, intelligence community, and that does cost money, because you can be doing a lot of work just to catch a couple of people. And there is some good work being done, some very good work being done, but it probably is not nearly as well-resourced as it should be, and there's also an unhealthy difference from country to country, which means that in some countries you could probably dope, and there's always a chance of getting caught, of course, but your chance is pretty minuscule. And also, not every player, of course, reaches IPL, so big bash standards, so if you're on the tier 2 or tier 3 circuit, so you're playing a bit in Bangladesh, you might play in Nepal, you might play in the Canada League. You can still make a good living, and a chance of being testing a pretty minuscule. So we found in some leagues, the Caribbean Premier League had zero testing, big fat zero. I mean, that's shocking, really. Yeah, so in a sense, I don't know what you think about it. The Andre Russell suspension, it seemed more like making a statement and doing some PR, that here we are, we're doing it, because in your book you've written that post getting caught, he's gone and played a lot of cricket as well, and he's won quite a few titles. Well, yeah, he's obviously a fantastic player, and I mean, he's been given a ban, and he's served it in full, so from that point of view, there's nothing, that's what's happened. But I think it's fair to say that what happened there is likely to be the tip of the iceberg in the 220 game more broadly. And we see, we actually just see, just using our own eyes, we see the physique of batsmen is getting more and more every year. So you see, even the builders sort of a Sachsen Tendulkar, you do not really get that in, that's now very unusual in the 220 cricket, the builders, Andre Russell, those sorts of guys, the batsmen are getting taller, they're getting broader, and yeah, the potential, I mean, yeah, there's certainly potential there to benefit a lot from doping, and is enough being done to put people off doping, I would say, I would say no. And you want to add something, Bro? Maybe not doping, but the conversations you've had with Mr. A.K.A. Modi? I don't know, we can get into it later on more specifically, I can pull out actual quotes and stuff, I don't want to say stuff in this context that's even a little bit off. But no, I did have like a couple of questions for Tim, if you have a couple minutes, like, for example, are there any countries that within the at least national anti-doping establishment are more proactive in the cricket association? And this might be associate nations like the Dutch, for example, I don't know, who are doing a little more to sort of monitor and follow anti-doping code and also consequently at the fixing part as well. No, I think it obviously, it probably depends on the national governments and their priorities, so we find in general countries that are a bit wealthier, they tend to have more sophisticated programs on doping. We also find in countries where physical sports are more popular, and to be more of a history, prior history of doping, they do more testing. So in Australia where you have Aussie rules, in New Zealand where you have obviously rugby union, in the UK to an extent as well, there's a decent history of anti-doping testing. In some parts of the subcontinent where there's sports like rugby are not nearly as popular, there's been fewer doping scanners in other sports, and probably the national anti-doping infrastructure is not quite caught up, but I don't think any country when it comes to cricket is doing enough to be honest. Yeah, for example, India's anti-doping lab lost its water accreditation recently. So now even just, and when with the virus and everything, just getting samples out for testing and getting results back and getting equal in labs to do the work, it's a hugely problematic thing. And already, I mean, sets of guidelines are going out from the sports authority and the ministry and stuff like that. Try and keep a check on what happens or what athletes get up to in this period, because you also know now, so the Olympics haven't been given new dates, right? Yeah, yeah. It's probably a good time, it's a good time to be a doper now. Once I guys, I'm just getting my injection out once I can. At that time, yeah. Yeah, so it's definitely an interesting time from that point of view. From the IPL's perspective, and I'm getting this conversation back to the IPL, what do you suppose they need to be most wary of in this second decade, where they'll probably grow even more as far as broadcast money is concerned, as far as teams are making money is concerned, players making money. What do you suppose they need to be most wary of? So I guess the biggest risk, perhaps, the IPL is oversupply and saturated in the market and diluting the sense that every IPL game is an event, which it still feels like we have a 60 game season, but it's lost the sports leads and then some to 20 leads. The big bash used to have that feel every game being an event and it's really suffered from overexpansion and it's diluted itself. Although that said, I think there is scope for the IPL to expand to 10 teams and of course it would still be very high, but it needs to be careful the way it does that. I think it needs to maintain vigilance about things like owners, about fixing on doping as well. But I mean, the IPL is in a great position because you have the rise of the middle class in India and they love the IPL. They've obviously got more money now than ever before. So that's why the TV races are going through the roof and also the worth of advertising, tickets, et cetera, everything. The IPL is in a fantastic position. I actually think it could be much more ambitious in terms of what it does on a global level. So we're seeing some leads taking matches abroad. Who's to say the IPL can maybe play a tournament opener in a different country sometimes or final, whatever. That would be an interesting event. And I think we might also see, which would be very interesting, IPL teams as Kolkata Naras have done with Trinidad in the Caribbean Pemery. We might see more IPL teams basically invest and buy other teams. And that could be really interesting. And personally what I'd love to see is Indian players be allowed to play abroad at the moment. Yeah, I don't think that's happening. In other T20 leagues, which is actually short-sighted from India's point of view because India would be a better T20 team if their players are playing in the big bash with a World Cup there. In a few months' time, Indian players are playing hardly any into 20 in Australia. If a lot of them had a season or two there, India would have more chance of winning that tournament. So that is short-sighted from the BCCI. They are actually hampering their national teams' chances. And in terms of answering that question we talked about earlier, why have India not been a bit more successful in T20? The lack of overseas experience is a big, big factor. We've seen Indian players in the first half, go to India and that's been important in their development. And we've seen India become much better away from home in Test cricket. I think if India were allowed their players to go abroad and play in foreign leagues, that would be for the betterment of the Indian team. So that would be a smart move. But as you said, there doesn't seem to be any sign of that coming soon. We talk about this quite often in the context of football in India because there the issue is that players aren't being able to develop because they aren't getting enough competitive games in a season. So where in Europe you're playing 40-50 games a season, here you're getting barely 20-25 games. And with cricket it's, I guess in some ways the opposite because there are that many more talented players in the system who are probably world-class or they're about at least first-class levels. And there's so many competitions going on all over the world but yet we're not letting our players go and play. It's quite an amazing contest. Yeah, it is. And it gets to the heart of why you haven't won World Cups in 2007 and 2020. So we saw from 2012 to 2016 the five players in the world who played the most 220 games were all from the West Indies and the West Indies win those two World Cups in 2012 and 2016. So they have the most experience in all conditions which is why actually West Indies play in India. It's almost like they're playing at home. They know those conditions so, so well. So you see lots of the top West Indies players now will play 40 to 20 games a year around the world and you think of how those, their skills are developing and how the format's evolving so, so rapidly. Top Indian players, even with international games, will play 20-25 games a year and that's quite a big deficit. It's basically a practice deficit which is getting bigger with every year and that is a problem for India. For all the, you know, India obviously has a time pool unprecedented amongst all countries in the world. So many people, you know, the quality of cricket being produced is going through the roof. The quality of domestic players is going through the roof but I think to get to the next level being allowed to play abroad would be a massive thing and India could even say, what would be great if India said if they identified maybe five or six players who they said we're going to be T20 specialists and we think for India cricket, it's better for us if you play in the big bash rather than play for India A or whatever. They obviously, players who play in all formats who are quite few anyway, there's not enough time for them realistically to play in foreign leagues but for Washington's Sunder, it's better for him to play in the big bash and in the T20 blast than playing, than being in India basically and India has to recognise that. And the reverse also like these guys who are chatting about why domestic cricket in India is not, the Ranjitofi in particular is not so popular and people are not watching and all of that. So one of the suggestions was that they should have a couple of foreign players who are playing in those domestic sites in India so like an exchange of sorts or whatever where they will, because to see those players who are small town to India doesn't get to see otherwise they'll come for that player, it'll help popularise the domestic game, make it more viable and also give some of these players who want to play in the subcontinent exposure because I mean then it opens up all kinds of opportunities I think for players. That's a fantastic idea, so who's to say India couldn't go to the big bash or the T20 or the 100 tournament as it is now and say we are happy to let four or five Indian players play in this competition, in exchange we can let some English or Australian players play in the Ranjitofi, that would be good that would be good for everybody actually, it would be bad for the other countries that weren't part of that deal, it would be good for everyone because we talked earlier about how lots of foreign leagues have suffered from the lack of Indian players because it means they're not going to get many viewers from India but if you had half a dozen top Indian players playing in the big bash or the T20 or the 100 tournament, we would see viewing figures for that skyrocket so those leagues, that would be fantastic for those leagues and it would actually, as I said, it would be very good for those Indian players being exposed and who's to say you couldn't have some foreign players playing in the Ranjitofi as well, that would be interesting as well so that's what I mean about the IPL and also Indian cricket in the years ahead I think if it can kind of had a bit more of a globalist mindset, that will actually help it on the field to get to the next level as well Final question Tim, final two in fact one in the first decade in which you mentioned in your book as well it's pretty obvious that the mercenary player and I'm coming at the mercenary player the acceptance of the mercenary player hasn't come at all, so there are a few who are accepting it, some are still in transition mode and some are still going, you are not a cricket player you're not the purest kind of Michael Holdings says to Kieran which we quote in our book I love Michael Holdings though, I do love Michael Holdings you love Michael Holdings but Kieran Pollard now is now the West Indies captain in T20 and ODI cricket exactly, so that second decade you reckon is that going to be the acceptance of the mercenary player I think many of us have got there already where we accept as a way of life and a fair career choice but I think in certain countries there's still this snobbery, so we talk with Chris Lynn, the Australian player and he says, you know, some people still kind of look at me differently because I don't want to wear a baggy grin, a moral tinge where it's seen as inferior to embrace T20 ahead of test cricket but we see now with the young players I mean this applies both with Indian players but also other players around the world so with Tom Banton from England you know does Tom Banton need test cricket really brilliant career T20 World Cup 3 and he can play he's already got an IPL contract, brilliant leagues around the world, that's a great life it's a great career, earned a lot of money very fulfilling lots of challenges so does he need test cricket so I think that acceptance is there and it will grow and people who kind of denigrate the skills or choices of T20 freelance players they're kind of living in the dark ages they need to kind of wake up and smell the coffee really only the bumper question which format do you see T20 impacting most now is it the ODI format or the test format going forward I think it's the 50 over so I actually think all three formats can coexist together and one of the interesting things T20 has led to positive change in the other format so obviously you see that in ODI cricket the scores rising but we also see that in the structure of the tournament so the fact we have we have a new ODI league we have a new World Test Championship that has been put on it from T20 cricket the fact we have day night test cricket that probably wouldn't have come without T20 cricket so in some ways T20 has helped the other formats and personally I think all three formats can help together I think the World Cup in ODI cricket has got its reputation is fantastic and it's probably the tournament players want to win the most even more than the T20 World Cup or the IPL but I think the problem for ODI cricket is what does it do and there's four years between tournaments to remain as relevant as possible and that's where T20 has been a great example for other formats of the game because the structure of it is very clear to understand you have a league and you get a win after six months whereas you have an India Sri Lanka ODI series so what does that really matter what does it count towards and that's what other international cricket needs to get better at answering what does this matter towards and that's by having leagues that are really easy to understand it's going to be a really part of the international cricket remaining popular and bringing in Bucks basically and then you have something to add just today the news I mean it's not much news but indefinitely postpone the IPL what's the sort of reaction there in England among the players who are looking to play as well as from fans that are looking forward to tournament you said sky numbers are huge right sky gets huge numbers on the IPL actually the numbers for the IPL have really grown in recent years and the acceptance I talked about is also because there's more English players playing I think this year there's 11 players so they'll be very very sad they're missing out on their pay packets but obviously there's a possibility of tournament being postponed this year and I think although it's a domestic tournament it's worth to the cricket economy is such that there will be a lot of support for rearranging it even in a bridge form later in the year people look at that window in September or October that's certainly a possibility once again thank you so much for your time guys also to all the people who are watching this show do go read that book Freddie Wilde Timbock come together to write cricket 2.0 explaining the evolution of the 2020 game and a big chunk of that is the IPL guys just Tim can you tell all the people who are watching this where can they find your book I found it on my Kindle so it's pretty easy to buy I think 600 odd rupees anywhere else yeah so it's available on Amazon India both on Kindle and to order the hardback copy so it's out now and yeah we think there will be lots to enjoy for all Indian cricket fans and hopefully some nice distraction during these very peculiar times thank you so much Tim lovely chatting to you thanks really enjoy that cheers