It's very worrying. I can see test cricket played by national teams disappearing in the very short term, with only Twenty20 and one-day cricket able to pay the high salaries which players will demand. If five day cricket can survive at all, it may be played by scratch touring teams individually sponsored for each tour, just as it was 150 years ago. So much for progress.

And, Seamer, yes, mate: this is a complete about face from my thoughts on this when you first started the thread. I was originally not much bothered by what I saw as a domestic Indian competition. Having seen its immediate attraction to some of the great cricketers of today, I now am. Good on you for spotting this one at an early stage. Call me naive if you want to!

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I admit that this IPL thing is taking on bigger proportions than I originally anticipated. However, I still don't think it will result in the end of Test cricket, because ultimately the players themselves will still want to play. Nowhere have they said that they want to stop- some of them have said that if they had to choose, they might pick the IPL- but ideally, I'd think that most players would want to play both the IPL and Test cricket, something looking increasingly possible with Haroon Lorgat being in favour of an IPL window.

EDIT: Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what the match fees are for T20s, ODIs and Tests? Because if money is a strong motivating factor for the cricketers (and it seems that it is), then one very simple sloution to preserve Test cricket IMO is to just make the fees for Tests higher than for ODIs. I think this is especially important for the teams with lower salaries- to make it as profitable for the players to stick to Tests than ODIs.

Fox Sports -
The day before India began a Test match against South Africa in Ahmedabad this month, coach Gary Kirsten scheduled a training session, but only five players made it.
There is no dissent towards the coach, it's just the Indian players had greater priorities than preparing to play for their country - their Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises.
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Gayle said he was more than likely to play in the first Test against Australia even though it clashed with the IPL, where he has an $860,000 annual fee with the Kolkata Knight Riders.

However, his fellow batsmen Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul are yet to announce whether they will start in the Tests or stay in the IPL, which starts next week.

"We haven't discussed anything but we know the rules already, you have to get permission from your board, so obviously it is more than likely you have to come back and play," Gayle said.

"I don't know about the other two," he added when asked about the intentions of Chanderpaul and Sarwan.
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Match fees are already an irrelevance for the top tier players, aren't they, with sponsorship deals and product endorsement fees dwarfing them. This is why you never hear huge complaints when players are fined huge percentages of match fees for disciplinary offences. If, as the above post suggests, a player has an $800k arrangement with the IPL, you can be sure that no national board is going to get close to that in test or ODI fees.

__________________
Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

Okay, but they could certainly pay higher match fees for Tests than ODIs, couldn't they? The "less is more" principle doesn't seem to apply where money's concerned, and if as you say the players are going to demand to play more lucrative games, then I don't see why they can't make Tests more lucrative than ODIs.

Also, remember that the IPL isn't a year-round occurence. If they take the course of making a window for it, then as far as I can see the questions of player allegience and whatnot disappear. In fact, they might even have to take the step of scheduling less international tours, and I could be wrong but weren't we all saying that there's too much international cricket anyhow?

That's not to say that I support the IPL in particular- I'm completely indiferent to it- but I think Tests and regular international cricket can co-exist with it, and that all these doomsday predictions are completely premature.

Presumably the ECB could then set up it's own 20/20 tournament and demand a window for it, too? It would set a very dangerous precedent.

There's been talk of that, but I don't really see how it would be done. How many players can they possibly attract, who don't play County Cricket or IPL anyway? Besides which, they've already got a very successful T20 tournament with some international players- it's a formula that's worked for them, and why they'd need-or want- to switch to a franchise system I don't know.

Besides, I don't see that there's much choice. Whether you love it, hate it or just don't care, the fact is that it's here for at least the next couple of years. If you want to avoid the risk of players choosing club before country, then realistically you'd have to create that window to allow players to fulfil both commitments.

Perhaps the ECB should request a window for its existing 20/20 tournament? That way all the England players would be available for it (they presently play in the simultaneous NatWest Series) and all international stars would be available.

Presumably, if the IPL got its window then the ICC would have no option, unless it showed incredible bias!

I think there are two differences between the English tournament and the IPL. First, the English series is already well established and has already drawn in the crowds- as have the T20 tournaments of every single other Test nation. Secondly, the English tournament is based around the existing county squads, instead of artificial franchises in urgent need of star players. Because of this, I don't see how the two series are all that similar. Because the English one is well-established and profitable, because it's made up of the existing counties, then they really don't need a window to allow their regular players to play, do they?

Besides which, I think Test cricket is rather more popular in England than in India, so I can't see the administrators delaying the international season until it's too late. I really don't think the fans would stand for it.

What, the ICC show a bias in favour of certain geographical groups? Now you're just living in a fantasy land!

In England, the threat is not directly against international cricket - it's against the four day domestic game, which attracts crowds measured in dozens rather than thousands. The problem will be if the Twenty20 format somehow overtakes the four day game: the death of test cricket will follow from that. The connection is just as direct, but there is one more link in the chain.

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Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan