GT20 - A fair success for Canada, but not a model to follow

It finished on a high, at least. If the final of Canada's inaugural Global T20 did not quite answer its critics, it at least showed something of the tournament's potential. The Vancouver Knights became the first team to claim the title of GT20 champions on Sunday, besting the West Indies "B" side in the final thanks in large part to the efforts of local left-arm spinning all-rounder Saad bin Zafar, who entered the action with a wicket-maiden in the first innings and finished things off in the next with an unbeaten, match-winning 79 off 48 to deliver his side a seven-wicket victory.

He did it in front of a near-capacity crowd at King City's Maple Leaf Cricket Club, the venue for all 22 games, the stands looking full for the first time in the tournament. An extraordinary reflex, juggled, diving slips catch from Chris Gayle earlier in the innings will have booked the tournament a slot in highlights reels across the world, and as the league's remarkable collection of globally recognised players take their leave, tweets of "see you next year" look like more than just fabled Canadian politeness rubbing off on their guests.

That the league got off the ground at all is a quite remarkable achievement, and indeed Cricket Canada and their backers, Sriram Bakthisaran's Mercuri Group, were met with a fair degree of scepticism when the league was first announced back in February. Just six months later and they can look back on the inaugural edition with a fair amount of satisfaction. Some exciting cricket, no small amount of media interest, a satisfied stable of stars, and a belatedly announced broadcast deal that saw the league watched around the world.

All told, the GT20 looks the closest thing to a success in the troubled history of North American T20 initiatives. But that said, it is a qualified success at best. Finals day aside, crowds ranged from underwhelming to barely there throughout the competition, the drawbacks of a single-venue competition in general and the shortcomings of Maple Leaf CC, in particular, were much in evidence, and there remain serious questions regarding the long-term profitability and indeed viability of the league. For any envious Associates, the league is not necessarily a model they should wish to emulate even if it were possible to do so.

The disappointing turnout is a likely consequence of a number of factors, some easier to remedy than others, the comparative inaccessibility of King City being the most obvious. Despite the tag-line "Sixes in the 6ix", King City is not one of Toronto's six historic municipalities, but in fact, lies some 30 kms north of downtown - with poor public transport links and limited parking. Yet even if the tournament were to be held at a more central venue such as Toronto CSCC, it is inevitable that a 22-game tournament in a single city will fall victim to diminishing returns, eventually just exhausting its market, and indeed its ground-staff and volunteers.

The choice of MLCC as sole venue raised eyebrows ahead of the tournament given the ground's questionable reputation (the last ODI to be held at the ground was played under official protest by a visiting Netherlands side whose assessment of conditions was little short of vitriolic) and despite generally cooperative weather familiar problems, especially in terms of drainage, were again in evidence. "More pasture than pitch" was how one of the wags on comms for 7sports described it, and though that's probably a little harsh given that seven 200+ scores were recorded at the tournament, deteriorating conditions could be seen reflected in downward rending totals.

Worse still, Maple Leaf's trouble with overnight rain again reared its head, with the Knights and Royals' first round match being called off early in blazing sunshine. Even the players and hired-in coaches were critical of the conditions, "for future editions, things do need to improve. There is a need to fix the ground and fix the pitches," Waqar Younis told the Globe and Mail, while Dwayne Bravo told the Toronto Sun. "In all honesty, more effort should have been put in to build better pitches."

Nonetheless, Bravo said he'd be back, as did most others, and with Mercuri reportedly having undertaken to bankroll the competition for 25 years, there's every chance that he will be. Yet this, of course, is the principle reason the GT20 is not something that could be easily replicated elsewhere. Though Mercuri claim to have faith in the North American market and indeed have hinted at plans to expand to other cities, perhaps even south of the border, there is little prospect of the league becoming profitable even in the medium term. There are few sponsors out there willing to write off as much as 10 million dollars annually in the uncertain hope of future returns.

With an inaugural tournament to hold up as "proof of concept", it is likely that Cricket Canada and Mercuri will be able to secure rather more lucrative broadcast agreements than the last minute deals that the short lead-up will have forced on them this time round, and practical and logistical lessons learned will hopefully stand them in good stead in the next edition. Nonetheless, the sports market in Canada and the United States is a crowded one, and simple realities of time zones will remain a permanent obstacle to access to the Indian market.

Still more concerningly, developments at the ICC conference in Dublin which took place as the tournament was ongoing look rather like a spanner hurtling toward the league's works. Moves are afoot, it seems, to introduce restrictive new rules on T20 leagues and player participation that seem directly aimed at initiatives such as the GT20. Spurred by concerns that the proliferation of such leagues risks damaging bilateral international cricket (a key source of revenue for Full Member boards), the ICC is considering proposals to limit the participation of players to three T20 leagues per year and even denying approval to leagues hosted in Associate countries.

The reliance of the GT20 on overseas stars makes it particularly vulnerable to such restrictions, and indeed the commercial and competitive formula that the league has adopted, with no mandated minimum of local or Associate players in teams' starting XIs and exclusively foreign financing, will likely form part of the justification for the new rules should they be adopted in October. Though bin Zafar may have dominated headlines on finals day, most Canadian and fellow Associate players have generally spent most of their time warming the bench. Though in development terms time spent training with top class players is arguably at least as beneficial as time spent playing with them, it's unarguably a bad look for a tournament already open to accusations of carpet-bagging.

Retroactive withdrawal of ICC sanction for the tournament is something of a worst case scenario of course, and would likely leave the ICC open to legal action, and FICA has already announced their intention to oppose the three-league cap on grounds of restraint of trade. Nonetheless, the climate has become markedly more hostile to T20 initiatives in Associate countries, especially those backed by foreign cash. Cricket Canada and Mercuri will in all probability have good reason to celebrate launching when they did, as had they delayed it by a year the league might never have got off the ground.

As it stands, the chances are the league will survive and perhaps even thrive at least in the short term, or for as long as Mercuri are prepared to continue pumping money into it, but the chances of it spawning a brood of copy-cat leagues in Associate countries are overblown, to say the least. Call it an enviable achievement, a boondoggle, or just an oddity, Canada's GT20 is likely to remain unique. And that's probably for the best.