Is it time for an official masters series?

The going has never been so good for former cricketing greats, or so it seems. The formal announcement of Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne’s All Star Tour of the US next month grabbed the eyeballs this week, while in about four months’ time the Masters Champions League (MCL) will descend on the UAE with its collection of retired stars.

Suddenly, masters cricket seems to be the rage — and nobody actually minds if some of the greatest entertainers of the game like Tendulkar, Wasim Akram or Adam Gilchrist can rake in the moolah by plying their trade in between their commentary and other assignments.

There are, of course, some household names like Akram, Jonty Rhodes and Muttiah Muarlitharan who are expected to star in both the roadshows — making it a win-win situation for them.

With both these events being planned at either end of the globe, and at different times, they should also be able to find “their own space” in the words of former Australian batsman Dean Jones, the promoter for MCL. The brains behind both these events have — in a subtle manner — earned the blessing of the International Cricket Council (ICC) so that the legitimacy of the events are not in question.

While the MCL is entirely scheduled at the three venues of the UAE, the ICC’s backyard, the Tendulkar-Warne venture has committed to the governing body that a percentage of their profits will be ploughed into development of the game in the US. Both stalwarts, it may be recalled, had jetted into Dubai earlier this year for a meeting with the ICC to get the nod for their blueprint.

The point to ponder over for me, however, is different — does the proliferation of such leagues make a case for the world governing body to mull a unified masters series?

A number of other sports, tennis in particular, has a big market for a Masters Tour — and maybe it’s time the ICC took a cue from the upcoming events. As far as my memory goes, there have been odd attempts at veterans’ cricket before, including a World Cup for them, but the response was not exactly overwhelming.

Those were, however, the pre-IPL days, when such exhibition events did not have a template like today. Throw in an MC of sorts, the DJs and cheerleaders, and the ICC may actually have another viable product on their hands. The selection of venues will also have to be done carefully — keeping an eye on the ‘B’ towns in cricket-crazy countries where fans are starved of watching the top stars at their prime.

Given the surfeit of cricket — of all formats — these days, it may not evoke a ‘wow’ immediately. But it’s certainly worth picking the ICC’s brains with such a suggestion.