More and more, cricket is being compared to football.

The similarities are there, I guess – both claim their origin in England, both involve a ball, both are played on something called a pitch.

But that is where the similarities end – they are, of course, two rather different sports. Or are they?

'Until recent times domestic cricket was based solely on local players and there definitely wasn’t much money in it'


Some people suggest that due to the recent spats on and off the field cricket is becoming more like football. These spats have definitely been very real and damaging to cricket but are they making it more like football?

It seems that the spats in cricket generate from personal attacks during matches – otherwise known as sledging – and they result in the sort of thing we saw in the recent tour of Australia by the India.

While it must be said that this sort of thing definitely exists in football – the Zinedine Zidane head-butt on Marco Materazzi in the World Cup final is one example – it is definitely not as common in football as in cricket. In football, it is managers who are more involved in such spats.

Sledging is also nothing new in cricket. It has been around for decades, so if this is our basis for a comparison of cricket becoming like football then it is more accurate to suggest that football is becoming like cricket.

I do believe that cricket IS becoming more like football, however, in one crucial way – money.

The Indian Premier League (even the name has football written all over it) can be compared to English and Spanish football.

Cricket, like football and any other professional sport, is increasingly all about money.

Until recent times domestic cricket was based solely on local players (the English County Championship was a notable exception) and there definitely wasn’t much money in it.

The Indian Premier League has changed that and has made the sport much more like football, with players (in what would be considered a parody of football if it wasn’t actually happening) literally auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The Indians are making an effort to play down the money aspect however, with a commitment that local players will play for the team representing their home town.

But, as the football managers would say: "At the end of the day," it's all about money.