According to an English media outlet, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided to take action against the franchise leagues around the world in a bid to prevent Test cricket.
With the increasing number of franchise cricket leagues worldwide, there has been a growing prediction among fans and cricket experts of the international game’s gradual demise, drawing parallels to the dominance of European leagues in football.
An initial indication of this shift occurred when Jason Roy chose to forego his contract with the England and Wales Cricket Board, instead accepting a lucrative offer from the USA’s Major League Cricket (MLC) franchise, LA Knight Riders.
As reported by The Telegraph, the ICC expressed concern about the players prioritizing franchise cricket over international assignments and thus wants to control the leagues.
In a bid to retain the integrity of international cricket, the cricket governing body is looking to impose certain changes to the franchise leagues.
Consequently, the ICC will limit the number of overseas players in a team’s Playing XI and will bind the franchises to pay national boards for each of the players they sign.
Thus ICC will then be able to protect the interests of various national cricket boards thanks to the decrease in the number of foreign players per side.
Richard Gould, the chief executive of the England & Wales Cricket Board, recently expressed his fears that leagues are not doing enough to contribute to the development of players and benefit from the work that national boards do without paying accordingly.
“The difficulty for ECB and our revenues is that we have so many mouths to feed, whereas the franchise tournaments can take the cream off the top, they don’t get charged for the players,” Gould told The Final Word this month.
“They are very efficient models at getting money back into the players’ pockets, but they are not funding the pathway. We need to fund the pathway. We will always do that. Having a really strong, healthy pathway is the secret to long-term success.”
The proposed changes effectively revisit proposals made by Johnny Grave, the chief executive of Cricket West Indies, in 2018. While boards did not agree on action then, the International League T20, and the growing possibility of more players choosing a range of franchise contracts and opting out of national contracts – as New Zealand’s star fast bowler Trent Boult did last year – has crystallised the need for boards to take action.
