John Buchanan is a wacky, wacky man. It’s no wonder he and Shane Warne got on so well. John is an ideas man, a big-picture specialist and Warnie was also one of our great thinkers – together they could have ruled the world!

Of course, the world according to John Buchanan would be borderless and cricketers could move freely between places, plying their wares for the highest bidder. While there is a certain appeal to a utopian “brotherhood” of mankind ideal, back here on planet Earth I’m not quite sure that we’re ready for it just yet.

John’s big idea is that players should not be bound by national borders, that the only way for cricket to survive and to break the dominance of a single nation is for the best and brightest to move around wherever they choose. So if a player couldn’t get a game for Australia, then he could move to Zimbabwe to try his luck.

'Taken to the extreme, we could see a World Cup played entirely by Aussies representing all of the competing nations.'


If we ignore, for a moment, the fact that English cricket has been built on importing players from the southern half of Africa, the concept struggles when put into practice. In John’s world, countries would line up to recruit Aussies to bolster their own (in John’s opinion) inferior ranks. Taken to the extreme, we could see a World Cup played entirely by Aussies representing all of the competing nations.

Apparently, we are to believe that national governments and cricket authorities would feel no pressure to promote their own. Proud nations would, apparently, set aside any nationalistic ideals in the pursuit of results. What rot!

Even looking from a player's point of view, it is difficult to understand what would motivate a player to turn his back on his homeland – to become a pariah in the eyes of his fellow citizens – all in the name of furthering his own career. Sure, there will be a handful of mercenaries who are so desperate to promote themselves that they would do whatever it takes. But the mechanisms for those players already exists and those who are motivated by self-promotion and greed have already made the move.

Reducing international competition to the level of franchises, to be bought and sold like an American football team, would forever change the nature of cricket. Even Kerry Packer, during World Series Cricket, understood the value of nationalistic fervour. It was Australia, the West Indies and the Rest of the World, but national identities were paramount (except he couldn’t attract sufficient players from the other nations to run other national teams).

It doesn't even offer a solution to the perceived problems of world cricket. History tells us that there will always be one team that dominates the game for a period of time. At the moment, it is Australia leading the pack; in five years' time it could be Sri Lanka or India or any of the other nations. For now, the best that can be done is for Australia to set high standards and for the other nations to continue to strive to beat them. The only certainty is that one day they will.

Yes, Buchanan’s plan could level the playing field in the short term, but would the fans and players remain invested in the competition? The pinnacle of any athlete’s career must be to represent their country in international competition. There can be no greater honour, but it would become meaningless in the brave new world proposed by Buchanan. I’m not convinced that it’s a game I’d like to watch.