DUBAI // It did not take long to spot the canny marketing ploy. When Mohammed Hafeez crashed a four into the digital boards marking the perimeter at Eden Park, in the opening game of Pakistan’s limited overs series against New Zealand, there it was. A luminous advertisement proclaiming the forthcoming Masters Champions League.
It might not have been guerrilla marketing per se, but it was opportunistic. Cheeky, even. By hitting those boundaries, Pakistan’s national team players were peppering a sign plugging a tournament which will be overlapping, and therefore in competition with, their own board’s new flagship event.
Branding for the Pakistan Super League, the long-awaited, Pakistan Cricket Board-organised Twenty20 extravaganza, was conspicuous by its absence.
Even in Dubai, where both competitions will be starting, staggered by a week, it is signs heralding the arrival of the tournament for retired players, rather than current Pakistan ones, which are most visible.
MCL, which begins on Thursday evening at the Dubai International Stadium staked its claim first on this patch.
Pakistan, annoyed that an independent enterprise should be allowed to infringe on its special relationship with the Emirates Cricket Board flirted with moving PSL to Qatar.
Then it brought its influence to bear to claim back the grounds where its national team play their home matches in exile, and crashed the MCL agenda.
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Still, though, officially there is no feud between the MCL and the PSL. “We have no grievance against MCL,” Najam Sethi, the PSL chairman, said at the league’s launch at the Conrad hotel in Dubai last week.
“It is an independent tournament that is different from what we are trying to do. We hope it works.
“We obviously think we have a better brand. We think we have more eyeballs, and when the PSL eventually comes to Pakistan it will be a different ball game altogether.”
Evidence since then suggests relations between the two competitions are less than convivial. Pakistan, for instance, are demanding that any players from their country declare themselves retired if they want to play MCL — no matter how far they are gone from international cricket.
The International Cricket Council have written to the organisers of the legends event, too, reminding them of their mandate that only retired players be involved.
That remains tenuous, at best. Marketing blurb relating to the MCL teams claims the “players must all have been former international cricketers who are now retired from all forms of the professional sport”. There are plenty who are not, though. Many still have county or provincial contracts.
Take Shaun Tait, for example. He was initially signed to Libra Legends. He has since shelved that plan, realising you can be too long retired, switched to the PSL instead — and, remarkably, has had his international career revived, too, by being selected to play T20s for Australia against India.
Zafar Shah, the founder of the MCL, is firm on the fact his league is for greats of the past, though.
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“With the MCL, they can retire proudly, when they are at the peak rather than sliding down the other side of the cliff,” Zafar said.
“For two years, people did not talk about [Virender Sehwag, the Gemini Arabians captain]. He didn’t play for India, and even in the IPL, he didn’t score much.
“By joining us, his graph lifted again. He can have three or four years with us, and it will be more relaxed.”
Cricket supporters in the UAE will be spoilt for choice over the next three weeks. On some days, it will be impossible to attend both, as matches clash.
For the rest of the time, the limits of supporters’ disposable income will also decide which competition gets ahead.
Clearly, each will have differing characters. The PSL has the greater quantity of active players, but a far smaller quota of household names. That said, it does have the No 1 crowd-puller for matches in the UAE: Shahid Afridi.
Pakistan want their T20 league to become the world’s second best, after the unrivalled Indian Premier League, yet accept it is going to be difficult to make it profitable before it returns to its homeland.
Obviously, there is no time scale on when that might happen. The MCL, by contrast, has an agreement to stage their event in UAE stadiums for the next 10 years.
The people backing it are UAE-based business people, who are confident it can take root in the domestic sporting landscape, beyond the time the PSL returns home.
“Everybody can have their own choice, but PSL is a totally different format where they have young players playing the game,” Anis Sajan, the owner of MCL-franchise Sagittarius Strikers, said.
“MCL was the first idea. Zafar came out all guns blazing that he wanted to go ahead with this tournament, despite competition from PSL. Every problem has a solution. I see a bright future for this tournament.”